Web Nation Group Blog

Most people know they should have a website nowadays, and many people do. The question then becomes; how do you get the most out of your website?

Here are three easy ways to help you do that:

1) Keep Your Website Updated

This may seem like an easy one, but the more frequently you update your website, the more reason people have to come visit. It’s similar to when you make changes to your home. You don’t necessarily have to go through a whole remodeling process to have a desire to show something off. Every new project, new photos, new staff members, etc. are great opportunities to keep your community involved and updated on what’s going on with you. A blog linked to your website is a great way to do this.

2) Claim Your Online Listings

This is the one of the best ways to get more exposure online, and it is very easy. All you have to do is know where to look and claim your listing in various popular directories throughout the internet like the online yellow pages, Merchant Circle, the Super Pages and more. For a list of great resources online to claim their business listings at click here.

It does not take very long, and could easily be some of the best time you have invested in your company in a while. Simply fill in some basic information like your business address, phone number and website and you’re done. People won’t always find you through ordinary searches online for your keywords, so by claiming your listings you are diversifying your online presence and giving yourself more of a chance to be found.

3) Utilize Social Media

Many small business owners would be amazed at the amount of traffic they could drive to their website if they utilized social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogs. A few minutes is usually all it takes to add some basic information about your company and create a profile. About five minutes or so for every new post and you have the potential to increase your exposure exponentially. A couple simples sentences with a link to your website or blog can go a very long way towards expanding your business and developing relationships with your clients.

When you get involved like this, you are going where the conversation is, instead of relying on the people to come to you. You don’t really have to spend a lot of time here, at least once a week would be ideal, but even if it’s once a month, just having a presence helps your company immensely.

If you feel like spending some extra time, list yourself in some twitter directories like wefollow.com and twellow.com. You can also do twitter searches at search.twitter.com, which are similar to google searches and will provide results with the keywords you are searching for. For example, if you are a landscaper, you may do a search for “landscaping services” and find some potential clients who are in the market for what you offer and made a posting with your keywords in it.

I would also highly recommend creating posts on Craiglist to your appropriate categories with a link to your website. Again, very easy to do and you will be placing yourself in front of many eyeballs who are already there and open to looking at what you have to offer.

Ideally you would like to sync all of your online marketing together. For example; make a new blog post that is linked to your website. Then post a link on your twitter and facebook accounts, and you will be getting maximum exposure for the time you spent on your new blog post.

The best thing about all of these resources is that they are free. Every business owner has access to them, all it takes is a little time. These are great tasks for office managers or assistants to handle if you are fortunate enough to have their services available to you. If you don’t have the time but do see the value, you can always pay somebody to do this for you, like us over at Web Nation Group.

We would be more than happy to give you a free consultation and show you how some of these online marketing tips could help your business. Feel free to contact us anytime with questions or to request a quote.