SEO: Websites Are the Center of Marketing

Your website is the center of all your marketing.

Welcome to the modern world, where thousands of people use the Internet every day to search for and research companies.  Having a website is no longer optional, even for small businesses.  Your Austin SEO company needs a strong website to send traffic to, but your other traditional sales and marketing also relies heavily on your website.

What if your business gets leads from other sources? 

That’s fantastic, but it isn’t the whole picture.  Many businesses receive referrals from partners or personal introductions to prospects, or they may gain leads from appointment setters, email or postcard campaigns.  But to close the actual sale, the prospect needs to have some trust in your business.  If they want to research your services and get a sense of your reputation, they will go online to find that information.  No matter what industry you serve, customers are no longer referring to phone books and encyclopedias; they are using the Internet as a primary reference guide.  If you are missing the mark with your web presence, you are probably missing out on a lot of qualified leads.

Where does your sales staff send people when they request more information?  

There is probably a website address on everyone’s business card, and many people are more likely to visit that website before considering a phone call or email.  If your business has an outdated website, sales executives might be embarrassed to share it and feel like they are lacking the right tools to make a sale.

How can you track your other marketing campaigns?

Are you spending money on magazine ads, postcards, billboards, and radio advertising?  Did you remember to include a website in the ad copy?  When someone reads or listens to your ad, they are highly likely to remember a catchy website url and take a peek at it.  Your website should have strong presentation and clearly communicated details about your services, so the prospect can be even further engaged and ready to contact you.  You may even specify particular landing pages in your website for each unique ad, to customize the message that customer will see and increase your chance of conversion.  Meanwhile, you can use analytics to easily track activity coming from those ads as they visit particular landing pages in your website, and get a better sense of the ROI from each ad campaign.

What about social media?

Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and Pinterest and great tools and they should be a part of your online marketing plan.  We encourage our SEO clients to participate in these outlets and we often manage update to them as well. But social media should not replace your own company’s website.  You have limited control over someone else’s platform and you can only share content within those limits. In search engine results, someone who is looking for your business will not be impressed, or might be confused, if they only find a Facebook link and not a website link.  Search engine optimization techniques are designed to market a strong website with strong content, and are not as effective at marketing a social media website, where millions of other people and businesses have profiles.

Request a free consultation for web design or an SEO case study.
Call 512-241-1777.