Your shop's website is a home base for everything you want to convey to customers.
To succeed in digital marketing, that website needs to be fed, and often. It can't just be a static list of information.
“The days of having a brochure online are over. My entire business has been based on that philosophy,” says Kevin Steeland, CEO of PISTn Marketing.
Steeland calls them marketing sites, because there are all sorts of ways to reel in customers with your website to look at your business. Not only does an online blog or similar update schedule keep viewers coming back, but it also shows search engines like Google that your business is active online. That will help Google choose your site to show in web searches.
Promotional tools
But a website is also a platform to manage your own promotions. Suppose a shop launches a social media advertisement campaign to have people register for a chance to win a gift card. The customer clicks on that and lands on the shop's website and enters his or her information.
Now you're building a mailing list that can be used to push out future promotions, deals or other things related to your business.
“It’s about having a tool," Steeland says. "A marketing tool online, that's going to help you capture data and remarket back to consumers.”
Shops can also ask people on those mailing lists to leave reviews online, so that other people will find them when they search for a nearby shop. That helps that business get better rankings in Google search results.
Mobile first
More people are searching for businesses on mobile devices, and data show that they won't stay on a website if it doesn't adapt to those smaller screens.
Earlier in 2019, Google announced mobile-first web indexing that could end up affecting how non-mobile-friendly websites are ranked.
For a website to work with mobile devices, they need to be responsive. That means it adapts to any sized screen that pulls it up.
“It’s important because, obviously, you need to make sure your digital footprint on the internet is conducive to people who are shopping,” Steeland says.
Check with your website developer or content management system to make sure this is a feature for your site.
