Kicking Off the April Blog Event: 10 Ways to Improve Your Website Online Visibility

To start off the TriMark Solutions April Internet Marketing Blogging Event, our first topic is “How to Improve Your Online Visibility”. So here goes!

Above all else, website credibility and can play a very important role in whether a visitor decides to buy a product or service from your website. So what can you do to increase your website authority and trustworthiness? Here are 10 things you can do to ensure your company website is attractive and credible to potential customers.

1. Back up your claims – Provide customer reviews and testimonials supporting any claims you make on your site. Facts and statistics from reputable sources can also bring more consumer trust to your site. If you have no way to back up any strong claims or promises, then remove them from your website.

2. Include endorsements – Similar to consumer testimonials, expert endorsements can also bring an air of credibility to your website. While this is not always the easiest task to accomplish, industry professionals and experts who will comment on the quality of your product or service will definitely create more trust among your visitors.

3. Provide your online visitors with fresh, new content – I’m not going to say it, because we all already know…. Ok, fine. I’ll say it, Content is King. But this goes beyond just having unique informative content on your website. You should also update the content frequently. Doing so will prevent your website from becoming stagnant and stale, and will also get those Google crawlers indexing your site more frequently. Blogs are a great way to constantly introduce new ideas and concepts into your company webpage’s content, while allowing your consumers to interact with your posts at the same time!

4. Make your website appear professional – This one is simple. A poorly constructed webpage with odd or terribly laid out features will quickly turn visitors off, and they will leave your website. We’ve all seen those webpages that look like they were designed by a 3 year old who loved rainbows, and how long did you stay on that site? Honestly when I come across such a site, I usually don’t even read the content. It could be the most informative, shocking, or thought provoking content in all of cyberland, but I would not see that, because the website just isn’t professional in appearance.

5. Associate yourself with credible products & companies – If you reference reputable products and services on your site, then your visitors will associate you with them. However, if you partner yourself with businesses that are unethical or not respected, you may end up lowering your own online presence.

6. Proudly display any awards or memberships you have earned – Joining a reputable association or club in your company’s industry is another great way to promote your professionalism and dedication to your trade. TriMark Solutions proudly displays many of our awards and certifications, including our Better Business Bureau accreditation, and naming to the top 25 Internet Marketing and Design Firms in the Triangle.

7. Be personal with your visitors – Interact with your visitors. Respond to questions in your blogs. Show them that you appreciate them visiting your site, and try to build a relationship with them. Also, be sure to include an “About Us” or “Contact” Page on your site, offering a brief (but professional) profile of your employees. They will help strengthen the connection between you and your visitors, and ultimately help them establish a higher level of trust for you and your company.

8. Don’t have tons of advertisements on your site – Remember in tip #4 when I mentioned keeping a website professional? This goes hand-in-hand with this idea. Tons of flashy or obviously placed advertisements will not help your website establish credibility. Visit Colgate.com, and try to find a paid advertisement. You can’t do it. I understand that is an already established company and website, but this doesn’t change the fact that the website promotes its own credibility through a professional and ad-free design.

For a smaller company, who may benefit from advertisements, just be sure to keep them from cluttering up your page. The main rule when placing advertising space on your website is that you do not want the ads to draw all the attention away from your messages and content. So be careful where and how they are placed.

9. Minimize uses of pop-up windows – Part of being professional and credible is simply appearing that way. Web surfers still hate to see pop-up windows, and while most companies have steered clear of this tactic, some poor souls still run websites which spam pop-ups to no end. This is very annoying, and should be prevented at all costs.

10. Proofread your site! – Before presenting a finished website to a client, the last step that we always take at TriMark Solutions is to proofread. We have over 5 years of experience, and even we usually find a typo or two that need to be corrected prior to finalization. Failing to proofread leads visitors to one of two conclusions: 1) That you did not take the time to check for typos or 2) That your company’s employees are too, well, stupid to realize they made a mistake. Either one of these outcomes will leave a bad taste in the visitor’s mouth, and will lead to a decrease in your credibility.

The absolute best advice I can give is to create a website that maximizes your company’s strengths, highlighting any achievements and awards you have, as well as clearly describes who you are, and what services or products you focus on. Doing this will lead to a clean, attractive website which visitors will see as professional and credible. Refer to our website, www.trimarksolutions.com, for a prime example of how a professional website should look and function.