Avoid these 5 common mistakes and grow online

As a full digital agency that handles every aspect of a business’s online presence, we understand that the online world can be confusing and daunting for small businesses. For small businesses, a developed online presence will be key to gaining the type of customers you want, and still keeping up with the bigger companies that inhabit the same industry.

While some businesses understand that they need a website, many do not understand how to optimise or grow their brand online. In fact, some business owners seem to expect their customers to simply seek them out, miraculously knowing how to find their new website.

It is a simple fact, if you want to use your brand online to boost your business, leads or even ROI, there are some tactics you should not ignore. To help overwhelmed business owners, we have listed several common mistakes that we encounter when analysing our clients’ digital brand.

1) Underutilising Local SEO

Over 90% of customer look for a business online before even setting foot in a store. With the increasing prominence of map searches, this means your customer may only be a block away, or even up the street looking for your service. Localising your SEO with keywords like your suburb or city ensures your customers can find your business when they are looking for your services. There some very easy steps to ensure you are making the most of your local SEO:

• Verifying your business listing: Your ‘Google My Business’ is an easy step that helps customers find out more information about your business. Simply verify you are the owner, and you can add all the relevant information, like phone numbers, addresses and even a description to attract more attention and potential visits.
• Embed a map: Google maps can be the most useful tool on your website for a customer looking for your services. Linking to Google Plus local listings, it allows your business to update and provide information to customers.
• Optimise your meta tags and content with more local keywords. One way to identify these keywords is to analyse your current customers. Where do they come from and are there any specific keywords that are popular in your area? Including those keywords in your page titles and descriptions will increase the change customers will find you relevant to their searches.
• Consistency: To grow your brand fully, it is important that you use the same information and contact details across all your online sources. Using contradictory information will confuse and lose your business potential leads. So from Google maps to Yelp and other social platforms like Facebook, ensure all your details correct and consistent.

2) Ignoring the mobile user

Part of the challenge in being seen by customers who are only a block is being optimised for whatever device they are looking from. According to Google 72% of mobile users expect and find it important that websites are responsive and optimised for their devices. The most important metric for mobile users is site speed, with over 40% of viewers abandoning the site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. To better optimise your site, we recommend adopting Google’s latest coding project. Called Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), it has demonstrated a dramatic increase in click-throughs and conversions. As an SEO company, we have noticed Melbourne businesses are also seeing the benefits of implementing AMP technology in their existing sites.

3) Not knowing what their reviews say

For online viewers, the reviews about a business are one of the most important parts of their purchasing process. For businesses, this means they should always be aware of what people are saying about them. The higher the ranking and the more people who have reviewed, the more likely viewers are to trust that company as a market leader. To help encourage a good reputation, offering an incentive for a review might be a good tactic for businesses with services that do not naturally encourage reviews.

4) Forgetting to analyse their data

Online strategies come with a host of data; however many businesses forget to either analyse it, compare it with offline figures or even simply understand how this affects the overall business. One of the easiest ways to determine if your digital strategies are working or delivering in the right areas is to turn your combined online data, from mobile marketing, website conversion and social marketing, into measurable ROI figures. With an understanding where each figure is coming from and the overall combined analytics, it is very easy to understand the impact of a digital strategy, what aspects work and how to allocate the budget.

5) Customers are Key

The most important aspect of any business is your customers! One of the most common mistakes we see businesses make is to ignore the feedback from customers. How businesses respond to their customers and their level of engagement with them will determine how they meet their digital goals. Some of the best digital strategies are those focused on creating authentic relationships with customers and new leads.

Ultimately the goal of any digital presence is to build a brand’s reputation in the customers’ option. Businesses that focus on delivering a meaningful user experience, meeting expectations and ultimately fulfilling their customers’ needs, are the ones that gain the best value from their online presence.

At One Stop Media, we also recommend one bonus tip to determine how your online presence is going – tracking. To determine where your business is failing or falling short from a customer’s perspective, try tracking your leads. From the very initial search through to the first and all subsequent point of contact and their eventual buying action. Try to see if your business is falling short in any of the common areas we have just mentioned in the article. While common, every mistake can be rectified with the right strategy, patience and experience.

If you feel too daunted by any of these processes, as a full stack digital company, we have every aspect of your business covered. Contact us today, and one of our experienced consultants can arrange a free meeting. We can then analysis any weaknesses in your online presence and help you determine the right actions to build you into the online market leader you have always dreamed of becoming.