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Make Your Web Site Work More So You Can Work Less
by C.J. Hayden
http://www.getclientsnow.com
Do you know how your web site fits into the overall
marketing strategy for your business? Do you have a
strategy for your web site as a marketing tool? If you're
like many entrepreneurs I speak with, you probably don't.
All over the world, small business owners are spending
thousands of dollars on building and maintaining web sites
without being able to answer one big question: What do you
want your web site to do?
Creating a web site without a marketing strategy can be an
expensive and time-consuming mistake. Here's an
illustration from the more familiar world of paper and
postage. Imagine that you hired a graphic designer, printed
5000 four-color tri-fold brochures, and when the boxes
arrived, you asked yourself, "Gee, what shall I do with
these?"
That scenario may sound a bit embarrassing as it stands,
but let's take it further. Suppose the first idea that
occurs to you is mailing your new brochure to a list of 500
names you collected by exhibiting at a trade show. But then
you realize that you didn't design the brochure as a self-
mailer -- all 6 panels are filled with graphics and copy.
To mail your brochure, you will now need 500 envelopes. Of
course you want to use the ones printed with your address
and logo, but how much do those cost a piece? And do you
have 500 in stock? What will be the cost in money or time
to get envelopes printed, addressed, and stuffed? How long
will all this take? Was any of this in your budget when you
had the brochures printed?
The brochure example can tell us much about what goes wrong
in creating web sites. Many sites are constructed to be
simply electronic brochures. Entrepreneurs often get their
sites designed by sending their printed brochure to a web
designer, and saying, "Put this on the Web."
So here's what is wrong with that. If you want your web
site to attract traffic, your web site must be DESIGNED to
attract traffic.
You have a choice in designing your site and integrating it
with your overall marketing strategy. You can choose to
make your site an electronic brochure with no consideration
of how to attract visitors built into the design. If you do
this, it means that you must direct traffic to your site by
other means -- advertise, promote, exhibit, speak, write,
network, prospect, mail, call, etc.
Unfortunately, most small business owners find this out
after the fact. They put up the site and then slowly
realize that no one is seeing it. So they start spending
time and money on banner ads, on-line malls, classifieds,
postcards, bulk email, posting articles, exchanging links,
and more.
The alternative is to design your site to attract traffic
in the first place. If you're going to spend all the time
and money to build a web site, doesn't it make more sense
to have the site bring you customers rather than you having
to bring customers to the site?
To create a high-traffic web site, it must be search-engine
friendly. 85-90% of all web site traffic comes from search
engines. When a customer types in a keyword phrase you hope
will bring them to you, your site needs to be one of the
top 10-30 results shown or that customer will never get to
you. To earn top positions in the major search engines, you
or your web designer must know the guidelines each engine
uses to create its rankings, and mold your site to meet
them.
Some of these guidelines relate to the content of your
site, and how it is organized. Others have to do with the
technical details of how your site is constructed. If you
don't want to know these specifics, you'd better hire
someone who does. That's the problem with letting just
anyone who calls themselves a web designer create a site
for you.
Looking at a designer's portfolio of completed sites will
tell you only a small part of what you need to know about
their abilities. Who wrote the content for those sites? Who
designed the page layout and navigation? Where did the
graphics come from? And here's the most important question:
What did the designer do to make those sites search-engine
friendly?
It's a rare person who possesses the four-way combination
of design ability, technical expertise, marketing know-how,
and search engine savvy to create an attractive, useful web
site that will attract traffic AND generate paying
customers. You know which of these capabilities you already
have, and what new skills you're willing to learn. Make
sure you hire people who have the rest.
C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients NOW! Thousands of
business owners and salespeople have used her simple sales
and marketing system to double or triple their income. Get
a free copy of "Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients
You'll Ever Need" at http://www.getclientsnow.com
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