Congratulations on your website going live! An extra special shoutout if you had Mountaintop Web Design develop your website 😉. We value the trust our clients place in us regarding their online businesses, as their websites are crucial to their success.
Launching a website is like the inauguration of a brick-and-mortar business, only without the pomp and pageantry. It marks Day #1 of your e-commerce career and opens the door to a new world of online opportunities.
In this article, we’ll discuss your next steps once your website goes live. Once it’s launched, it doesn’t mean your job – or our job, for that matter – is done.
On the contrary, our job is just beginning.
8 Steps To Take After Your Website Goes Live
The website is a wonderful innovation of digital technology. It has continued to evolve in performance and functionality over the last few decades.
A well-designed website is equipped with features that enable your business to:
- Produce sales
- Generate leads
- Build your audience
- Promote your products and services
- Run logistics
- Manage customer service
However, a website isn’t a “Field of Dreams,” where if “you build it, they will come.”
It won’t work on its own.
A brick-and-mortar store won’t generate sales just by opening. You must actively promote your website to reach your target market.
Step 1: Create and Build a Content Marketing Plan
Great content drives people to your website. People visit websites to view content that’s informative, entertaining, or relevant to their search intent.
For your effort to yield results, content must have purpose and direction. Map out a strategic content marketing plan with a specific goal.
1. Learn SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) utilizes various processes, tactics, and techniques to help search engine crawl bots find and index your content for their databases.
Basic SEO techniques include:
- The use of high-ranking keywords in your content.
- Adding relevant external links from reputable sources to validate facts and figures.
- Adding relevant internal links to your website to drive more traffic and boost credibility.
- Including keywords in your meta descriptions and title tags.
- Creating content that responds to search intent.
- Improving User Experience (UX) by assuring users a mobile responsive, fast, navigable, secure, and fully functional website.
We recommend hiring professional SEO services because Google constantly updates its algorithm. The digital agency keeps track of these changes and implements the necessary revisions to the SEO strategy.
2. Write Blogs
Blogging remains a powerful tool for driving website traffic. It’s an effective process for building your business brand, generating leads, and enhancing your online reputation.
How often should you blog?
If your business is a startup, or under a year old, publish at least eight blogs monthly.
From experience, if you can publish a blog daily – go for it!
Google rewards websites with a boost in the search rankings if they publish blogs that are authoritative, credible, and relevant to users’ search intent.
That means, don’t just blog for blogging’s sake.
Write blogs that are…
- Optimized for search engines – use keywords, and add external and internal links.
- Relevant, unique, informative, and useful.
- Easy to read; write conversationally. Avoid using technical terms, long and winding sentences, and condensed paragraphs.
- Embedded with effective Calls-to-Action (CTA).
- Free of spelling and grammatical errors.
Case in point is this blog.
The paragraphs are short and are composed of two to three sentences at most. You must keep the paragraphs short to make the blog scrollable on a mobile device.
We incorporate external links to boost the article’s credibility and internal links to drive readers to other pages of our website.
Before we publish the blog, we manually review it for spelling and grammatical errors and then, run it through Grammarly and Copyscape.
Blogging is part of our SEO services. We can take blogging off your hands so you can focus on the daily tasks of running your business.
3. Produce Videos
We’ve written extensively about the benefits of videos for your digital marketing. Videos are an essential part of your content marketing strategy. Blogs are great, but videos can deliver your message faster and more efficiently.
An explainer video on your home page is an effective way of introducing your business to site visitors.
In under 60 seconds, tell your audience what your business is about; introduce your signature product, its top-selling points, how to use it, how to order, and why you’re the right choice.
89% of consumers who watched an explainer video bought the product! Explainer videos can convert visits into immediate sales💸.
Step 2: Commit to a Social Media Strategy
Social media isn’t a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm.
At least, not directly.
Google understands the value of great content for users. If your website or social media content is shared or receives likes, Google views the engagement as a strong social signal.
According to Google’s SEO Starter Guide, organic buzz created by shares, comments, and likes are signs that users enjoy and value your content. The search engine giant believes positive social signals enhance your website’s reputation.
For this reason, commit to a social media strategy.
- Open business pages in two to three social media platforms.
- Post frequently, daily if possible, on all social media platforms.
- Focus on posting high-quality content relevant to your followers’ search intent.
- Always include a backlink to your website on all your social media posts.
- Always include a CTA on your social media posts.
- Post a variety of content: Blogs, videos, images, infographics, status updates, surveys, games, trivia, and curated content from reputable sources.
- Measure results. Review your analytics monthly, quarterly, and annually.
Use analytics to improve your social media strategy and streamline your budget.
Here are three tips on how to be consistent in social media activity.
- Outsource social media marketing to a digital agency. Let the agency handle your social media so you can focus on the activities that add to your bottom line.
- Create a social media posting calendar.
- Use apps that can automate your social media posting schedule. Examples of social media automation apps are HootSuite, SocialPilot, and Sprout Social.
💡Note: Again, we recommend daily social media posting, especially for startups. It will keep you top-of-mind, and contrary to what others say, it isn’t noise.
If your content is unique, relevant, useful, and informative, your audience will love you for posting every day. You’re giving them what they want and need.
Step 3: Actively Engage Your Audience
Digital marketing opens multiple communication channels with your audience. Reach out and contact your social media followers, customers, newsletter subscribers, and commenters.
Yes, even those who post unfavorable comments!
Engaging your audience will humanize your business and craft its personality. It will help build your brand and cultivate relationships with your audience. People prefer to transact with businesses they trust and relate to.
