Building Website Awareness After You Launch
So you’re ready to start building website awareness as you’ve just launched and have officially “moved online”. Now what? Many newcomers to the online world often ask themselves “why isn’t my website appearing on Google when I search?”
Just know this, my friend, you are not alone in asking this question. It is in fact, a very common question that many need clarification on, as building and launching a website is just the first step in your new online journey.
That’s why we’ve put together this little overview of where to go from here.
Technical and On-Page SEO
When building your website, you can add what’s called “on-page SEO”. First of all, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. When using on-page SEO, there are various factors to consider when building out each page. For example, you have a focus keyword that relates to your topic or page, and your content and the many words used within that content are relevant to that topic. Images are properly named and have an alt description that is also relevant. Essentially, these and other factors that make up your website content, are centred around the guidelines for search optimization. From there, connecting your website with Google Search Console will help your website get connected with your online search goals. Most website developers can help you with this portion of your website build.
Building Awareness
It takes a lot of work to rank on Google, and having a website created alone is not enough, however, once you have a website created, you now have the tools to appear online. From here, it will take time for your website to build awareness and get noticed online.
You will also have to be proactive in building this awareness. Some ways you can do this is by blogging on your website about related topics to your field of business, then sharing those blog links on your social media pages.
Using Social To Drive Traffic
Many use their social media accounts to drive traffic to their website once they go live online. An effective way in using social is to recognize where your target audience is (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc) and post at a time and frequency that will align with their wants and needs.
Google My Business
Another helpful tool for local search to set up is a Google My Business page. You can then share information about your business, photos, and posts from there to drive traffic and awareness to your online business.
Looking for Off-Page SEO Opportunities
You can also add your business info to free listings provided from places like Bing, Yelp, Yellowpages etc. There are many online search directories that provide businesses with a place to add their free listing. One way to discover these places is to think like your target market. What services or keywords of relevance would they use when searching? You may even find that your competitor’s listings appear once you search. You can then look to see if you can add your listing to that site for future visitors to discover. Using this method helps you build off-page SEO and external links to drive traffic back to your website.
Advertising
Then there is advertising. You can advertise on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, YellowPages, etc. Paying for advertising online allows you to reach audiences that are beyond your organic reach.
For example, when you post on your Facebook page, you are reaching organically; meaning your friends, family, colleagues, etc. that have decided to follow you. When you encourage your followers to share, you are reaching their followers. However, once you decide to use paid advertising on Facebook, you are reaching beyond your followers to others who would not normally see your posts otherwise. When you pay for advertising using such avenues as Facebook, you can also select targeted interests, particular groups, and select locations, that are specific to your target audience. All these things will help bring awareness and traffic to your business and website.
Start Building Your Network & Spreading the Word!
All of these things will help bring website awareness and traffic to your business and website. Now that you have your website launched, use it to your full online advantage and begin pushing out website awareness through all of the above avenues. Don’t forget your network! Those associations and organizations of affiliation. They are just as powerful in spreading awareness as any of the above. Have a question? Contact us at any time! Good luck and enjoy the online journey!