Five tips to improve and promote your website

The first step to running a business online is to build a website. The second is to promote it! There are many ways you can do this, and digital marketing methods are changing and improving all of the time. Take a look at our guide to find out how you can get your website to the top of Google's search results and in front of more people fast.

1. Choose a concise domain name that describes what you do instantly

Your website address is very often the first thing a potential customer comes into contact with when viewing or looking up your business. By making it clear from your website address what you have to offer, you will experience more clicks, more visits and ultimately more sales. Try to choose a domain name that includes your service or product. For example, a window fitting company might choose www.southendwindows.co.uk, or www.essexglass.co.uk. We can also give you advice on the best domain name to choose and assist you with registering your domain name and hosting your website.

See our guide on the new Generic Top Level Domains

2. Use promotional videos on your home page or landing pages

If you want to get your sales message or point across in a quick, meaningful and impactful way, promotional videos are a great idea. Videos help you to inject personality into your website and to engage with visitors instantly. Videos allow you to show product demos, instructional guides and much more and they could help you to boost sales and conversions. In fact, recent research from market research firm InternetRetailer says that consumers could be 85% more likely to purchase a product after watching a video.

Click here to see an example of one of our video productions

3. Get a Blog - Everybody's doing it!

You may have heard the phrase 'content is king', and it really is! Not only can content help you to explain your brand, your products and services, but it can also make you an authority in your field. When you become an authority (the go to place for particular information), you gain visitor and customer trust and this can only be good for your business. A blog, updated regularly, can help you to build content on your site, improve search engine rankings and give you content to share over a number of different channels, including social media.

4. Submit your site to search directories

Whether you are a local or national company or organisation, search directories should be your friend. By adding your website and information about your business to these directories, you can reach out to a wider audience and ensure you are found and seen in more places. Yelp, TripAdvisor and Google Places are all good examples of the directories you should be targeting. We can help you to identify the best directories to suit your business and your target audience.

5. Add a feed to your website

If you are already using social media to promote your products and services, that's great! Now let's take that one step further by adding a live feed to your website. This is a great way to add content, and display your latest submissions to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms on your website. Adding a feed is easy and you can have as many on your website as you like - perfect if you are engaging with your target audience across different social media platforms.