For many businesses, the Internet is the number one most important tool in their arsenal. It has a lot to offer and so much of the promotion is cheap while being easy to target the right audience. The plethora of tools at any company’s disposal can easily allow them to craft effective business website promotion strategies on their own. Still, there are a lot of bases to cover, and if a company can’t stand out from their competitors, it will lag.

If you find that your website is not bringing in high engagement numbers, don’t worry. There are a whole bunch of little things that you can do to boost your appeal and add more value to your online promotion. Moreover, a website needs to keep people coming back and reasserting their presence through multiple channels.

Here are some very basic things that any effective business website needs to have:

Business Website Must-Haves

To attract better conversion for your website, some key features can give it the edge. These include little things like subscription boxes that remind visitors to subscribe for more. Such artefacts most commonly go as pop-ups or at the very bottom of the page. A small change like this can really drive up repeat engagement and add names to associated materials like newsletters, columns etc. Subscription boxes can display as the user scrolls in the beginning (though to some this can be intrusive) or at the end of a blog post or piece of content.

Optimise your site for smartphones because many mobile device-based users are going to be visiting. This includes far more than the basics like resizing and readability. Payment portals and mobile-friendly options can make for increased sales because if a user has to switch devices to make a purchase, they may as well stay on the original device and find a site, that caters to their needs more effectively. These sorts of things can keep a user engaged with your content.

Another good bit of content marketing strategy is adding visual media options. Having more videos can drive up user interest and generally make harder-to-understand products an easier sell. Engaging your target audience with an easy introduction video or even a helpful infographic can go a long way. Customers that visit a business website may leave if the text and information come off as convoluted or too time-consuming.

Speaking of appealing to potential customers…

Customer Outreach Tips

Another element of an effective business website is having a live chat option. Having customer support and Q&A in this form can simplify the process of directing the customer through the phases of the purchase funnel and making a proper sale. If this seems too cumbersome for your website, the alternative is to have chatbot options for customers. These are automated and can seem a bit cold to many consumers, however, they are easy to manage and don’t require as much hands-on labour.

Every website needs a contact page with the standard details, but you can go one step further. Add a contact form rather than just an email, address, and number on a plain page. This can reroute any queries customers might have straight to your business email. It also looks more professional while allowing users to stay on the site for outreach rather than compelling them to go elsewhere to a similar competitor with direct communication options.

Similarly, there are little aspects that can get customers to return to your site. Post-purchase emails that offer complementary goods can go a long way to reinvigorating the interest of the consumer. These can also include reminder emails in case a purchase was abandoned (we’ve previously discussed the utility of these sorts of marketing options). Either way, businesses need to remind customers of their presence so they don’t become just one-time buyers.

Offering discounts and free samples or delivery are all tried and true methods for attracting buyers. Keeping customers in the know for such offers can require a bit of email marketing or retargeting. One-time ads and offerings can go a long way toward promoting such initiatives.

Content Tips

Good website content is an important part of attracting loyal clients. Consistent streams of content like blog posts, newsletters, and other such items keep your website alive. Websites with slower activity will not only lose customers but will also appear less prominently in searches. A constant stream of content, updates, and reminders to frequent visitors is a great way to prevent stagnation. Blogs can be pretty easy but video content is also a great way to boost engagement easily.

Obviously, off-site content is also pretty important, with Instagram and Facebook accounts funnelling people in. These methods don’t cost much and can be pretty easy promotion. However, that doesn’t mean that businesses need to be active on all of these platforms. If your product doesn’t have a strong visual component, Instagram would be far less fruitful, for example. However, effective business website promotion has to be multi-channel in this day and age.

In terms of how to drive customers to read your content, it depends on the type of business you run. Writing tutorials and user guides can be a natural way to guide an interested potential consumer into becoming a buyer. Tutorials and guides can offer tips, tricks, news, and updates which can keep consumers interested. Furthermore, such content can allow for more clickable links on Google that indirectly attract customers, as opposed to just looking for people already searching for and intent on purchasing for the get-go.

Driving Business Website ROI With Design

Other layout tips for better ROI include always making the important pages instantly accessible if there are many of them. If your website is getting complicated, it might be best to have a tracking header with all the necessary pages and a search bar. This can make things far easier to navigate, keeping the user in the loop at all times rather than making them scroll endlessly to reorient themselves. Easier navigation drives far more engagement and purchases. This can be especially useful for people using the website via cellphone, where navigation and typing can be more cumbersome.

CTAs or call-to-action buttons can make customers far more willing to purchase items. If your website layout allows it, CTAs can be immensely good at naturally leading consumers from content to purchase portals. Well-placed buttons can guide users to their purchase or convince people to buy a product from a related post. For example, a blog about a product with a CTA can be effective as it is less overt, while still targeting interested parties.

A cluttered website or online store can be very off-putting if the layout doesn’t help it along. Storefronts with a lot to offer need to give consumers only the most important information, relying more on visuals when possible. If your business’ product requires price deliberation or product customisation, your CTAs need to include ‘request quotation’ functions or a means of letting the make choices that alter the nature of their purchase.

In this day and age, your website is the equivalent of your physical store. Like any store, it should be easy to navigate, offer instant customer service, and be pleasing to look at. Hopefully, these tips can help your business achieve these goals.