MAKE YOUR WEB SITE WORK MORE SO YOU CAN WORK LESS

AUTHOR: C.J. Hayden, MCC

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.

See you at the top of the rankings,
C.J. Hayden, MCC

C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients NOW! Since 1992, C.J. has
been teaching business owners and salespeople to make more money with
less effort. She is a Master Certified Coach and leads workshops
internationally. Read more of her articles at www.getclientsnow.com

* Go to Home Page* Go Back to Review more Articles
9114 Adams Avenue, #147, Huntington Beach, CA 92646
Toll Free, 24 hour Phone 1-877-376-4630
Visa * MasterCard * AMEX * Discover * PayPal