/ Digital Transformation

Website Launched. Now What?

website

Any Chef will tell you that food doesn’t appear on the table out of thin air. It will hurt their heart to see any meal that they prepare go to waste. It starts with planning, purchasing of ingredients and prepping. After these things happen, the actual cooking process can then begin. Like the Chef, you’ve put in considerable effort to launch your website. Now that it’s live, we know you’re wondering what’s next? 

Although there are over a billion websites out there, not all are active. In fact, only about 17% of all the websites in the world are active and used. This goes to show that after all that prep work, you need extra steps for it to be palatable. You don’t want to end up with a parked-up website that’s left to fall by the wayside, wasting away on the internet. Your business needs to grow, and your website is your prized possession. It sustains your business, like food sustains the body. 

Have a look at these snippets from our Website Launching Cookbook. They will help to make your life much easier. Your business will grow as your site evolves: 

  • Share it with everyone: Your website is now ready and it’s time to serve it. It’s your 24/7 salesperson. It presents what you have to offer (your products or services). It provides unique information to the public. Your family, friends and yes even the haters are ready for the taste test. Your website is ready to work for you!

  • Test it: The prolific boxer, Mike Tyson once said “Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face!”. Before your website leaves your kitchen, go through every part of it. Check links, forms, booking or scheduling links and grammatical errors. This would prevent you from getting complaints. Nobody likes food that’s sent back so ensure that your site is operational and legible. A free tool that you should check out: Broken Link Checker.

  • Speed Test & Mobile Friendliness: A crucial factor that we should always take note of is maintaining a rapidly loading website. Your audience is waiting, and boy are they are hungry! I’m sure you’ve visited a website that took ages to load or tried to use it on your phone and it was hard to navigate. You then decided that it wasn’t worth your time, and you left the site. This is very important for user experience and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). As your website continues to grow it will become more complex and content heavy. This slows down the load time. It affects your user experience, bounce rate, search performance and ultimately your revenue. Get some extra help. Some tools can help you serve like a Sous chef or Line cook. They include PageSpeed Insights Tool or Mobile-Friendly Test.

  • Back-up your website: Ensure that you back-up your data. This ensures peace of mind and buffers your website from malware infections. It also makes it easier to conduct any hosting migrations in the future. For WordPress websites use Backup Buddy or WP Buffs. Other platforms such as Wix can use cPanel. This software can download a full site backup.

     

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    It’s important to know what’s the best seller on the menu, frequency of customer visits and the peak times. You do this to restock and have ingredients on hand to serve the best version of the meals you have to offer. Do you know how many people are visiting your website? You can use this to measure how much traffic is being sent to your website. It also sets up performance trackers. The great thing about this is that it’s a free platform. It’s collects data that shows how people use or interact with your website. These include:

    – Time of visit, pages visited and time spent on each page of the web pages
    – The URI and URL
    – Type of Web Browser
    – Type of Operating System (OS)
    – Network location and IP address

  • Set up Google Search Console: This is search-engine focused. It provides tools and insights. These can help you improve your visibility and presence. This is important in the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs). It’s will improve SEO. Ensure that you connect your website to Google Search Console.

After this scrumptious meal you must crave some dessert. Here are some additions to the steps we highlighted: 

  1. Conduct Email Marketing: Now that we’re done with all the technical aspects, it’s time to focus on driving traffic to your site. E-mail marketing is a type of marketing that targets customers on your e-mail list. It makes them aware of any new products, discounts or other services that you have to offer. Some useful platforms which you can use are MailerLite or MailChimp.

  2. Set up Social Media Marketing: You should use social media platforms to help your search engine results page (SERP). Link your new website to social media platforms. This will allow your audience to follow your brand without having to visit your website. You need them to engage so that your business builds trust with your audience and customers. When people trust you, they will buy your product or service. They will recommend it with confidence to others.

    social-media-channels

  3. Connect with Bloggers and Site owners: Blogging gives you something to share. It will encourage your visitors to connect with your website. You will also connect with other professionals in your field on a more personal level. You do this via backlinks.

Let’s not waste a perfectly curated website. Our hope is that you put these techniques into good use. To perfect any dish all you need is the belief and knowledge. Practice all the techniques you’ve learnt. The end result will be a fantastic blend of the right combinations of these steps. Your audience will crave your website so much so that it won’t have the chance to end up tucked away in the fridge.