Launching a new website is an exciting time. You’ve spent the last few months thinking through what makes your business unique and how you want to present yourself to the masses, and now it’s ready for everyone to see! You’ve made an important investment with your new website and, like any other investment, you want to protect it and utilize it as best you can.

So, you have a new website – now what? We’ve put together 5 next steps that will put your website to work for you, attracting new leads and better educating your current clients.

#1: Use Your Blog to Share Resources

The majority of the pages on your website are rarely updated – your About pages, Services pages, and Contact page only change if you add a new staff member, revise how you approach a service, or change your address. These pages are meant to stay the same. So, how do you create repeat visitors to your website? A blog!

Your blog is the best way to engage your website visitor. As you write articles that are relevant to your ideal client, you will become a trusted expert and create sharable content that will generate new leads. Additionally, a regularly updated blog is one of the best ways to improve your Search Engine Optimization.

Your blog topics should be relevant to your industry, thorough, and thoughtful – don’t repeat information that is already on your website. Make it new and insightful! Here are some of our recent articles to give you an idea of the topics we discuss as a marketing agency:

• 7 Ways A Small Business Can Stay Proactive

• Improve Client Loyalty & Lower Acquisition Cost With Relationship Marketing

• 10 Reasons Your Business Needs an eNewsletter

• 10 Ways to Grow Your Business Today

• Pay Per Click Advertising: What Is It, Why You Need It, & How To Use It

• 10 Reasons Social Media Works for Every Industry

Our primary client is a small to medium-sized business owner, so our articles are focused on how they can grow their business. Determine who your primary target market is and start writing directly to them! As you write your article, picture them and ask yourself what they need to learn more about as it relates to our service offering.

#2: Spread the Word & Direct People to your New Website for Resources

Your new website will likely feature information that your previous website did not. Hopefully, it will also feature a blog with lots of great resources for them to read and share. Take a few minutes and make a list of your new features and begin to share those with clients and colleagues. There are several easy, effective ways to do this:

• Send out an email inviting them to visit

• Post the new link on social media

• Update your email signature to include a link to the website

• Update any directories if your website link changed (Chamber, Associations or Memberships, Google, YP.com, etc)

• Send out an eNewsletter promoting your new website

• Make sure your print material includes your website address; it’s also a good time to consider updating the design of your brochures and stationary to match your new website

These are all great ways to reach out to clients who you may not have engaged with recently. You can also invite their feedback as a way to spur dialogue. One of your primary goals with a new website is to serve existing clients, so spend some time thinking about how your new website does this, and then let them know!

#3: Capture User Information

Your website should also serve as a lead generator. The best way to capture information from a website visitor is through a downloadable resource, such as an eBook, white paper, checklist, or landing page. The information included in these resources will not be available elsewhere on your website and will be hyper-focused on one topic.

An eBook is typically 15-30 pages in length, discusses one topic, and has a heavy design focus – it is not just a bunch of text on a white page. It is meant to be engaging and fun to read. You can view our eBook on Setting Business Growth Goals that Stick here. A white paper is like an eBook, but smaller in size – typically 2-5 pages. Once these resources are established, you’ll need to create a workflow, so that when someone downloads it, you can follow up.

It’s also valuable to create landing pages. This is a hidden page that is not accessible from your main menu. It will hyper focus on one topic and will have multiple calls-to-action to better capture user information. The contact forms and phone numbers can be trackable. The best way to generate traffic to your landing pages is through paid ads. Your landing pages are the perfect places to offer your downloadable resource.

Once these resources are developed and the workflow for download and follow-up is established, you will need to direct people to these resources. A great way to do that is through a Google AdWords campaign. You can learn more about Google AdWords and pay-per-click advertising here.

#4: Study your Google Analytics Report

As you put more referral channels in place for your website, it’s important to track and analyze how your website is being used through a Google analytics report. When it comes to your website, information is power, and the more you know about how your website is being used, the more you can continue to build on its success.

A Google analytics report will provide you with a lot of information, such as:

• Locations of your users

• Mobile versus desktop usage

• Total number of pageviews, including a ranking of your most popular pages

• Average time spent on website

• Referral sources so you know where your traffic is coming from – Facebook, LinkedIn, Google AdWords, organic, and more

There’s an endless amount of data available and, if you study it properly, you can make decisions about what to discuss on your website, which referral channels to invest more time and money in, and much more.

#5: Double Check your Online Listings & Monitor your Online Reviews

An area that is often overlooked, but very important, is your online directory listings. Similar to how phone books used to operate, these directories list all of your information and appear when someone types your business name into a search engine. Often, a business will have incorrect information on these directories. When you launch a new website, it’s a great time to check your online listings. We have a free scanner here so you can see if your listings are correct.

There are over 100 directories that you can list your business information on to help attract customers. As a bonus, the more external websites that include a link to your website, the better your SEO score.

Just as important as your online listings are your online reviews. When someone Googles your business name, they will see your online profile and your review score. It’s important to focus on increasing both the quantity and quality of your online reviews.

You can learn more about our listings management and review management services here.