If the New Year isn’t enough to spark interest in setting lofty goals for the months ahead, a change in the decade surely will. As we welcome 2020 and all of the potential opportunities that lie before us, it’s important to understand what the objectives for your business are and how you plan to achieve them.

Web Marketing is a common solution to many business problems. Customers don’t know what you offer? Build a good services menu. Need to build relevance in your target markets? Run an SEO campaign.

But, there’s another solution that Web Marketing can provide, and it’s for an increasingly common business problem... finding new employees.

If you’re looking at the fall season as a last chance to meet your revenue goals for the year, it may be a good time to evaluate your Website. Chances are, you already have several marketing programs in place to drive traffic to it, but with so many potential customers evaluating your business based on your Website, do you feel confident enough that it’s making the right impression?

Do you remember using the Internet 15-20 years ago? There were dial up modems, pages loading an inch at a time, and certainly no exchange of credit card information online. Nowadays, our mobile devices are able to recognize our faces!

When the playing ground has changed as much as it has, there’s no use in approaching the Web the same way you did years ago. This same logic should also apply to your company’s Web Marketing strategy...

It’s easy for things to fall through the cracks when running your company and managing your employees are your main priorities. Day-to-day activities can easily sidetrack your goals of growing your business and owning your local market. It’s for these reasons that many small businesses don’t pay much attention to where they exist online. Your company’s Google ranking is not something that should fall off your radar.

There’s something to be said about the fact that “Google” is most people’s go-to word to describe searching for something online. “Google It” has become the new way to suggest looking something up. According to search experts, 88% of consumers who search for local businesses online either call or visit the business within 24 hours. It begs the question: If customers search for your services online, will they be able to find your business?

The journey to the number one ranking on Google differs across cities, towns and industries. But generally speaking, it’s safe to say that proper keyword placement, quick page load speed and quality content are the best bets for SEO growth. These strategies make it easy for Google to match searchers with results that are most relevant to them.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are a few strategies you need to avoid if your goal is to improve your ranking.

When building your Website, it’s important to accurately represent your company’s identity. Your Website is your #1 Marketing resource, after all. While branding and credibility are important, don’t forget the primary goal of your Website: to turn people searching for a service into customers. User experience is the key to a successful Website, which is why it needs to be revisited on a consistent basis.

Even though most companies like yours do the majority of their business over the phone or in person rather than online, having a Website is an essential step to getting in front of potential customers in your service area. Nowadays, your Website is your most valuable marketing tool.

Companies that don’t have a Website lack credibility and miss out on the growing number of customers that do online research before hiring a provider. In one report, researchers found that 63% of consumers primarily use a business’s Website to find and engage with a local service. In other words, businesses without a Website are missing out.

Your end goal when structuring your Website should be to optimize user experience. Your site needs to be structured in a way that guides users through certain steps you want them to take. Whether it’s filling out a consultation form, learning more about your product or service, or signing up for a newsletter, you want them to be able to do so as easily as possible.