ONLINE SPECIAL
COULD YOUR ON BE PUTTING YOUR
Rafferty Gifford is a digital marketing professional at Liberis
T
he world is now online, there’s no way around it. How you portray yourself on the computer screen is
often how the wider world will perceive you, regardless of never having visited your premises or used your services. So combatting any negative impressions
needs to be high on your priority list. Here, I look at some common mistakes, such as poor website design and performance, a lack of social media presence or bad brand design and put together a list of examples and how you can overcome them.
Slow coach Optimising your website to not only look great but operate in the best way possible is the first step to achieving a positive experience for your customers online. With Google now pioneering the concept of Mobile First, being able to load your website quickly on any available device is imperative. The length of time it takes to load your
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website influences how likely it is that someone will stick around to look at your company. Google now advises that your website
should take no more than 3-5 seconds to load completely, therefore providing your customers with a better online experience. This suggests that sites taking longer than this will be adversely affected by slow loading times both by users simply abandoning the process and never making it to your site and by Google themselves ranking your site poorly due to the inability of their bots to crawl the site satisfactorily.
Be more social ‘I tweet, therefore I am’ – or something like that. In all seriousness, having an active and engaging social media presence can be incredibly useful for connecting you to your current customers, helping advertise to new potential customers and also keeping you ahead of the game with competitors. Many people now like to contact
OPTIMISING YOUR WEBSITE TO NOT ONLY LOOK GREAT BUT OPERATE IN THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE IS THE FIRST STEP TO ACHIEVING A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS ONLINE
businesses via social channels, being able to communicate with your customers online in real time, and also being able to let them know about any updates or events you have on, or new content you’re creating online is a fantastic way to stay in your customer’s minds. Providing a good customer experience makes a huge difference in how your customers will think of you. Social channels give you an entirely
free resource to advertise any changes within your business, new offers, sales and products arriving in store. Utilising these free channels and establishing a dialogue with your demographic can be the difference between a great sales quarter and a loss.
Poor representation Showing your best side is a given when you’re taking a selfie, but taking the same care when representing your business online – regardless of your industry – is a good move too. Take time to gather well thought out
pictures of your business; for example clear and flattering shots of the premises, as well as plenty of shots of your products, services or staff. This visual information will help potential customers form an opinion of your company, and that should be the best one you can help them make. Once you have invested the time and money in a good quality set of photographs this can be used across many communication channels, your website, social media and all your sales paperwork. If having professional photographs taken isn’t in the budget then taking out finance using a small business loan might be a good idea to help you set up the right impression.
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