Entrepreneurs must always consider their online presence when building the foundation for their start-up company. There are many competing businesses looking for start up money and inertia from online sources. Sometimes you have to create a million-dollar web presence on a shoestring budget. Your company website should be memorable and compelling with the value and brand clearly conveyed. In this article we will look at the simple things you can incorporate your business website to make it better.
Content is the Kingdom
The first thing you will need to do is analyze is your content. Without good quality content the chance of your website generating any steam will be rough. Content will allow your website or blog be “sticky” so people stay and read what you write and also come back for more. Don’t be afraid to be edgy or even little controversial about your market. You must get people’s fire burning about your company and you can’t do that by being meek.
Fresh content will come through regularly updated blog posts. The rest of the content will be on the standard pages you’ll find in a website. These pages are your chance to toot your own horn because this no one else will do it for you.
Don’t be afraid tell the story of how you started and what your passions and don’t be afraid to talk about your past accomplishments are your teams past accomplishments. Focus on the big picture and don’t try to identify every single thing your company is up to. Investors or even interested people don’t have very much time to spend sifting through all of your new company data. Simply emphasize the major points and sell people on why you put the best at what you do.
Use Technology to Capture Traffic
The next thing you want to make sure you have on your website is technology to capture your traffic. If you’re like most startups in this day and age you’re trying to network in as many places as possible. Perhaps you’re even putting on your own training or seminars to build yourself as an expert in your industry.
Maybe you’re simply inviting people on your website to sign up and learn more about your company when exciting details get released. In order to take advantage of that traffic you’re going to need fairly sophisticated software to capture all the information you need.
HTML forms and registration forms allow you to customize multiple data points to gain more than just basic contact information from an interested customer. Luckily there are many really great tools that allow you to get feedback and allow people to register on your website. So you don’t have to spend your precious seed money developing teas already build forms to install in your website content. Just install the forms on the pages you want.
Viral Article Marketing
The last thing we aren’t going to think about is getting your content to go viral. Well-written articles that are released for free distribution can have a high potential of getting picked up and increasing your exposure. When we think about something going viral we automatically think about some YouTube clip which gets millions of views overnight, but for a start up looking to build credibility well-written articles that are published on multiple news websites or forums can be just as effective as a hit YouTube clip.
Getting an article to go viral probably won’t happen on your first try. The key is to be prolific and write a wide variety of articles in your industry as possible. Well researched articles in slightly controversial areas of any industry have the potential to get picked up. Deliver real and practical value that other businesses, dare I say even competitors, can pick up and use.
Don’t forget to give yourself credit and have a link in the authors byline back to your website. Allow for the reproduction of the article as long as the byline and your biography remain intact. These are just a few examples of what you can do to kick start your momentum with a few simple tweaks. Make sure your content stands out from the crowd. You have got to be your own biggest cheerleader.
Make sure you capitalize on the traffic that shows up your doorstep. Invite them in and get all of their personal information that they will give to you. Whether they are a future investor, a joint venture for strategic partner, or just some average Joe Schmo potential customer you need to gather their information.
Finally working to get your articles to be republished is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to market your website and become an expert in your industry.
These methods should be done continually and perfected through experience. I wish you the best of luck on your start-up and entrepreneurial website endeavors.
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