Originally written as a trial article for a freelancing platform, September 2018

If you’re a small business owner just starting to build your online presence, chances are you’re new to this whole “internet marketing” thing. Every dollar in your budget counts, so you want to be absolutely sure that your money isn’t wasted on digital marketing that won’t immediately start driving calls, clicks and new customer purchases. 

With this goal of instant payoff in mind, you may be disappointed to learn that simply having a website that exists online won’t guarantee an increase in clicks, calls or sales. In fact, it’s unlikely to do anything for your ROI unless you learn exactly how to leverage it to your advantage and supplement it with a strong understanding of your target audience and search engine optimization (SEO).

If you find yourself questioning the investment you made on your website and discouraged by its low position in search engine rankings, here are a few reasons why that might be:

1. Your site doesn’t contain strong calls-to-action (CTA).  Calls-to-action encourage your visitors to do something to learn more about your business and start the conversion process. A click-to-call button, a contact form, or a video give visitors plenty of incentives to learn more about you and start the conversation with you. Make these buttons stand out from the rest of your site (such as a different size font or a contrasting color) so they catch your visitors’ eyes easier.

2. Your social media presence is nonexistent. More and more customer journeys start by finding and following businesses on social media, where they will then click on links to view your site. Frequent, relevant activity on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram not only shows your clients that you’re interested in engaging with them, but all those links back to your website will strengthen your SEO and lead to your business showing up in more search engine results.

3. Your star rating is terrible. Check reviews that your previous customers have left about your business on Facebook, Google and Yelp. Are there lots of them at 3 stars or below? If so, potential customers are more likely to do business with your competitor. Since Google, Facebook and Yelp don’t always remove negative reviews from their platforms, it’s important for you to address these customers’ negative experiences yourself. Be real with them. Apologize. Offer a discount for future use and tell these dissatisfied customers what you plan to do to improve your service in the future.

4. You’re not blogging. Filling your site with naturally worded content relevant to customers’ search queries will create a larger sitemap, since each blog post is indexed as a separate page on your website, therefore increasing your SEO.

5. It just takes time. If your site is newly published, it’ll have stiff competition with businesses that have had established websites for years. Google takes up to 4 weeks to fully crawl and index new sites, and it can take even longer than that for you to start seeing calls or clicks roll in.

With a little patience, a lot of social media sharing and a strong content strategy, your website should start performing better and leading to conversions soon. Sites take effort to maintain, but it will be worth all the work to your new, possibly lifelong customers.