Cricket large and looming

If people are hearing crickets on your website or any other online property, you probably want to address why and fix it.

Hearing crickets is the equivalent of pulling into the parking lot of a restaurant…and nobody is there. You probably move on to the next one. A well-designed website along with a rich volume of online content on other sites is vitally important to your business today. It is your digital footprint.

Small business owners have their hands full, overfull. I know, I’m right here with you. Often we are so busy that we end up doing what is urgent instead of what’s important ( thank you, Dr Covey, and yes,  7 Habits of Highly Effective People is just as relevant and powerful today) Often there is very little time if any for messing around with the website or social media. I agree and can sympathize with that time crunch. There is no doubt that online activities can be a huge time suck. – If they are not planned. This is where the Marti Agency can help the most.

Planning for digital marketing is not something to guess at. If planned right, the implementation of your unique strategy will address so many issues that you run into every day. In the process of developing and implementing your strategy, it helps to keep some ideas at the front of your mind.

Your online assets are not disparate pieces separate but each component woven together strengthening each other.

It is important to think of your online assets in new ways.

You can think of the web of assets as the roles they play –

  1. Your best salesperson – Almost everyone goes online for information, to compare products, etc. Your assets should help through the buying process so that by the time they pick up the phone, send an email, or visit your business they are much closer to making a decision.
  2. Online directories can put your info out on the web in many places.  Customers can search or stumble over your info on Yahoo, Yelp, Google, and probably 50 more places. Those directories set up with the right information will link back to your site increasing your traffic, increasing inbound links, and more to increase your ranking in search engines.
  3. Each business will have its mix of online assets Each business must decide the best way to communicate with customers. Some people are more comfortable texting back and forth for customer service, others would rather pick up the phone and call.
  4. Your best advertising – If you are buying advertising on Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc, where do people go when they click on your ad? Your homepage? or exactly the page they want. This affects the quality of your ad and adds to the user experience. For example, if you are advertising an event and the link in the ad goes to the home page or about or any other place than the event page you are not getting optimal results.
  5. Customer Service – You can get feedback in real-time allowing you to fix it. If it is poor feedback you have the chance to turn an angry customer around and perhaps stop a bad review. Reviews are critically important to how customers view the quality of your business and whether they want to do business with you.
  6. Can you think of other roles your online assets play?

Do you ask the people you are connected with on Social Media to share your content?

Equally important is deciding what action you would like them to take. For example, if you are promoting an event you have coming up, did you include a link to your signup page? If not, you missing opportunities. You can engage the people you are connected to and have them help in your success. It is your referral network. There are people you are connected to who I can tell you, would be happy you asked them to help.

All of these items that make up your digital footprint work together to bring your site to the top of Google (or Bing ) Searches. Don’t let your visitors hear crickets when they are looking for you online.

Infographic How valuable is first place on google

(These are just my notes for this post. ( Yes, I’m a real person. I’ll be editing this over the weekend. If you have topics you want included, share them in the comments below. THANK YOU! )