How to stand out online
Over 88 per cent of the Australian population are internet users, that's over 20 million people counting on the web to communicate, research, shop and entertain themselves! On top of that, the effects of the pandemic have propelled activity online, where online retail spending increased an astonishing 82 per cent across all categories.
In light of the, having an online presence is pretty much essential when you are competing against hundreds if not thousands of other businesses vying for the similar customer. So, here are five tips to help you stand out online so those seven seconds don't be wasted.
1. Choose your target audience and speak their language
Even goods or services
that have mass appeal make contact with a particular personality. Have a think about who
your ideal customer is. What do they like to do? What do they read? Exactly what do
they value? What life stage or job are they going to be in? Translate these thoughts
and feelings into images and words which will resonate with them. This is a major step to creating a successful
website and will establish your brand voice and image with your ideal customers.
2. Design your website to what you're offering
If you're selling products – make sure you're tuning into the finer details such as the quality of photos of your products, the product descriptions, payment options and FAQs.
If you're a service – your product is your service! Include information about your expertise, ways you can help and the way to contact you. You can improve your business opportunities through gated content, whereby exchange for contact information or perhaps a small payment, visitors can access a particular area or valuable piece of information, for example, hosting a membership online (hello iso yoga classes). You can also use appointment scheduling tools to empower the customer to book their own appointments and make the process of contacting you easy!
3. Purchase what you need
As much as we'd like to do everything, sometimes it's best to leave it to the experts. There are many affordable freelance copywriters and photographers out there, and their help can transform your site. You can save money in areas like website building and hosting, where code-free all-in-one website platforms have templates already made for restaurants, retailers or services, and you just just replace the copy and pictures!
4. Link your website to your social media
Social media is a powerful tool – you can instantly talk to your customers, share business updates and have the potential to reach millions of new people. By as well as your website links on your social networking profiles as well as social media links on your website, it can help drive traffic to each source upping your chances to be seen online. You may also automatically share your most recent blog to Facebook, or embed your live Instagram feed on your website!
5. Make sure you can be found!
Most, if not completely Australian internet users use a internet search engine and studies have shown, over 90 percent use Google. Google doesn't require any special steps for the website to appear in their search engine results, but there are small things you can do to optimise your website's likelihood of being found faster through Seo (SEO). For example, if you're a florist, when someone is searching “florist near me” your company appears as it closely matches their search phrases.
There're a lot of freelance SEO specialists if you need help, but website hosts have built-in guides to show you how and where you can implement SEO across your website by following some simple steps.
