Do I Really Need a Website?

Websites seem so yesterday. "I can run my business from social media, they give me all the tools." Not so fast!

A website is the home and virtual business card for your business with the info your prospects are looking for.

Posts relevant to your business are pushed to social media from your website. Think product listing, company culture, news and events. Users are directed back to your website, validating your business to promote engagement. (Just like this post)!!

ORGANIC SEO. Web crawlers look for valuable content and video to index for search engines. Originating valuable content from your website promotes organic SEO to improve search engine rankings.

COSTS. Costs for a website are from DIY in the $250 range, to a custom website at $1,500-$10,000. Web and SM development can happen in stages to grow as business increases. 

Branded social media set-up costs are $150-$1000 for multiple outlets.

Site and SM management costs are $50-$150 per hour or may be charged by the post.

To control maintenance costs, check for training to self manage or train an assistant, even virtually.

FIRST STEP. Consult. Connect with at least 3 web developers. Learn what they offer, timeline, deliverables, costs, extra services like branding, SM marketing and training. Get a proposal and make a contract defining the project. Your web developer may continue to be in your business life, so make sure the relationship feels right.

NEXT STEP. You will need to be involved in your website creation and social media marketing management, so earmark the time and understand that you are moving your business to the next level.

Spending your time and money interconnecting your social media with your branded website provides you with a digital media marketing presence and messaging that grows your business through exposure and organic SEO.

Erika Burke is the Founder of Scribe415-A Digital Marketing Agency for business and real estate professionals who want to grow their business.

#scribe415 #branding #websitedesigner#content #socialmediamarketing #igotit#yougotit #2018marketinggoals#itseasierthanyouthink #imeasy

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SEO and Connectivity- 5 Steps

Did you know that bringing visitors to your website through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will increase internet visibility and visitors to your site?  You can hire an individual or company to do this, or improve the odds yourself.  Here are a few must's!

1.  Make sure your website is built on a platform that allows you to push blog posts to social media automatically.

2. Create regular posts from the blog on your website and make sure to push them to your social media accounts, rather than generating them from social media.

3. Add pictures to your posts.

4. Add video to your website, blog and social networking posts.

5. Use tags on all of your posts that are common search terms for subject about which you are blogging or specific to your business or service.

Try this and then view your website analytic's to see how many visitors you have captured, what content they are engaging with and where they came from to measure the results.