By Steve Brester, director of information technology, for the Resolutions for Independent Pharmacies blog series
This is the second of two blog posts about auditing your web presence. My previous post covered getting started in monitoring your online success. This post will cover tools available and your content and social media strategies.
In your efforts to gauge how your web presence is making an impact, gather as much analytical data as possible. Typical statistics to monitor include reviewing how many times your site was accessed during the period of time being audited, which pages were visited, how many repeat versus new users accessed your site, and what search criteria was used to find your site. Google Analytics is a great tool for getting this information. Ask your web developer to show you how to use it most effectively. If your site is built on WordPress, there are tools within the WordPress platform that allow you to get valuable statistics. Again, work with your web developer to learn how to use them.
Remember to look at all of the online channels you participate in, including social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Audit how many new followers you have gained since the last audit, and whether you’re getting comments back from users. If your followers aren’t engaging, change up your posts and see what works. If you do get comments, make sure you respond to every one, whether positive or negative. Doing so shows your interest in interacting with consumers. Make sure you remain relevant on social media sites by adding content often. Remove content from any sites you no longer use.
As you perform your audit, it’s a good time to review your website content. Is it up to date? Can you add content that would be of interest? Update or add to your website content on a regular basis so you give customers a reason to keep returning to your site. If you do not already have a blog on your site, I encourage you to create one. Publishing new posts on a regular basis will help your SEO efforts and also keep you in front of the customers that sign up to receive your marketing content. Always check for responses to your blog to monitor how effective it is. Ask your customers directly what they think of your website, or ask friends and colleagues to critique it for you as this feedback will be invaluable to you. View your competitor websites and evaluate the content they have and what they are doing differently than you and use this analysis to decide if changes need to be made to your site.
Another effective way to see how often your store is being referred to on the web is to add Google Alerts. This free service will send you an email when if finds new results – such as web pages, online news articles, or blogs – that contain the search terms you define. Put your store name in as a search term and you can then monitor how often you are mentioned across the internet. Your web developer can help you set up Google Alerts.
By completing these audit steps regularly and documenting the results, you can see how easy it is to find your store online and how much engagement there is with your various web properties, and take the required action to achieve the goals you established. If you do not want to perform these audits yourself, there are companies that provide this service. Whether you devote the time to do it yourself or hire someone else to complete the audits, it’s important to perform them on a consistent basis going forward and use the information to improve your web presence.
