Recently, I’ve been thinking about the importance of a good website, and having a digital footprint in today’s business world. At Alexander’s we provide website development and content creation for customers in a wide range of industries. We place a lot of emphasis on digital communication, especially helping clients have a larger web presence in order to increase sales and profits.

There are statistics floating all over the Internet about creating and maintaining an online presence for your business or brand, but doing so takes a lot of work, and can waste a lot of time if it’s not done strategically. Much of that presence relies on social media management. However, a big player in the game of digital marketing is your website. If you’re looking to start your own website, or hoping to boost your business through your website, we’ve created a list of elements you should consider as you work build or improve your website.

5 Steps to increased website optimization

1. Blogging

A blog should act as one of the key elements of your online efforts. A blog is a place you can publish daily content, which can be repurposed for publishing on your social channels. This same content can be optimized to improve your search results through key search engines. Your blog is also the perfect place for key audience members to subscribe to the blog RSS feed and receive updates from you how they prefer, either in an RSS reader of via email.

2. Online Newsrooms

The online newsroom is an effective brand journalism and self-publishing tool. It allows you to share your company’s news and information regardless of what the traditional media picks up or covers. It becomes your home base for updates and newsworthy information about your business. Not everyone needs an online newsroom but it’s usually beneficial for businesses and brands.

3. News Releases

Frequent announcements provide the opportunity to develop name recognition with reporters and serve to maintain your brand or business with key audiences. If possible, news releases should be distributed online through a well-known news wire distribution company. Subscriptions to these services can get expensive. If you’re a smaller business, start by publishing your news releases in your own online newsroom and then pitching them to the relevant media representatives, or industry publications. This enhances your brand footprint and delivers long-tail presence online.

And, by the way, Alexander’s subscribes to online newswire distribution services, so for about $300 we can distribute any news release for you. The distribution comes with analytics and reporting of the news aggregator sites that picked-up the announcement. We also write and copy edit news releases for clients.

4. Website Optimization

With so much of the business world communicating via the Internet, it’s important to know how your website is performing. Alexander’s can provide you with a free website SEO report that will outline specific things to do in order to improve search optimization of your site and its content.

5. Important Keywords

Keywords and phrases include people, products, brands and services. Select 25-30 keywords that pertain to your business or brand, and then use Google AdWords to fine tune those keywords. You should incorporate these keywords into all your online content: webpages (especially in headings), blog post and news release titles, social media publishing, etc.

If you would like help building a website or managing your digital communications, we’d love to help. Feel free to contact us here.