Is your website ready to run paid social media ads? We come across a lot of prospective clients whose websites just aren’t. So we asked Heather Howe from web agency Sox Digital to put together some tips to help business owners get their website ready to run ads on channels like Facebook, Tik Tok & LinkedIn. Let’s see what Heather suggests…
So you want to start doing some advertising? That’s great, but is your website ready for it?
If you are running adverts to drive people to your site, you need to do a little bit of housework first – there’s no sense in paying to get visitors if it’s not up to scratch. You’ll simply be paying for them to leave. So let’s make sure that your website is ready to receive all of these clicks you are paying for.
Make sure your messaging is clear
When someone comes to your homepage (or landing page – more on this below), is it immediately obvious what you do, and who you do it for?
Website visitors need to be able to ascertain for themselves that:
- You can do what they are looking for and…
- That you help people like them
People have very short attention spans these days; you have a fraction of a second to communicate these two messages to your website visitor. Once you’ve caught their attention, you have less than seven seconds to communicate the important stuff. So get to the point. Try not to be tempted to fill the top of your website with pretty images, buzzwords, or catchphrases. Make sure it’s relevant.
Whilst you’re there, check your contact details are correct and your social media links all work too.
Add Google Analytics
If your advertising goal is to generate website visitors, how are you going to know if it’s working? This is where Google Analytics comes in.
Google Analytics will track visitors to your website, including:
- How they found you
- What they have clicked on
- How long they stayed
- What pages they viewed
This means you can see what advertising channels are working well for you and, therefore, where you should invest more of your money.
But don’t forget this means you are tracking people! This means you must have a cookie banner and policy.
We’d also recommend adding a dedicated landing page. This page is only accessible by somebody who has clicked on an advert, allowing you to niche your messaging, (based on the advert you ran), and more accurately track how successful it’s been.
Make sure your website is responsive
“Responsive” means that your site adapts, depending on what people are viewing it on.
Did you know that over 90% of all active internet users are using a mobile device? And that Google actively takes mobile responsiveness into consideration when ranking websites? You must make sure that your website is mobile and tablet friendly.
This doesn’t just mean “making sure it looks nice”. With Google’s recent update, they also take site speed into consideration. If your website is slow, or overly image heavy (and therefore consumes a lot of data to load), they will penalise you.
Make sure you have an SSL certificate
SSL certificate stands for “secure socket layer.” We recognise this doesn’t mean much to the average Joe though! What it really means is the connection to your site is secure.
An SSL certificate is what gives you the little padlock next to your link in the address bar. If you do not have this certificate, some browsers will flag your site as unsafe. Chrome goes so far as to not even load the web page until you dismiss a full-page warning from Google. This is not a good look! It will scare people – especially the technology adverse types – away from your site.
You do not have to pay to get an SSL certificate, so there is no excuse not to have one.
Check your user journey
Whether you drive advert clickers to your homepage, or a dedicated landing page, it’s important to know what you want them to do once they get there. Do you want them to view your online shop? Do you want them to read more about your team or service offering? Perhaps you want them to submit a contact form?
This is called a user journey; it’s the steps you want website visitors to take, and you guide them through the user journey using “calls to action”. Calls to action often take the form of a button – perhaps linking to a different page on your site – but they can also simply be contact details, such as an email address or phone number.
You can have more than one call to action on a page but, no matter how many you have, they should be:
- Unavoidably obvious – people are more likely to see them
- Easy to use – people are more likely to click on them, and follow through
Continue to build engagement on your website
PPC is not a magic wand – you need to continue to grow your business organically. If the majority of your business is online – such as an e-commerce store – the best way to do this is to continue to encourage website clicks/visits/exploration. This is otherwise known as “website engagement.”
If you want to improve engagement on your website then check out our free “12 point checklist to improve engagement.” You can use it like a workbook to audit your site, and we’ve included an explanation behind why each area is important too.
Too much info?
If this is all too much to take in, you don’t know where to start, or you feel completely out of your depth, then don’t despair. Not only do we offer free advice, but we can help you with everything website-related that we have written about in this article. Drop us a line on hello@soxdigital.co.uk or visit soxdigital.co.uk to find out more.
About Sox
We’re a small development company based in Truro. We launched Sox Digital because we strongly believe in doing the right thing. We had frequently been disappointed with our experiences elsewhere, so decided to “be the change”, and provide the kind of organised, passionate service we wished we’d experienced.
Graham is an experienced full stack developer who has been in the industry all of his working life. He’s worked on everything from small websites to gigantic cloud apps with billions of data points. Graham does most of Sox Digital’s coding.
Conversely, Heather has been client-facing all of her working life. Previously she has worked in primarily client and account manager roles, then moving into Project Management in the past couple of years. She manages Sox’s projects, communication and administration.