With 85% of consumers checking out a business’ website before they make a purchase, your website has become one of your most essential marketing tools. Seeing your website just as an expense won’t cut it in today’s economic environment. If your website looks like garbage, people will think your business is garbage.

The challenge is that for many businesses, their website just sits there. Yeah, they may have updated or redesigned it a few years ago, but that’s it. Your website should be a marketing tool that you promote and update regularly. It should be working for you, not sitting there like a table in your waiting room. So here are three things that you can do to move your website from an expense to a revenue-generating machine.

Use Your Website to Automate Tasks:

Double-check your website to ensure that it’s performing some basic customer service work for you. It should easily show visitors your address, hours, key products/services, and other content that people call your business to ask about. Does your restaurant’s menu contain allergy-friendly items? Are you open on a particular holiday? Use your website to answer these questions to save effort in answering the phone.

If you want to take it to the next level, include a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. List out the top 10 to 20 questions that your customers ask you, and post them (along with their answers) on your FAQ page.

Also, consider adding tools to your website. Most businesses can benefit from a tool that allows visitors to schedule an appointment. But your business may also have its own tools like calculators, calendars, information capture, and more. Think about the tasks that you manually have to partake in and how your website can potentially automate them.

Sell Products & Services on Your Website:

Many business owners immediately shy away from any e-commerce initiatives because they fear either the complexity or the cost. The truth is that for service-based businesses, adding e-commerce capabilities to your website is pretty straightforward (depending on your website’s platform). Product-based businesses can be more complex due to product variants, taxes, and shipping. But even then, it’s often not terribly complex.

E-commerce does require things like ways to accept payments, an SSL certificate, and online store capabilities. But most experienced web developers should be able to guide you through this process.

Improve Site SEO to Bring in More Visitors:

SEO is a complex topic on its own. But there are a few strategies that you can use to optimize your site’s SEO. First, improve your site’s performance by running a speed test and fixing the issues. Google factors in page performance in its rankings, so it’s worth the time investment to fix it.

Another easy fix in this area is to get more links to your website. You can do this by finding directories that provide links (you may have to register and create an account). Social media platforms are also a great place to start. Even if you don’t plan to use a particular platform, create an account with a link back to your website as it does help.

Finally, ensure that you have business profiles on Google and Bing (assuming you fit the qualifications). Both of these help with local searches.

Summary:

Your website is a critically important marketing tool for your business. So make sure you’re not neglecting it. Automating tasks, enabling e-commerce, and improving SEO will make your website more effective. So look into what makes the most sense for your business. As always, we’re here to help. We offer a no-cost, no-obligation 30-minute consultation to answer questions and point you in the right direction. Please feel free to take advantage of it.