Startup Website Ideas to Make Sure You Reach the Right Website Audiences

Way too many startup websites flop, here are some key marketing tips to make sure you reach the right website audiences for a successful launch

Startup Website: Ideas to Market Your Website to the Right Audiences

Marketing your business to the right website audience is essential to its success, and every step needs to be taken to elevate your products or services to a visible and productive position within the marketplace. Gone are the days when a shop front would be sufficient to attract new customers through the door, now it is a digital landscape, and a business’s success depends on both new and old marketing methods working together to achieve optimum results. We’re going to cover some essential way to make sure you reach the right website audiences in order to make your newly launched website a success.

It’s no secret that high-quality content is the driving force behind any successful website. Without it, there would be no reason for visitors or search engines to visit your site. But before publishing new content on your website, there are a few startup website ideas you’re going to want to make sure are in place.

Make Sure the Basics of Your Website’s Content are in Place

1. Spelling and Grammar

Assuming the new content contains text, you should check it for spelling and grammar mistakes. Typos are bound to happen when writing new content for your website – and that’s okay. Even major blogs like The Huffington Post will publish articles with typos from time to time. As a webmaster, though, you should take a proactive approach towards catching and fixing typos before the content goes live.

2. Broken Links

Don’t forget to check and make sure the backlinks in your content work. Omitting just a single character from an external backlink may send visitors to a 404 error page instead of the intended page/destination. Internal links – links pointing to other pages within your site – may also pose a problem if the linked page is moved to a new destination. The bottom line is that you should all internal and external links in your site’s content to ensure they work before publishing.

3. Citations

When including relevant facts and statistics in your site’s content, it’s best to site the source from which you retrieved the information. Adding citations such as this shows search engines that you are willing to link to other sites. As such, you’ll have an easier time obtaining a top search ranking for your target keywords.

How important are citations?

• 90% of local experts say accurate citations are Critical or Very Important to local search ranking
• 86% of local SEO experts say quality of citations is more important that quantity of citations
• ‘Industry Relevance’ is the most important factor to consider when choosing which citation sites to use
• 33% of local SEO experts say Niche / Industry Directories offer the greatest authority
• Correct address formatting on Citations is Important but not Critical, say 21 local search experts
• 62% of local search experts say rich citations are Essential or Very Important

 

4. Page Titles

Among the most important on-page SEO factors is the title tag. Prefixed with the <title> tag, it is typically displayed at the top of a listing in the search results. Before publishing new content, you should make sure that it has a unique and relevant title tag which accurately describes the content.

5. Mobile Compatibility

Is your website accessable on both desktop computers and mobile devices? Given the fact that more people now access the Internet from smartphones and tablets as opposed to traditional PCs, this is something that webmasters cannot afford to overlook. MobileTest.me offers a quick and easy mobile testing solution, allowing you to see exactly how your website

Combining Different Methods to Reach the Right Website Audiences

A good website is essential – it must be user-friendly and easy to navigate to guide your customer through the processes that are required of them, but you must also explore the different platforms on which to promote and market your website on.

One of the most important things you’re going to do is research your target audience. You need to know who you are selling to, and by understanding who your customer is, you will be able to consider where they are online; are they on Instagram, Pinterest, or perhaps visitors to industry relevant websites?

1. Identify Your Target Audience

This may seem like an obvious decision but you need to do more than know who your customers are. You also need to know the channels that they use to communicate through. Some may be using social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter and others may be using Google or other search engines to find the products or services they need. Knowing where your customers are looking for information will help you to decide which channels you should focus your marketing efforts in.

Here’s how to identify your the right website audience.

