Business Expansion – Using the website to reach new horizons

For any ambitious business owner, expansion is likely high on the agenda of the business’ overall goals.

Business expansion is, afterall, important to tap into new markets, increase revenue and improve long term sustainability and resilience in this ever-evolving and dynamic business environment.

If you’re looking to start on your journey to expansion, the foremost and most fundamental step is research.

Truly understanding your market, the profiles of your current and prospective customers and meticulous assessment of your market options, will all form the foundation of your expansion strategy.

So with that being said, how can your business website help in these ever-important first stages?

How to identify growth opportunities

To identify growth opportunities from your website, you must first look into the various aspects of its performance and how users interact with it.

There are a plethora of strategies that can be explored at this stage.

Website Analytics

Website analytics tools, such as Google Analytics 4, allow you to delve into data for key metrics such as user acquisition, engagement and conversion.

Its capabilities allow you to look at really granular data to identify patterns, popular pages (and the not so popular pages), to give an overall visualisation of user behaviour.

It also provides analytics data on User attributes, notably Demographics, with a snapshot of user gender, interest, age and even the language they speak.

Image shows data from the demo account: Google Analytics 4 property: Google Merchandise Store (web data)

This demographic data can prove a very important metric, as it may open your eyes to an audience type that you haven’t previously considered on the website.

By identifying this new user profile, you can adapt your website or advertising to better align with these audience groups, whether that be through reviewing the website navigation to allow for this new user journey, or by tailoring content to engage these types of users.

Image shows data from the demo account: Google Analytics 4 property: Google Merchandise Store (web data)

Conversion Funnel Analysis

Depending on your website, there may be multiple conversion points that you have to monitor.

Whether this is bottom level conversion, of receiving an enquiry via a contact form, or a conversion that culminates from a purchase via an online shop or e-commerce function, each avenue for user engagement should be optimised.

It’s therefore crucial to regularly evaluate the conversion funnel on your website to identify potential bottlenecks or roadblocks to users.

For example, if users abandonment rate at the start of the checkout process is high, you can ask yourself;

• Is there an error on the website that is stopping users from continuing the process?
• Is the checkout process long and laborious, are users deterred by the design / functionality?
• Is the checkout process accessible for this user? For example, do you ship or provide services for their locale, do you offer a secure payment method that they are able to use?

Image shows data from the demo account: Google Analytics 4 property: Google Merchandise Store (web data)

If the abandonment rate is attributed to the users geographical location, for example, how can you ensure that this user is catered for?

Perhaps a globally recognised payment gateway such as Stripe can be utilised for payments, shipping options can be revised to include global shipping – maybe you could even use WPML (on WordPress websites) for website translation – just be mindful that automatic translation isn’t always 100% accurate.

It’s ultimately about identifying where changes can be made to generate those new sales and adapting the website to be more accessible to your potential customers.

Image shows data from the demo account: Google Analytics 4 property: Google Merchandise Store (web data)

Customer Feedback and Surveys

Growing your business doesn’t always mean winning new customers, it can also mean identifying how to upsell to your existing customer base.

Gather feedback from your website visitors through surveys, reviews, or contact forms. Pay attention to their comments, suggestions, and pain points to identify areas for improvement or new opportunities.

Online form builders such as Gravity Forms, Google Forms, Jotform and Microsoft Forms can be used or embedded onto your website to help in the quest for customer feedback.

Link to a feedback form post purchase to ask users to rate the checkout process, schedule follow ups with product feedback requests or send a survey to existing customers to glean what service or product they may want to see in the future.

This insight from customers who have already engaged with your business, and have established an element of trust with you, is so key.

And this feedback, alongside sales data, customer buying patterns and popular products can reveal opportunities for upselling and cross-selling.

Just keep your eyes open for a golden opportunity.

Email from ASDA George, as a follow up from a customer order.

Competitor Analysis

In a highly competitive business environment, it’s integral that you are regularly analysing your competitors to identify strategies and offerings that are resonating with their audiences.

If you’re providing similar, or the same products and services, what differentiates your business from theirs, are they doing a lot of business in an area or market that you don’t currently cover – can you leverage this?

If so, it’s still not as simple as just doing what they’re doing, instead it’s being able to do what they do, but better and communicating this to potential customers.

Afterall, your customers will evaluate both you and your competitors when making a purchase decision, so you’ll need to convince them that you’re the right choice.

