Turning website clicks into business bucks

The first step that many businesses take into the online world is to create awareness about their business. Some businesses take their first step online by building a website, while others start with a social networking account. But the question that many businesses are then left asking is how do I take the next step and turn increased online awareness into increased online profits?

Speaking at the COSBOA National Small Business Summit, Sam Shetty from Netregistry made a useful point: not only does your website need to be informative, engaging and well designed, but you also need to drive people to your website. A quick poll of the audience confirmed that if your website does not appear on the first page of Google search results, your business may remain relatively unseen.

So just how can you get those much needed clicks? Sam suggests the three S’s: SEO, SEA and SMM.

Search engine optimisation

SEO refers to search engine optimisation. To make your website ‘searchable’ you need to use the right keywords, page formatting tags and incoming links. Targeting the keywords that you want your website to rank highly for is often not an easy task. If the keywords you target are too general, your website may get lost in the masses. On the other hand, if the keywords you target are too specific, there may be only very few people searching for these terms, meaning your website only very rarely appear in search engine results.

Sam used the clever analogy of buying a book in describing how you should deal with SEO. Your first step in buying a book is often to look at the subject you are interested in, such as renovations.

Next you will look for a relevant title. In this case it may be something like ‘Home renovations for beachside living’. Finally, you will often look at the back of the book for some reviews. You want to make sure the author is credible and the information is useful, right? Similarly, once you have identified the keywords that you want to target, start creating quality content on your own site that is relevant to these keywords and try to increase the number of relevant links to your website from other high quality websites.

Search engine advertising

SEA, or search engine advertising, allows you pay to appear in the all-important first page of search engine results. SEA can also give you the power to do things like limit your ad appearances based on the location of the searcher (you can’t give a manicure from your Sydney salon to someone in London, of course). If you are selling something online, you can also track the sales conversion rate of your ads, which will let you calculate your return on investment.

Choosing what search terms your ads appear on, writing the text for your ads and then evaluating the effectiveness of your advertising spending requires skill. You can set up and run SEA campaigns yourself, but if you are new to it, consider taking some time to learn more about it before getting started. If you have a larger budget, consider getting assistance from a digital marketing professional who specialises in search advertising.

Social media marketing

SMM refers to social media marketing, which is a newer form of online marketing. This could be anything from setting up a LinkedIn profile or a Youtube account, to buying ads on Facebook. The primary question Sam suggests you ask yourself first is whether your customers actually use that platform. There is no point investing time and effort into a form of social networking if your market doesn’t engage with it, but if your market does use it that platform can be a rewarding way to increase your online profits. You can use SMM to build relationships, offer deals, advertise products and services.

Take some time getting to know users’ expectations on the social network you plan on using before getting started with SMM. Unless your SMM efforts take the form of paid contextual advertising, be careful to avoid being seen to be doing too much of a ‘hard sell’, which may be off-putting to users of social networks.

Converting visitors to customers

Getting the clicks to your website is the first part of the challenge. Next you need to turn the clicks into bucks.

Sam emphasises the ‘five second rule’. Once someone visits your website you have just five seconds to explain who you are, what you do and what is the call to action. Do you want them to buy your product, subscribe to your newsletter or refer their friends?

Have you engaged in any online advertising or marketing? What were the results for your business? What worked successfully and what could you have done better? Let us know below.

By Natalie, DBCDE