1. Create a customer profile. The people who are most likely to buy your products or services share certain characteristics. This is the first step for creating an audience persona to guide you in creating content that speaks to your potential customer as well as helps you identify how to reach them:

• Age — What age group are you trying to reach? This is important, because customers in different age groups will respond differently to how your product is designed and marketed.
• Gender — Gender plays a huge role in who is actually buying your product or seeking your services. Generally speaking, mens’ and womens’ needs are dramatically different. If you promote your business in a way that fails to address these differences, you could end up not attracting people from either group.
• Income level — Knowing how much disposable income your customers possess should directly influence your marketing strategies. This could be the determining factor for whether your product or service is viewed as a luxury or a necessity.
• Location — Where people reside and the types of communities they live in directly influence their buying decisions.

These are just a few core components you should look at to help you reach the right website audience. As you begin to build customer information, you can use Google analytics to better understand your audience, how they interact with your website and what content they find valuable.

2. Get Audience Feedback. You can learn about your target audience by conducting market research. You can integrate some great online research tools into both your website and your social media channels for effective audience research:

• Surveys — Run surveys to existing and potential customers via email, or a web-based service like Zoomerang or SurveyMonkey.
• Interviews — Interview people who have made a purchase from you already. Another great thing to do would be to participate in trade shows, or even large online communities for feedback on your product.
• Focus groups — Get feedback from a small group of consumers who fit your customer profile through Q&A sessions and group discussions.

2. Optimize Your Website to Serve Your Target Audience

It is not enough to simply have a nice website. You have to take into consideration every aspect of how your website is going to serve your customers’ journey. This includes everything from using targeted keywords within the headlines, and providing a steady and consistent flow of content to ensure that the information you provide is timely, relevant and informative. Provide your visitors with other means of communicating with you so that they can feel connected. Include email contacts, phone numbers, etc.

When was the last time you used your own website or asked someone to take a trial run on it?

This kind of exercise can help you identify areas where you can strengthen your website’s user experience. The user experience — also called UX — is key to making your website useful to visitors. Here are three ways you can boost the UX on your site to encourage longer visits and interactions.

Make Your Website Easy to Get Around

Retail websites can get pretty big, particularly as new products and content are added. Make it easy for visitors by adding a search box, or even better, drop-down menus that tell users their options and help them understand what they want or need to purchase from you.

Let’s say you sell a product that offers dozens of features, like cameras. In addition to letting people view cameras sorted by price, you also can offer sorts by brand, size, zoom capability, pixels, memory and so on.

Drop-down menus also take out a lot of guesswork in ordering the right product. Take a look at how a tire retailer can match car makes and models to appropriate tires. This function also works very well on mobile sites and is a staple on many.

Boost Your Website’s Mobile-Friendliness

Here’s something to consider: most people are visiting your site through their smartphones. Almost two-thirds of all Americans own a smartphone, according to research from Pew, and ownership is particularly prevalent among those with college education and higher salaries.

This means your site should be mobile-friendly.

Many website themes today come with a mobile-friendly tool that automatically detects a smartphone visitor. Make the one you have work well and smarter by making the site easier to read from a smartphone.

This means breaking up content into shorter sentences and paragraphs and using bullet points. Mobile users are used to scrolling down, so don’t worry that you’re forcing them to “work” as they browse.

Make Sure Your Website Downloads Quickly

Every nanosecond literally counts when it comes to website downloading. KISSMetrics, which has studied downloads extensively, says page abandonment rises sharply after four seconds. By 10 seconds, about 40 percent of would-be site visitors abandon the attempt.

It’s hard, though, for retail and ecommerce sites to download quickly. They have to show a lot of photos, which take up tons of space. Marketing Land reports the average retail site takes 7.25 seconds to load for a first-time visitor.

So what can a website manager do?

• • Cache static pages. Pages that don’t change much or very often don’t need a “fresh” download each time a user visits it. Caching stores a copy of a webpage in users’ history for subsequent visits. Fresh copies download when the site detects an older page in the cache.

• • Compress images. Images take up a lot of space. A tool like the WordPress plugin WPSmush reduces the size of graphic files by 20 percent without sacrificing quality.

• • Minify content. Minifying tools or plugins shrink the size of text files by eliminating empty spaces, thus minimizing the amount of content a website takes up.

