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| August 2010 |
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In this issue:
Are you -
1. Keeping your site fit for purpose?
How well does it work to drive your business or distinguish you in your particular sector? Whether you're looking to inform, educate, promote or sell, regular reviews and revisions will help your site maintain a fresh impression to tempt customers and tap into their needs.
2. Being seen? Being read? Being heard?
Your audience comes from a mix of -
Search engines: rankings are based on your metadata (titles, tags), content and incoming links with PPC (Pay Per Click) to attract and convert additional visitors.
Referrals: when other sites and social media see your material and activities as worth sharing.
Direct traffic: from the contacts you've made and those they've passed you on to.
Growing or maintaining traffic levels means being competititive for your slot in the market, and being found where consumers are searching for your products and services. Wanting people to tune into what you're doing leads us to...
3. Marketing or promoting your site?
Just as with your business, if you just build it they just won't come - however good it is. Apart from word of mouth and direct contacts, the buzz around you on the web will come from how and where you're telling it, or encouraging others to.
From newsletters and mailings, blogs and articles, forum posts and social media to web ads, directory listings and visibility in the search engines, there are plenty of options for improving your visibility and reputation online (and cross promoting these too).
4. Boosting confidence and trust?
It's one thing to say what you do, another to demonstrate your distinctions and other people's regard for their value.
Testimonials can be a strong endorsement for your skills and achievements, blog posts and webinars offer thought leadership and a view from behind the scenes (not forgetting the SEO benefits), industry associations show the circles you mix in whilst examples or case studies illustrate your challenges and how you deliver on them.
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Excellent value delivered with quiet and effective assurance, professional know- how and a creative eye. Jeremy never makes the solution more complex than it needs to be; he listens, delivers and understands that the web site is there to help our business, not be another headache.
Greg Purkis, Principal Manager
The Fostering Partnership |
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5. Making it easy to engage with you?
Much more than a colour scheme, your site design has to quickly highlight what makes you special and direct people to the particlar areas they'd like to pursue.
Positive impressions start with attractive and user friendly pages, then they're re-inforced by involving visitors in up-to-date content to make them feel receptive to your business and what it has to offer.
And - if you're thinking about using video, it's easier than ever to display and the search engines can now recognise the content too.
6. Getting your message across?
"What's in it for me?" The web is a selfish pursuit, and for your visitors this can cover many bases - how you could be the answer to their problems, the solution to their needs, the remedy for their pain or the fix to keep them interested and coming back for more. Whatever your relationship, they'll need to easily 'get' what you do and why you could be right for them - and for rankings, the search engines will too.
The RBA* site sets out exactly what it's about | |  |
7. Attracting & using prospects' details?
Getting to know who's on your site gives you the chance to build relationships and convert prospects into leads and customers. Signup forms, for something instant or coming up, prompt visitors to provide basic contact details (and any extra qualifying information) which they may be happy to add to later.
Once people have given their permission, it follows that they'd like to hear from you through the information they've provided so you can build lists and follow up accordingly.
What can you offer your visitors here?
8. Helping visitors get in touch?
If you're looking for people to make contact through your website, you'll have to catch them before the moment has passed.
Keeep phone and email details handy by including them on every page, with contact forms for shaping enquiries either close by the material they're referencing or a simple click away. More direct points of reference (away from the ubiquitous contact@) will often help too.
9. Checking your competition?
From how and where they present themselves online to the value they offer and their strength in the search engine rankings, looking at your competition will show what you're up against - and what you'll have to improve to take a slice of their pie.
What works (or doesn't) about their web presence? Is there anything they do that you need to, too? And where can you stand out and be different?
10. Learning from your stats?
There's a wealth of analytics for monitoring your users' behaviour to build on what's working on your site and address what isn't. You can use KPIs or specific goal tracking to set benchmarks or absolute measures for your site's performance and its contribution to your business.
Figures don't necessarily tell the full picture but they do give a useful indication of how well your site is doing against what you'd like it to, which is where we came in...
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Looking for more?
Degas Guruve specialises in creating a range of websites and emarketing services to generate interest, leads and sales for our clients.
If you need to get to the next level for your site, shop or mailings, let's see whether we can be a good fit to help you get there - and stay there!
See more of what we do and the work we've done on our website.
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