So how do you stay one step ahead?

Read your competitors’ reviews, are there any common complaints from their customers, such as lack of after sales service, concerns on product quality, or warranty.

If after sales service is a common denominator, make sure you’re shouting about your exemplary after sales care on your website, including content that is complementary to this alongside those key conversion points.

You can even have a dedicated section featuring FAQs, instructional or supporting visuals and video, or customer testimonials.

Ultimately, it’s all about the visibility of your offering as a business and the presentation of your USP’s that will elevate you above your competitors.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Keyword Analysis

Search Engine Optimisation, as you may or may not know, is the practice of making your site more visible on search results pages.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) can be an absolutely mammoth task and is a product of a culmination of many different factors on your website, such as:

• Website url structure and hierarchy
• On-page optimisation including; keyword density, internal / external linking, meta titles and descriptions.
• Website technical health including; page load speeds, code optimisation
• Domain authority / backlink profile

Perhaps the first stage of advancing your SEO strategy to grow your business, is understanding what terms your audience is searching for and putting together a keyword strategy.

Here’s a very brief look at how you can utilise keyword analysis to improve your search rankings to more efficiently target not only your current customers, but also broaden your reach to grow your business.

• Define your goals, are you looking to increase traffic or target specific topics?
• Find your niche and audience, consider the language, interests and problems of this target audience.
• Brainstorm keywords, starting with a list of keywords directly related to your business or product.
• Use keyword research tools such a SEMRush, Moz and Google Keyword Planner to understand search volume and competition for desirable keywords.
• Look for more specific keywords, usually referred to as long tail keywords, these are often more successful for niche audiences and have less competition.
• Analyse competitor keywords, to understand the competitive landscape.
• Understand the search intent behind specific keywords. Are users looking for information, products, reviews, or solutions?
• Use location based keywords, if you’re trying to grow your business within another geographical location, include location based keywords.
• Organise and prioritise your keywords, create a roadmap on how you target these on the website, what content can be optimised or added to reflect these keywords.
• Refine and iterate regularly, as keyword research is an ongoing process. Always revisit and refine your list based on changes in your business, industry trends, and shifts in user behaviour.

Image showing snapshot of Keyword Research tool SEMRush using the bbc.co.uk website as an example

Content Performance

Following on from looking at SEO optimisation, and in the same vein, is content performance.

If you have blog posts, articles and multimedia content on your website, use statistics to understand what is resonating with your audience.

Understanding what your audience wants to see and exploring opportunities to create more content in those areas will nurture that engagement rate.

Equally important, is identifying what content any new audiences / markets want to see and adopting the same strategy.

If you have a blog, an intuitive filter / category function can allow multiple audiences to hone in on the content that they would like to see more efficiently.

Additionally, considering each audience type and their subsequent user journey on the site, will allow you to create a structured content plan / site hierarchy, enabling you to create an almost personalised experience for that audience on the website.

Innovate to stay ahead of the curve

Stay informed about trends, technological advancements, and changes in consumer behaviour that affect your industry.

Innovate your offerings or website features to align with emerging opportunities.

Example

A technology company identifies a growing industry trend for sustainability practices and recognises an increase in demand for eco-friendly products and services.

How can this be translated onto the website?

• Announce this on the homepage, through the use of the hero area, or a clearly communicated statement that details steps that the company is taking to reduce its environmental impact.
• Create a dedicated sustainability page, which users can be directed to from relevant areas of the website, which contains cornerstone content on the topic.
• Include educational content via blogs, articles, infographics, customer feedback and testimonials that discuss trends and challenges and show how the business is addressing environmental concerns
• Interactive sustainability reports not only make for a more engaging experience, but also provide a visual cue that showcases the business’ key achievements, goals and ongoing efforts.
• Detail partnerships with environmental organisations by including their logos, or any accreditations consistently across the website. Include external links to the respective partners websites to give the user easier access to any follow on information.

By actively embracing this trend, the technology company positions itself as socially responsible, appealing to environmentally conscious customers and businesses – which aligns with the values of growing this segment of the market.

Our takeaways

By combining data-driven insights with customer feedback and industry awareness, you can uncover growth opportunities that are specifically tailored to your business and its online presence.

Regularly revisit these strategies to stay proactive in identifying and capitalising on potential avenues for expansion to really leverage your website to reach new horizons with your business.