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Whether your business has a brick-and-mortar storefront or focuses only on its ecommerce web presence, potential customers are likely to look for your brand or products and services online. A strong online presence is key for attracting customers, building brand loyalty, and driving revenue, especially for small businesses.
Evolving your online presence can seem like a big task, especially for solo entrepreneurs or a small business, but it doesn’t have to be. You can be creative and agile to stand out from the crowd without breaking the bank. Check out these tips for refreshing your online presence and how that can strengthen your online marketing strategy and raise brand awareness.
Make it easier to discover your brand
The first step to engaging your existing audience and attracting new customers or followers is getting seen by them in the first place. Start by ensuring that your website is optimized for search engines.
Boost your search engine optimization (SEO):
Ranking in online search results is key for having a strong online presence. The higher you rank in search, the easier it is for people to find and discover your brand or business. There are a few strategies you can take to strengthen your SEO so that both your website and your brand’s social media profiles appear high in search results pages.
1. Publish content often or refresh your website copy
Search engines love new content and reward sites that consistently produce relevant and timely information. If a steady stream of site content isn’t a fit for your brand, you can update your website with previews from your social media channels or recent work you’ve released elsewhere.
2. Identify and use search keywords on your site
Using commonly searched phrases and words make it easier for your target audience to find your website and social media accounts. Location-specific terms are also helpful for local businesses. For example, if you’re trying to drive new customers to your consulting agency’s website, you might want to include copy with terms like “hire a consultant” or “design consultant in [city]”.
3. Optimize page loading speed
How quickly your website loads impacts how easy it is for visitors to get the information they want out of it, which also impacts your SEO. Web pages with a lot of images can load slowly, especially on mobile devices with slower connections. Whenever possible, keep your pages to under 5 MB. Squarespace has tools to help you measure your page size.
Lauren Koster Creative’s use of mixed typography and color keep the site content organized and makes it easy to navigate.
Surprise and delight your website visitors
Your brand plays a huge role in differentiating you from competitors. There are small, creative tweaks you can make to your website that reflect your brand or online business and capture your audience.
Here are a few ways you can refresh your web design:
1. Get creative with your site layout
When you create a new website, you start either with a blank slate or by selecting a template and customizing it with your own content. Check out the websites of other brands for inspiration and think about what you want to put front and center on each page. Is it your contact information or your social media platforms? Is it your work or a guest post by an influential peer? Play with the template so that your featured elements pop.
2. Experiment with typography
An aesthetically diverse website can capture the attention of your audience if done authentically and tastefully. Explore different typography styles and try breaking up longer text blocks with different sized fonts, creating a hierarchy of information for easy reading.
3. Play with color
When experimenting with colors, remember to stay away from anything that distracts the viewer from your message or makes it hard to read. A smart color choice complements your brand and invites the audience to learn more. If you’re not sure where to start, it helps to do some research to get ideas.
4. Use imagery to tell your story
Mix up your content by incorporating images or illustrations into your messaging, whether they’re custom images or stock images you license from a third party. Imagery can be a powerful medium to tell your story or convey an idea.
When refreshing your website’s design, remember to think about your brand identity and target market. Your website design should feel aligned with your social media presence, your products, or your brick-and-mortar store both visually and in tone.
Brad Good uses motion and color on their homepage to surprise and delight site visitors.
Optimize your site’s user experience (UX)
User experience (UX) strategy spans a site’s content, structure, and overall usability. A good UX design makes sure customers and visitors can easily find what they need, and is dependent on the service you’re providing or goods you’re selling.
Test out your website on a laptop and a mobile device. This will help you ensure that your site’s text, images, and features all look and function well no matter how your customer discovers you. If your site is slow to load or it’s confusing to navigate, think about how you could improve the layout or site speed.
If your website doesn’t have any major UX concerns, consider whether there are any extra updates you could make to improve the site experience even more. Keep up with other businesses in your industry and leverage trends that make sense for your brand.
Expand your site’s functionality
Your website can be used for more than just sharing business information or selling your products. Apps and extensions can help you provide better support and services to your site visitors. Third-party extensions can help you manage, optimize, and expand your services and therefore your website.
For example, business owners can add an extension that encourages past buyers to leave customer reviews on products. Or, you can use extensions to manage your shipping labels, schedule appointments with clients, or start selling custom products featuring your brand.
Connect with email marketing
An engaged email subscriber list is an essential digital marketing tool. Regardless of your brand or business, anyone can encourage site visitors to sign up for an email list. Once you have a list of subscribers, you can send email marketing about important updates, events, or releases. Email subscribers are often more likely to convert into customers or brand advocates than followers you gain through social media marketing, since they’ve opted in to get updates from your brand. Add a sign-up form to your website and share the link to sign up on your social media channels.
This post was update on December 19, 2022.
Ready to refresh your online presence?