Another option is to discuss page rendering with your developer. Page rendering provides a gradual download of information, starting with information requested in the search. According to the Web Performance Today industry blog, getting relevant information out first can be more effective in keeping visitors on a site than faster page downloads.

3. Update Content Regularly to Reach Your Audience

You can have a fantastic looking website but if you fail to update your website, your audience will notice.

You also need to keep your website up-to-date by always adding new content. Content is the primary way you’re going to be communicating with your audience so; it’s pretty important. Like your target audience, Search Engines will also look for the latest information online and if your content is old it will most likely be pushed to the back of the pile.

It is important to keep your digital representation of your business current. Having Christmas deals in July, expired offers, references to current affairs that are no longer relevant will all discourage rather than encourage your website audience. Keeping up-to-date is important. You do not have to blog daily, but you must be consistent and you must be thorough.

By adding blog posts, news releases, or informative articles to keep people engaged and in anticipation of what’s new. SEO-News stated that,

“Regular website maintenance is essential to ensure visitors are getting the best information possible. Consistently updating a website’s content is the only way to maintain a competitive edge.”

This means that every business should be concerned with the challenge of keeping their content fresh, informative, and up-to-date in order to maintain their competitive edge.

“SEO copywriting is all about creating useful, compelling, and valuable content, which targets specific keywords so that other people will gladly promote it on social media platforms. This increases the authority and relevance of your content and improves its ranking in Google for the selected keywords.” ~Neil Patel

Check out These resources on how to write content to reach your website audiences:

• Tips of Crafting Evergreen Content
• The Nine Ingredients That Make Great Content
• Top Tips for Crafting Better Web Content

Being up-to-date can extend beyond just your website content. Infact, Everything that is seen by the public must be the best version of your business that it can be. If you have a vehicle that has your brand and logo on or is used to visit clients, make sure that it looks the part. It doesn’t have to break the bank as smart used cars can be sourced to carry your logo and brand. Similarly, if you have employees that are customer facing, introduce logo t-shirts to be worn that can further the visibility of the brand.

Make Your Website Visible To Your Audiences

Your potential customers should never have to search to find you. Unfortunately, it’s often hard to get visible in our current online landscape. You can start by making your web site easily accessible. This involves more than just having an easy to remember website address, you should also link back to your site from your Facebook page, blog, local directories, your top industry directories, every email you send, news releases, PPC and any other means of communication with your clients.

Finding Low Cost Ways to Promote Your Website to The Right Audience is Not Easy, but It’s Also Not Impossible.

Granted, there are dozens of advertising platforms on the Internet, but many of them charge a hefty flat-dollar amount, restricting its use to larger companies with deep pockets. But the good news is that there are other, less expensive ways to reach your website’s audience.

To summarize where we are… we are combining several different tactics that don’t have to cost a lot in order to reach your target website audience.

The fact that you are reading this, that you are about to or have recently launched a brand new website and that you’re taking on the responsibility of making your website more visible to your audience.

I’ve talked about how easy it is for the following tactics to wind up costing you a bundle in my recent post, “5 No Cost Ways to Promote Your Website and Why They’ll End Up Costing You”. If you’re not afraid of a little work combining these tactics can help you really drive some qualified traffic and secure above the fold rankings.

1. Search Engine Optimization

Let’s start off with the obvious. Duh, everybody knows when your website ranks high, you’ll naturally receive more traffic and greater visibility. It’s just that simple.

This involves performing on-site and off-site adjustments to encourage higher rankings in the search engines.

What you’ll need to do:

a) The Research

Keyword research is the first step to a successful SEO strategy. Keyword research is one of the most complex components to get right and you whole strategy hinges on it!

b) The Link Building.

Almost equally important as the content you write are the links you build to that content. Unfortunately, the content alone won’t get the rankings or the traffic. You’re going to have to knuckle down once again to get your content out there for people to like and share.

