Archive for the ‘Web Design’ Category

Is Time To Revisit Your Website Strategy?

Posted: Monday, April 5th, 2010

Why should you care about your website strategy? Wouldn’t it be easier just to put up a website and hope you hit on something that makes you money? If you’re like hundreds of thousands of other online business owners, that’s probably what you did. But now it’s time to re-assess the results and develop a strategy that will increase revenue consistently.

When you put up your first website, it was a snapshot of your business at that point in time. As your business evolves your website should reflect that. Have you added new and different products? Have you changed the focus of your services? Like websites, the businesses they support are organic. They grow and change. Your strategy for meeting those goals and objectives must change with it. Adding content piecemeal is necessary to keep your site updated, but at some point during each year you need to re-assess the big picture.

Make time to sit down with your key staff and review what your main business is today. Don’t cling to old notions about what it was or should be. Decide what it IS. Make sure that you are taking advantage of opportunities that will propel your business to the next level.

Analyze your Website Content

Does your content match your current goals? I recommend using a tool called a webmap to analyze your website. You can use any tool that allows you create a map showing all the main branches on your home page. The key here is to strip away the graphics and really look at your content and navigation path. Don’t be distracted by pretty colors and pictures.

Take Action: Create a specific path on your home page for visitors to “walk” For example, if the main goal of your website is to get visitors to call, don’t put up extraneous links to distract them. You want to them to write down your phone number and call you. Everything on your home page should support that! An 800 number in the banner area is a great idea. Links to books they should read on the subject is not.

Compare the Competition

It’s always a good idea to look at what the competition is doing on their website. Create maps for their home pages as well. But don’t assume that because they are bigger, that their website has a better strategy. Deep marketing pockets can often mask website failures.

Take Action: Compare your maps and see what emphasis the competition places on their home page. Do they focus heavily on promotions? Are they using free content to attract visitors? Note the best strategies and see how they apply to you. But have confidence that your content has value.

Revise and Test

Be prepared to change your home page content based on what you learned. Be bold, try new things. But be sure you test what you’ve done. You don’t want to change something that was working. Your webmaster should be providing you with the statistics you need to test and revise.

Take Action: Carefully analyze the changes you’ve made. Buy the best website analysis tool you can. Make sure you know what kind of content generates sales. Then pour it on and watch your revenue grow consistently!

Posted in Internet Marketing, Web Design | No Comments »

4 Ways Viral Marketing Will Drive Traffic To Your Website

Posted: Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

Viral marketing comes with an array of possibilities and ways to achieve your overall goals. As with anything all you need is preplanning and the right setup to create success for years to come. Viral marketing is a very powerful asset every web site owner should pursue.

However, don’t get over-zealous. One issue you must avoid at all costs is spamming. Spamming otherwise known as “spam mail” is still used widely, but with government establishing more restrictions and fines you don’t want this to be a source for income. The professional image of your site will also suffer greatly if you send mail blatantly.

To create Spam mail you typically need a database that contains a huge list of email addresses where you can deliver your message with one click. Unfortunately, Spam mail takes us back to the days of broadcast faxes. It irritates the recipient and kills the validity of your company, which in turn kills the factors that would motivate someone to refer your site.

However there is good news, you can get your message out in a way that motivates people to check it out and keep coming back for more. Let’s look a little further at the next four avenues you should consider.

  • Personalize - Create your website with personal appeal. In other words, design it where customers can go in to setup their own personal profile. This will help to give your customers a feeling of comfort. Let’s face, it people instinctively think about themselves and their own needs above others. So give them the ability to use your site in a way that they feel safe secure, and cared for.
  • E-mail - Email is very important, because it is going to be one of the most affordable ways to keep in touch with your customers. The proper way to handle email permission is to first let your customer know that you will not transmit their email to third party companies. Then you will want to attach the need for their email to the benefits they can receive. For example: Coupons or discounts that are only available to members that receive email notifications.
    With each e-mail, you send, the viral marketing effect takes place. If the receiver feels good about the information they received, they will pass it along which is exactly what you want to accomplish. Another good viral marketing method to use with e-mails is to offer another piece of viral marketing material in your e-mail. Incorporate things like a free report, free e-book, or a free newsletter. Anything free will attract attention and help to build your prospect list through viral marketing.
  • Scheduler - Building a way of reminding people of certain events or sales on your website will go along way in customer retention as well as keeping your site on their minds. Basically, the more you stay in front of your customers the more they will be talking to others about your site. Offering simple services like this can keep your name in front of potential customers on a regular basis as well a generate the viral marketing results you want.
  • Web Forums - Once you have obtained your customers email address you will want to setup a link that will allow them to discuss products or services that you offer with other customers. This helps in building bonds, but more importantly people typically like to include their friends in the arena. Look at gambling sites; the majority of business that they receive is via referrals. Once you’re on the site the majority of them have rooms that you can go to and talk and play with others from around the world.

By properly building a web forum community, you will create a buzz and with the right preparations will cause your business to grow significantly.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Uncategorized, Web Design | No Comments »