Here are six tips on how to actively engage your audience.
- Go through the comments section of your blogs and social media. Respond to commenters who have questions or are requesting information.
- Invite your customers to post reviews about your company, products, and services.
- Respond to Direct Messages (DMs).
- Don’t use AI to respond!
It’s acceptable and saves time, but AI only studies human behavior. AI cannot replicate human behavior and give empathetic responses.
- Respond within 24 to 72 hours. The faster the response time, the better.
- Post status updates that invite followers to contribute ideas.
Here’s a bonus seventh tip: Always direct them to your website by including a link!
How do you handle negative comments?
Stay professional.
Entrepreneurs believe they have the best products in the market. So negative feedback can be a hard pill to swallow.
Keep in mind that you can’t please everyone. There’s always going to be a consumer who won’t be satisfied with your product… and that’s okay.
Mistakes happen. You might have delivered the wrong item or it could have been damaged while in transit. These things happen… and that’s okay.
When you receive a negative comment, remember that the person took the time to relay the issue to you.
Respond respectfully. If you made a mistake, apologize. If you believe, there’s more to the complaint, explore the possibility of continuing the engagement until the issue is resolved.
Step 4: Incorporate Email Marketing
Email marketing is another effective way to engage your audience. It’s a mainstay in a digital marketing toolbox that will get your content into the inbox of potential customers.
Once a site user signs up for your newsletter service, they’re allowing you to email them content on a scheduled basis. Your newsletter won’t go to their Spam folder. Instead, they’ll land in the inbox of your subscribers.
Digital marketers report that email marketing results in high Return on Investment (ROI). Some claim email marketing generates ROI that ranges from 200% to 4,000%.
How can you launch an effective email marketing campaign?
- Segment or categorize your email list into age, gender, occupation, location, past purchases, and active/occasional/inactive readers.
You can also segment your email list based on how they signed up: social media or website pop-up. - Send personalized email. Address your subscribers by name. Customize product recommendations based on past purchases or interactions. Be cognizant of gender, occupation, and location when personalizing content.
- Run A/B testing on your emails to find out which version elicits positive results.
- Track and analyze the results of your emails. Results aren’t guaranteed. Use the data to fine-tune your email campaign.
Before you can launch an email campaign, you have to build a leads list. To build a leads list, you need compelling CTA buttons on your website.
If your CTA buttons aren’t getting people to sign up, contact us.
Step 5: Highlight/Showcase Customer Reviews and Testimonials
Did your clients or customers give you glowing reviews about your work, products, or services? If so, ask them to provide you with testimonials and upload these to your website.
You can also scour the Internet for positive reviews about your product. Run a Google search or type “hashtag (product name)” on a social media platform.
If you find positive reviews, contact the customer and ask permission to use their comment.
Here are three tips to ensure your testimonials stand out.
- If possible, include an image of your customer.
- Use their full name. Don’t use “Stephen B.” or an abbreviation because they look suspicious.
- Post the testimonials on the home page.
Testimonials are powerful influencers. They’re better than paid endorsements because users view them as sincere and authentic.
Step 6: Include Local SEO Strategies
Local SEO is an optimization process that focuses on having your website found within a specific geographic location. It’s popularly used to promote brick-and-mortar businesses in areas that are within proximity.
However, local SEO will also benefit your website even if you don’t have a brick-and-mortar business.
For example, you run a business selling vitamin-enriched pet food. Consumers who need pet food will look for businesses that are located close to their homes for faster delivery.
If they see that your business is within proximity of their residences, they’ll place their orders.
Local SEO strategies are effective if you have a delivery/shipping arrangement with a courier. On your website, indicate the area covered by your delivery services. Include the cost of delivery.
If you want to learn more about local SEO, contact us. We’ve designed and implemented successful local SEO campaigns for several clients.
Step 7: Review Analytics
Your website collects and analyzes various data on its performance. The summary of data is called analytics which gives you a better understanding of how users behave on your website.
- How long do users stay on a page?
- Which types of content do they like?
- Where do users come from?
- How do users access my website – mobile or PC?
- What are the demographics of my site users?
- How many new users am I averaging monthly?
- Am I getting repeat visitors?
- What is my cart abandonment rate? (For e-commerce websites)
- What days of the week bring the most traffic?
- Are my CTAs converting?
- Is the website generating enough leads?
Numbers don’t lie.
Analytics remove the guesswork. You have data to support your decisions and courses of action. You’ll know which campaigns are working and which ones aren’t.
Step 8: Secure Your Website
Visiting a convenience store during graveyard hours could be dangerous. However, the Internet is dangerous 24/7.
You should be aware that various forms of malware could be hiding on the servers of the websites you visit. Site users are thinking of the same thing when they visit your website.
Protect your site users from potential threats!
Site users are more aware of the importance of a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate, an encryption program that protects data transmitted from browser to server.
When a user sees the padlock symbol or “https” preceding your URL, they’ll feel safe exploring your website.
If your website doesn’t have SSL, Google will mark it “Not Secure.” Users will be discouraged from exploring your website and click out immediately.
SSL isn’t only a requirement for e-commerce websites. Google included SSL as a ranking factor. All websites must be covered by SSL or they’ll be punished in the search rankings.
In addition to SSL, secure your websites with the latest anti-virus software, firewall, and malware checkers.
Conclusion
After your website goes live, the next priority is to increase traffic through digital marketing. It requires work but as long as you remain consistent, your efforts will be rewarded with leads, subscribers, and loyal customers.
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