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I’ve noticed a lot on social media like LinkedIn that people are forgetting that not everyone sees every post which is why it’s important to optimise your web presence. Business owners also forgetting that not everyone who follows your posts or channels necessarily sees everything in the right order.
For example, I’ve been interested in a business or I’ve been interested in a virtual assistant and they’ve written a nice piece of content but there’s nowhere to go after I read it. There’s no call to action (CTA) or link. It’s just a pretty picture with a caption and that’s it—I’m engaged, I want what you’re selling to me but I don’t know how to get it.
Sometimes, I even type the URL or search the company on Google to see whatever it is they’re offering at the time, hoping that it’s optimized and will appear on the search results. Thankfully, I know where to look because I help businesses with their website and social media all the time, but not every potential customer is as savvy.
There are many things you can do to make sure that wherever someone is or wherever they’re coming from, they’re always directed to the right place. Watch my video on seven optimisation tactics below or read underneath:
The first tactic is placing a CTA on your 404 page. It happens to me a lot when I go on websites and click through and land on a 404 page. It’s fine— links die and people move stuff. But the problem with that is most people quickly move on. They click off the site and go somewhere else.
Instead, add a CTA specific to your industry or what you want them to do. Here are some ideas on what to put on your 404 pages:
Opt-ins
Cornerstone content
Promotional offers
Links
404 pages are a great opportunity that I think is often wasted space.
Remember: People don’t necessarily use the menu at the top to navigate and find what they want. Instead, when they get a 404 page, they often click back and go to the next result on Google.
You can link your opt-in to your offer so people are using them as part of the sales funnel. For example, it’s great that someone opts in because you can start marketing to them. But they would want to know what the next step is. So what do they do next? Where do they go? Can they get a discount?
Normally, people offer opt-ins to either start to help or describe the greatest problem that the audience has. If this resonates with them, they would want to know more about your services, how much it costs, and what are your qualifications.
So you need to add a call to action or next steps into your opt-in or some kind of link to what happens next.
Your sales page would be a great option at this point. After they’ve read the opt-in or finished a course, then the next step on this journey is the sales page. That’s going to make a seamless transition and then they’re never going to leave your site. You can even track this as well and take the opportunity to put sign-on links for the opt-in.
In your social media bios or description, make sure that the website link you put on their works. I’ve had it many times when I get interested in a post so I clicked on the profile and the company website and then there’s nothing there.
So make sure that all of the channels that you’re using, whether a website or social media, make sure that they’ve got the right links on there and make sure that those links work.
Test the links because you might be thinking that no one is coming to your channels or your website whatever but if the link doesn’t work then you’re being told you’re rubbish when you’re not.
Another way to optimise your web presence is through your email signature. Now, I’m awful at this because I don’t have anything in my email signature at the moment. But it’s deliberate because I try to keep my emails focused on clients only. I don’t tend to engage with people via email unless we’re at a later stage, like in onboarding or closing. Our communication happens on social media, Slack, or Whatsapp.
I’ve noticed that although branded keywords don’t necessarily work for discovery, they are great for…you guessed it, branding.
I’ve done it before where I’ve seen a branded keyword in someone’s post, got curious, clicked on it, and saw all the posts related to the hashtag. Branded keywords help bundle some great posts together so having it takes your audience through the journey and does all the hard work for you. This is even more effective if you manage to find a branded keyword that isn’t used by anyone else or isn’t likely to be adopted by anyone else.
So I probably wouldn’t use say #CRmarketing because aside from the fact that it’s boring, other people or businesses might have the initials “CR.” But if I did something like #theCR22challenge, other people might click on that hashtag and they can go find other posts.
This works especially well if you are catering to multiple audiences. I focus on three separate things— marketing for IT and cyber, building your freelance copywriting business, and organic marketing consulting. So using branded and specific hashtags are good at helping someone find the content that they want without being cluttered by everybody else. They can go on a real deep dive on your social media posts.
Another thing about optimisation is when you do videos or social media posts, always include a link to your website. Even if you are posting a picture, there’s nothing wrong with just having a little link at the bottom. It doesn’t have to be a hyperlink to the picture so you can still have the image be the main thing and still have the caption.
You don’t have to shorten the link unless it’s massive and you’re limited in the number of characters. Otherwise, I would just put the whole link there, even on Instagram where links on posts don’t work. Even when I can’t click on them, I will read them and write the keywords on Google.
So if someone posts their opt-in link, obviously I can’t do anything with that but I can use that to search on Google. Sometimes, I even take a screenshot of the post so I can search for it later.
Lastly, and to conclude this, never underestimate the power of links and the power of bringing everything together. I also think if you’re putting everything out there and everything’s streamlined and you’re thinking about your presence as a whole, then you don’t need ads, fancy marketing, and fancy branding.
Overall, just take a look at your current presence. So many people think that everything’s going great but they can’t work out why things aren’t converting. This could be because people can’t get hold of you. You think that they can but that’s just an assumption.
Hopefully, this has been helpful! If you have any questions, let me know either here or on Instagram, or on LinkedIn. If you prefer feel free to send me a comment or a question and I might do a video about it and help you out specifically.
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