To summarize what we’re doing here, we’re:

1: Finding link-worthy content

2: Making something even better

3: Reaching out to the right people to build those links

Click Here to Get the Complete Guide for Setting Up the Right Approach to SEO in 2018

2. Reaching Your Audience Using Social Media

You can always promote your website at little-to-no cost through social media.

If you are targeting your customers on social media, post different content on each of the platforms so that they are more likely to follow your business across different mediums. You are then exposing yourself to the possibility of a greater audience. Remember, not all consumers are internet savvy, and so the more traditional methods of marketing such as flyers or classified ads may be relevant to this demographic.

It’s also important to keep in mind that when you are a small business trying to make it in this big Internet world you need to do more than just talk about product. Engaging your customers through intriguing content and interacting with them on a consistent basis will be the key to your future business success.

Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and Instagram are all excellent networks on which to promote your website. The secret to using social media for this purpose, however, is to develop a strong following of users. Unless people are actually interesting in following your social media account(s), posting content and promotional messages about your website isn’t going to be beneficial. So, try to develop a following, and then use social media to promote your website.

Tools like Followerwonk, a Twitter analytics tool designed to help you maximize your sharing on the network and identify prospects, users and influencers who are relevant to your industry become essential.

Once you’ve identified Twitter users you’d like to build relationships with, it’s time to connect your Twitter account in BuzzStream which will keep track of your social outreach and conversations with prospects and link partners.

Influencers will be key in motivating your website audience to actually take action. As a reminder:

1. Stop Thinking About Yourself!
2. Understand Your Audience.
3. Know Who Your Social Influencers Are.
4. Understand What Content is Appropriate for Social Media
5. Plan out New Content Ideas for Your Influencers

Click Here If You Want to Know How to Use Social Media to Influence Your Audience

Turn Your Website Audience into Subscribers

Once you’ve already attracted a certain level of business to your site you need to keep them engaged. This means that those who are reading your news releases and blog posts should be free to comment and respond to your writings. Always remember to respond to their comments so that they feel they are part of a conversation. The more you interact with your followers the more they will be willing to share your content with others.

When it comes to marketing a website it is important that you remember that your work is never done. As soon as you have perfected the content on your site, new changes will be coming and you will have to start the process over again. WebStarts points out how important it is to engage visitors in this statement;

“When you update your website your site visitors begin to expect to find something new on your site and keep coming back. The more frequently your visitors come back to your website the more likely they are to do business with you.”

Chances are that all of your customers will not come from the same source so you need to diversify and find different ways for people to find out about you and the services you provide. A good tip to help maximize your brand exposure is to use remarketing. If you currently use PPC advertising you can create a remarketing list within Google Adwords to keep your brand in front of site visitors. Another remarketing service that I really like is AdRoll; which allows you to remarket to interested prospects across multiple networks such as Search, Google, Facebook and Twitter.

1. Send a post-purchase offer

As soon as you receive a new order from a customer, strike while the iron is hot and send them an e-mail with a post-purchase offer for their next purchase.

This is a great way to encourage repeat customers — it is cheaper to have a returning customer than to have to invest in attracting new ones.

Customer retention is dependent upon the level of service they receive from you, and so it is paramount that the operations side of your business is streamlined to support any campaigns that you are running.

Pro Tip: always have an expiration date on the offers that you communicate so that you encourage business to be sooner rather than later; a sense of urgency is never a bad thing for your bottom line!

Check out these 5 innovation online marketing tips to help reach your website audience

Summary:

There is no one single successful, foolproof way of marketing your business. A successful marketing journey will use a combination of approaches to identify which ones are best to use for your business.

You begin to see why Research, Content and Link Building are the key factors in getting your website to rank and why they all need to be part of your cheap ways to promote your website strategy. The best thing about all the hard work you’ll put into this strategy is that it’s timeless. You can write something today, and three years from now it will still be out there being viewed, shared, liked and linked to; which brings traffic back to your site.