Online presence is one of the leading factors in successful business practice across all industries today. Though we’ve been walking the path toward a digitized economy for a decade or two, the pandemic shifted that transition into high gear. Now, if a laundry’s website is hard to find, navigate or even look at, the consequences can be significant. No longer are reputation, print advertising and location the main drivers of business. Online presence, design and visibility are essential elements of an effective prospect outreach strategy. If you’re wondering whether your website is helping or hurting business, here are some questions to ask. In Part 1, we looked at questions about how trustworthy your site looks and if it’s fast enough. This time, we examine questions about the findability and security of your site. CAN PROSPECTS FIND YOUR SITE EASILY? Search engines are the crossroads of the Internet where nearly 93% of all the web traffic flows. When prospects want to find services you supply, they’ll search for it in a search engine and, if your site is search engine optimized (SEO), there’s a good chance you’ll be one of the first choices on the results page. If it’s not, your competitors who are optimized will likely get that lead. • A simple SEO test To get an idea of where you’re at, search for your company’s name in your preferred search engine. If it shows as the first or second result, that’s a good start. Now, search for a product or service you provide like a prospect might. It could say “linen service in (your town or city)” or “uniform rental near me.” If your site is in the top five, that’s great. If not, things could be better. When looking to rank high for certain keywords, it’s important to have content built around those keywords. If they aren’t present on your site, or if the content around them isn’t written well or with SEO principles in mind, you will have a hard time ranking well enough to be seen. Read more: Is Your Website Helping or Hurting Business? |