Blog

How to Create a Strong Web Presence

11 years ago

8.5 million people in Australia own a smartphone* and over 80% of us use the internet**. As we become more reliant upon technology for information, entertainment and shopping it’s becoming vital for businesses to have a strong web presence.

Where do I Start?

A website is essential for most businesses. Often potential customers will visit your website prior to calling or visiting your store. A professional, well thought out site can be the difference between a customer choosing you or a competitor. You don’t necessarily have to spend a lot of money. Sometimes you can get by with a splash page (a single page like a brochure), a Facebook page or you can use a template site (I would recommend wix.com). These can be good options for start up businesses.

Driving Traffic to Your Website

You may have heard of Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO). This means you are making your site more important to search engines like Google so you will list higher on searches. Google decides how important a page is by a number of factors:

How regularly your site is updated
How original your content is
How many other sites point to your site and how important they are

This process is called PageRank (you can check your PageRank here). Google will take into account your PageRank and how relevant your page is to the search terms when deciding where you will appear in the results.

So how do you improve your SEO?

There are a number of things you can do:

Think about what people will search for when looking for your products/services and adjust your page titles to suit this.
Keep your site regularly updated (including a news section or blog will help with this)
Add your site to all the local directory websites you can
Submit articles to popular blogs relating to your business
Use social media to link back to your website

Adding Your Business to Google Maps

People are increasingly using services like Google Maps to find local businesses. It’s a great idea to add your business. Just ensure that you check the box that you will travel out to other areas. Otherwise you will only appear in a search in your suburb. (find instructions on adding your business here)

Other Ways to Improve Your Web Presence

Here are some more ways you can help to create a strong web presence:

Send out a regular email newsletter (linked to your blog)
Add tutorials or tools to your page to encourage people to use and return to your website
Promote your website in your print material as well (it’s easier to look at a webpage than pick up a phone)

Your website probably won’t become popular overnight and if you don’t want to put time and effort into maintaining it you will likely only find that people specifically searching for your business will look at your page. However, if you work at creating a dominant web presence it can improve your brand recognition and become a major source of new clients at minimal cost.

*source: Australian Communications and Media Authority
**source: Australian Bureau of Statistics

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by Lara Roche

Lara is a marketing coordinator at Insight Wealth & Accounting Advice. She holds a Bachelor in Visual Communication Design (Hons) and is knowledgeable on graphic design and marketing for small businesses.