5 Mistakes to Avoid When Building Your Web Presence

The world-wide web is HUGE: almost 50 billion webpages and over three billion global internet users as of March 2015. The US Small Business Administration reports that 97% of consumers use the web to search for local products, and 70 – 80% of Smartphone users follow through by connecting with a local business after a search. It is hard to believe, but sba.gov claims up to 47% of small businesses don’t have a website! Of the small-businesses that do, 95% of those websites are not optimized for multiple devices.

If you are wondering why your website isn’t attracting the ROI that you’d expected, you may be making these critical mistakes with your web presence:

1. Paying for Ads

This is actually good news for your marketing budget: the utility of traditional, graphical web advertisements is dwindling away. Paying for higher search engine ranking, however, may have its benefits, as 14.6% of the leads generated result in sales. In the old days of internet marketing, the only way to be seen was to cut and paste your logo to every high-traffic site you could find. Today’s internet user, however, focuses on search results. In fact, 70 to 80% of searchers completely ignore banner ads on websites.

2. Ignoring Social Media

Social media is a quagmire for small businesses. Is it really worth your time to keep up with Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.? Are there one or two outlets that will generate more traffic on my website? 75% of small businesses have not integrated with social media at all. While social media certainly has its pitfalls, it is possible (and profitable) to leverage your brand exposure potential through social channels. The 25% of businesses who do use social media average a 400% increase in unique visitors to their site. (Which also happens to increase their organic SEO.)

3. Choosing Not to Optimize

The old business adage “location, location, location” applies to optimization in a mobile economy. 95% of business websites are not optimized, meaning they don’t view the same on a variety of mobile devices. But optimization is really pretty simple. Once you have optimized your web presence, customers can find your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 67% of users are more likely to buy from a website that is optimized to be readable and engaging wherever and whenever they are searching.

4. Not Taking Advantage of the Selling Power of Blogs

You may have the most amazing products in the world, and maybe even a sleek eCommerce set up. You are ready to sell, but the orders aren’t coming in. Why? Your customers aren’t searching for your amazing product, necessarily. They are searching for “how to…” find, create, analyze, and learn. Businesses with active blogs generate 88% more leads per month than businesses who don’t.

Blogging is all about telling people “how to…” solve their problem with your product, service, or idea. The more useful the information is on your blog, the more popular it will become. Your blog links directly back to your website, expanding your web presence by providing useful and engaging content.

5. Using a Static, Unresponsive Website Design

Your website has a sleek design, is easily navigable, and has your location and hours – but if that’s it, you’re missing the big picture. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an incredibly intelligent algorithm based on visitor engagement: how long does a single visitor spend on your site? how many pages do they visit within your site? how many pages link to other sites?

Integrating engagement points throughout your website gives users more reasons to visit your site and follow through by purchasing your services. When score.org reports that 65% of businesses do not capture leads online, we interpret that as missed engagement. Blog subscriptions, free downloads, “share,” “like,” and comment fields, and even creating a simple app will exponentially grow your presence online.

Your web presence has huge potential – as big as the web itself. Avoid these 5 mistakes to reach your true potential with your web presence. Also, read our eBook: