Does your site have a blog? Can it be easily found, and is it relevant and readable? When was the last time it was updated?
While it seems that many companies have been turning their attention to gaining a presence on Facebook and even attempting to master the art of Twitter, recent research has found that a key social media resource is being overlooked by nearly three quarters of businesses.
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You would suppose that in today’s search and social multichannel world, when customers and search engines place the emphasis on websites providing great customer experience to raise site credibility and authority, that businesses would ensure their sites are regularly attended to and error–free?
Nope! Nearly 90 per cent of UK site owners admit to website accessibility errors and poor visitor usability … …
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Is your website customer-centric? Does it provide the crucial user experience you know your target audience wants? Can you provide real, researched reasons for why site pages look and function the way they do or are they simply the result of personal preference that you assume is in tune with the search needs of your customer niche?
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On Demand.. On The Move .. Always On .. whoa, definitely a bit too fast-paced for some site owners! The problem actually is, either they expect the web to somehow magically deliver instant results, or they still think it’s not for their type of business or for their particular customers! Their websites haven’t really kept up with any of the changes on the web in the last five years! As many as 40 per cent still haven’t got round to SEO, and as for “all this twittering …!”
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You would think that the evolution of online marketing into the greater multichannel would be sufficient incentive for businesses to continue to invest more time and employ better resources in the necessary optimisation of their sites and extended web presence. Nope! Too often, good intentions simply peter out after a few months, “no one has the time” or even looks at their own company site very much. Followers, visitors and rankings soon fade away – opportunities lost.
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If eCommerce website owners were wary of social media because they couldn’t see how to measure tangible return, the new age of multichannel might appear to them to be an even more daunting prospect when trying to nail the original source response metric. Who’s using what channels, when, why and where?
Downloading a mobile app, an ad link clicked and then a tweet, followed by a like, checking Facebook, or newsletter opt-in, maybe just placing one item in a basket or perhaps asking a question online, sending an email, dialling the freephone number, QR code scanned. User options and behaviours are cascading across multiple channels and platform, online, offline – everywhere!
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All aboard the brand awareness bandwagon! It’s called doing social media – marketing style! Or that’s the way many business owners still see Facebook and Twitter and having a company blog. A low-cost method to indulge a little more self promotion and push marketing. But this is not what social media does. There’s no real intent to listen and engage, just broadcast and sell!
“ It’s all selling really, isn’t it?” is not an uncommon remark uttered by site owners who decide that doing social media is not so bad after all, as everyone else seems to be putting Facebook and Twitter buttons on their home page. A nice cheap method to get a bit more brand awareness and site traffic!
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Website experience is now multichannel! That means visitors expect to access site pages via smartphone and tablet as well as a browser – and receive the same quality of seamless, customer-centric experience. The fragmentation of visitor segments according to platform, channel, location and present need presents site owners with the challenge of maintaining optimal brand visibility. Reshaping a website design for total “access all platforms” rather than simply by products or services now needs to be top of the ”to do” list!
The evolution of mobile to smartphone and netbook to tablet has transformed user behaviours. Consumer appetite for site content and social media ‘on the move’ or on the TV sofa has exploded and now highly differentiated by demographic segments. Consumption is being shaped by context, i.e. the platform technology and corresponding location.
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Seek and ye shall find! Search and discovery online has opened up pathways to websites from a wide variety of visitor traffic groups. Each identifiable type conducts search for reasons site owners need to recognise and be responsive to as a different kind of segmented niche audience who have entered company targeted SEO keywords.
Optimising your site to draw the desired audience who will convert to the purpose of the site needs to be now understood in the context of an evolving landscape of multi channel search and social discovery. Not everyone is purchasing immediately, some are simply seeking quick answers to questions, while others looking for ideas, want to find out more or conducting research.
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It’s search and social and website! All three pistons should be working for the conversion engine to drive! One is not a substitute for the other. Prospects click and link to your site by everywhichway they became aware of you! But if they can’t find what they’re looking for or something’s not quite right, then off they go again to seek elsewhere. No matter what you tweet or post …
A social media strategy is only likely to work for you if your website pages and online marketing are up to speed! It’s simply staggering how many site owners assume Twitter following and Facebook likes should automatically equate to site traffic and conversions. Being social is just ‘being social’!
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The way to create a socially savvy website is not difficult to understand! The problem for some site owners is to comprehend search and social as the way genuine marketing has always behaved when reaching out to potential customers in the offline world. Friendly, responsive and helpful from enquiry, along the sales funnel journey to final transaction. The ROI on social is measured in reputation advocacy.
Trusted, credible presence, rich customer experience and website accessibility on vital channel and platform touchpoints are the coordinates by which consumers set their shopping compass! In the age of the multichannel and always-on technology platforms, access, engagement and exchange are the online social lube that smoothes the way to eCommerce relationships.
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If your website is not optimised for instant content sharing and social engagement, then the likelihood is that visitors will not stay simply because your site don’t look ‘up to date’. While unchanged or tired looking sites are always an ominous sign, visitors may just feel you deliberately want to keep your distance, and thus, are failing to keep up with today’s consumer expectations.
Many site owners have responded to the changing web by simply paying lip service to social media by grudgingly inviting visitors to ‘see our social side’, adjacent to the two big Facebook n’ Twitter buttons. In recognising the value consumers now place on the ‘customer experience’ provided by search and social, the opening up and integration of engagement and participation should be the start of the process.
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