Need To Make Your Site More Liked?
The age of the standar
d, cardboard cut-out website has passed. People just don’t find static brochure- like webpages appealing anymore. Potential customers want to hear more about what you can offer them, and what helpful experiences you can pass on to them; not what the latest special is. Going to a website full on marketed products and sales pitches isn’t engaging, and it’s certainly not interesting.
Strength of Social Media
People who use social media will tell you that a company’s Facebook page is invariably going to be more useful than their actual website. Keep in mind that the term “useful” is relative here. Most people who “like” a company’s Facebook brand profile arrived there through a couple of different avenues: they were given something for free if they “liked” the page, they received a coupon or discount if they “liked” the page, they were helping a friend as a favor (some people get paid to produce hundreds or even thousands of “likes” within a given amount of time), they like the brand and wish they could afford it, or they actually use the brand and like it.
This means that half the people who “like” a brand don’t have a strong intention of actually buying it. The argument over the value of advertising on Facebook still rages on, in part, because of this.
It cannot be denied, however, that the level of interaction on the Facebook page will far surpass that of the website. Facebook has the ability to suck up hours of a person’s time, and make it feel like only ten minutes have passed.
Why? Facebook is completely engaging. It is interactive, it is ever-changing, and there are other people around to keep the movement going. When there’s a post on a company page, it gets pulled along this stream of movement, and passes across the face of the user. They make no effort to search for the information, it’s just suddenly there and they’re learning from it. The company’s website isn’t able to compete with that, without changing something.
Start a Business Blog
Business blogs are a type of online marketing, generally written in an informal and conversational way. Around half the businesses with an online presence have a business blog, but over half of them don’t update them on a regular basis. Others only post occasional product or company updates, instead of quality content for the end user. Compared to a free sample or discount, this seems fairly unhelpful.
Set up a business blog on your website, and post on it at least twice a week. Make the posts useful and full of good content. Encourage conversation and comments; make the experience an interactive one. Start being useful to the user, and give them the information they want to hear.
Free Resources
It’s clear that people like free stuff. Take advantage of this, and create an area on your website specifically to give them the free stuff they want. Free digital products are easily and cheaply made, and can include: E-books, white papers, articles, email courses, webinars, and how-to guides. All of these free items can be designed to encourage sales and move people through your selling process.
Conversation on your business blog can help identify what potential customers want to know from you, and you can use this is as a guideline for what free resources to produce for them. The additional benefit to this is that it builds your relationship with them, and encourages trust.
Crossing Over
By starting a business blog, and creating free resources, you can not only improve your website, but you can also improve your company’s Facebook page. It has already been established that Facebook users really like free stuff, and you have just created a lot of stuff specifically to be given away for free. Cross your resources over, and be well on your way to an efficient improvement.
Image Credit: 1.
Sergeo Kozak, the author of the post here is the founder of Edictive and GiftIdeas site, two small businesses focusing on delivering web based services.
Yes i agreed. Very informative post. The most i like is the start business blogging as this is the most useful tool in now a days in this way we can go ahead and make our site more social and get more and more visitors day by day. This is new market trend yet but getting more then outcome the people expecting actually.