Granted, creating a robust online presence is a time-consuming undertaking. However, the benefits to your business and brand are well worth it. A website offers you a unique, unlimited and uncensored platform to sell your brand. Further, it increases opportunities for direct interaction and relationship-building with your customers.
Think about it in this way; 91% of customers have gone into a store solely because of its online promotions. Depending on the market, these figures could transform your sales. Here are five ways you can use your website to improve your online reputation.
1. Connect to Your Social Media Platforms
Link your website to your social media tools. Make these links easy to find. Place them at the bottom, side or top of each page. They need to appear on each page, not just the homepage.
Of great importance is to request happy customers to give reviews online. The power of reviews cannot be underestimated. The numbers speak for themselves; 54% of consumers will visit a company’s website after reading a flattering review while 19 % will visit the business in person.
People are leaning more and more towards referrals and online reviews to make purchase decisions; ensure to position yourself to convert these into sales.
Use social media to engage and interact. It is important to start conversations and ask for feedback on products. And when you get a comment, positive or negative, respond to it promptly. This way, you get to know your customers better and create lasting relationships.
2. Create Great Content
Attracting users to your site can be frustrating. Having great content gets you halfway there. Develop each aspect of your website with your audience in mind. This will guide you to create useful, relatable material that resonates with each one of them. One way to do this is by creating a blog on your website. 81% of online consumers trust information they read from blogs. Take advantage of this.
The goal of the blog is to inform, entertain and educate. The beauty with blogs is that they allow you to create information relevant to your different consumer groups. For example, a sportswear company can easily create blogs targeting professional women, sporty teens, sportsmen and women, and so on.
This stratification helps you build content for each specific group under one website. Use your blog to discuss your products, about your company and your edge over similar products in the market.
Ensure rules of grammar are strictly adhered to. Again, you must give accurate and credible information. Whenever necessary, link out to credible sources to support your claims. Also make sure to optimize your website. This will help you to get a good ranking on various search engines.
3. Build a Powerful Recruitment Website
Your website should be a resource where all your information can be found – including your recruitment information. Have a clear tab on your homepage with a recruiting tag. Examples of this include:
• Join our team
• Jobs and careers
• Work with us
• Internship opportunities
Provide information about open positions and recurring positions. Go a step further and sell your company’s mission and vision, and your corporate culture. Talk about how well you take care of your employees. A company that takes good care of its people is seen as a good brand. Capitalize on this.
The same way you do with client reviews, put up a few employee reviews talking about how it is to work for your company. Talk about growth opportunities, positive company culture, flexible work hours-anything, makes you look like a choice employer.
This will help you attract the best hires in the market.
4. Invest in Great Design
A great website encompasses layout, graphics, text, color and user interface. All these elements have to work in harmony and be appealing to the eye for it to be considered a good design. A well designed website can attract traffic and reduce the bounce rate. Here are the main pitfalls to avoid:
• Keyword stuffing. This can make your content to sound unnatural and give a negative user experience.
• Relying too much on free website building services. Most free website builders also do not integrate SEO optimization fully and may deny you the opportunity to get a unique domain name. This makes you harder to find.
• Developing a site that is not mobile-phone friendly. With 77% of Americans having smartphones, having a phone-friendly website will work to your advantage.
• Hiding important information. A user should not have to hunt down information. Ensure the text and background colors agree and that the font is easy to read. Make key information easy to locate. This includes contact information and your social media links. You can also incorporate a search button and a zoom tool to make navigation easier.
Think of your online reputation as a continuous process. You cannot build a great website and leave it at that. You must constantly update it. Use these guidelines to create and maintain a stellar online reputation which will trickle down to your sales and your bottom-line.
5. Build Credibility
You want to use your website to sell yourself. Think about someone who is entirely new to your products. Think of what would make you look like a legitimate business to them.
To start off, describe your products well. Do not oversell or misrepresent them. You can think of doing this in a catalog-style section where you can describe, display prices, variations, and specifications of each item.
Have an “our team” tab with photos of your Management team and their credentials. Include pictures of them as well as your offices. Putting a face to your company name and location where they can locate you adds to your credibility. Do not forget to include an FAQ section that will cover the standard questions like your refund policy, return policy, canceling request, delivery services, and the timelines.
Include your contact information as well. You must update this information in case of any changes. Also, have a ‘contact us’ link or form directly from the website to that users can quickly leave a comment or a make an inquiry.
Another useful tool is a chat box which allows your customers to ask and get responses to standard questions. This is very effective for after-hours and weekends.
Author info:
Jen McKenzie is an independent business consultant from New York. She writes extensively on business, education and human resource topics. When Jennifer is not at her desk working, you can usually find her hiking or taking a road trip with her two dogs. You can reach Jennifer @jenmcknzie
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