Building a website is just one small step towards successful online marketing. To optimise your web presence for results, check out these 6 online marketing services.
6 Online Marketing Services
We summarise 6 important services to help you market your business online.
You've already created a website that has the right look and style for your company. It has a summary or your products or services as well as your contact information. But is it creating the results that you expected when you invested all of that money in its design and development?
When it comes to success online, it's important to be aware that building a website is just the first step on the ladder. It's a good step but you won't see a return on your investment unless you attract the right people to that website and you're website is set up as best as it can be to convert those website visitors to paying clients.
The internet is a dynamic place and is one that is constantly evolving and changing. To keep on top of that and to make the most of the channels that are available to you, it's a good idea to seek assistance from the professionals.
The following are 6 online services that can help you to get more out of your online presence and increase the success of your business.
1. Conversion Optimisation
Before you invest in drawing larger numbers of people to your website, it's a good idea to figure out what is the best way to help your website visitors to perform your call to action - whether that's to sign up for a newsletter, fill in a contact form or even to make a direct purchase through your website.
To do this in a way that allows you to accurately measure the results and figure out what is the best method of optimisation, it's a good idea to employ the services of a professional. You can find some of these in New Zealand within our Conversion Specialists category.
If you'd like to learn more about the process yourself, you can read our Conversion Rate Optimisation resource.
2. Electronic Direct Mail Marketing (EDMs)
Email marketing is a great way to keep in touch with your existing clients and encourage repeat sales. It's also a good way to open a communication channel with visitors to your website who may be interested in your products or services but are not yet ready to purchase.
Setting up a form on your website to allow website visitors to provide you with their details so that you can contact them is relatively easy, but managing your list of contacts and ensuring you comply with New Zealand email marketing law can be much more complicated. You'll need to keep an accurate and up-to-date record of users that have unsubscribed from your list and, to really help with the success of your email campaigns, you'll also need to find a way to track how many people have opened one of your emails, how many people have clicked in an email to visit your website, and more.
Trying to track this with a simple spreadsheet and your website's analytics can be tricky. Instead, consider one of the many web-based email marketing services that are used around the world. Some services provide a free option that allows you to send email campaigns to smaller groups of people, so long as you include the provider's branding within the emails. This is a good short-term solution if you're on a budget and you'd like to properly test the service before going ahead with it for a longer term.
You can view some online email marketing services, as well as the websites of professionals that can help you with your email marketing campaigns, in our Email and Direct Marketing resource.
Need some tips and ideas on what to include in your emails? Try our resource on Driving Traffic with Email Newsletters.
3. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Professional Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO) is big business. The algorithms and rules that determine where your website places in search results can be highly complex, and yet they can have a huge impact on the number of visitors your website receives through search traffic.
There are thousands of SEO specialists in the world as well as thousands of websites dedicated to providing you with tips and information on how to improve the SEO of your own website. Many of these may conflict with each other, particularly as the rules are often changing. Some older rules for SEO from years ago can even now be seen as 'spammy' and have a negative effect on your website's search engine presence if employed today.
To ensure you avoid the cowboys and invest in services that are most likely to have a positive effect on your website traffic, find a New Zealand Search Engine Optimisation specialist that has a proven track record and can help you to optimise your website for results.
4. Social Media
Social Media is becoming a big player in today's market. More and more people are using Social Media services regularly to find everything from the latest news to personal recommendations on products and services from their own networks.
Stepping into Social Media as a business can be tricky. Channels like Facebook and Twitter can be very personal for some users, and simply joining in with the conversation as a brand can be seen as intrusive if not carried out correctly.
For that reason, it's a good idea to speak with a professional Social Marketing company. Review the options available and choose one that can tell you about their past successes with New Zealand businesses in Social Media.
5. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Once your website is of a professional standard and is best optimised for results, it's a good time to look at options for paid advertising on existing online services such as websites and directories.
Note that if you do this before you have optimised your site to receive your new targeted visitors, you could be wasting your money. An effective search engine marketing campaign is one that targets a select audience and draws that audience to a landing page on your website that is designed specifically to receive them and draw them immediately to your call-to-action.
There are a number of options for advertising on both search engines and directories. These include:
- advertising on Google search results pages through Google Adwords (also consider other search engines like Bing, depending on your market and advertising budget),
- advertising on other websites through banners and other interactive advertising,
- advertising on social media networks like Facebook,
- booking prominent paid listings on directory websites (of course, you can book some cost effective online advertising in the form of Enhanced Listings on NZS.com).
It's fairly easy to step into this for yourself and start publishing some online advertisements, but to make the most of the channels that are available and maximise the success for your business, contact some of the professionals in the Search Engine Marketing and PPC category.
6. Creating a Mobile Version of Your Website
With smartphone usage on the increase, more and more people are using their cellphones to browse online content and interact with businesses online.
With this in mind, it's important to be aware of your own particular target market and the tools they are using to find companies that offer the products and services that you provide. If one of these tools is a cellphone, it could be time to check that your website is mobile-friendly.
There are two ways to approach optimising your website for mobile visitors. One method is to tweak your existing content to ensure that images load quickly and the navigation is clean and intuitive (frankly, this is something that's worth doing regardless of the technology that your website visitors are using!). This method is fairly straight forward but may still not display your content in the best possible way for those on cellphones.
The second method is to create a mobile version of your website that is automatically displayed when viewed from a mobile device. This will allow you to create a design and layout that is especially suited to those on a much smaller screen and makes the most of cellphone functions such as touch-screen. Typically, these websites exist on subdomains of the main website, e.g. on mobile.yourwebsite.co.nz or m.yourwebsite.co.nz.
Creating a mobile website is a more advanced process and therefore is one that you should discuss with a professional that has had experience with mobile websites. You can find some New Zealand-based providers in the Customer Web Design and Custom Web Development categories in the NZS.com directory.
