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Is your Website doing its job?

Business people tend to underestimate the power of the Web to bring in business. A few invest in great Web sites, but then don’t market them effectively! There are some wonderful sites that are almost “hidden” on the Web. Web marketing has one thing in common with other advertising: no mater how good the ad, it won’t build your business unless a lot of people see it.

We tell our clients to view Web marketing as two separate components: First, is the creation of a site and second, is marketing it. Building a site requires creativity, design skills and an understanding of color, images and popular trends. Marketing a site, on the other hand, is a much more routine, repetitious, even boring task that must be done consistently over time. The following are 10 suggestions for marketing your Website:

 

  1. Hidden Title. This is the first of three critical items that are coded in the “Head” of every Web page. It is the first thing a search engine sees at the top of your page. While this title is visible on browsers, most people ignore it. I’ve seen great sites that have no title at all! Use 3-8 words that describe what you do and flag your site for search engines.
  2. Meta Tag Keywords. The second item in the “Head” of your page should be a hidden Meta tag with 15-25 words to help people find you. There are words people are likely to enter in a search request. An accountant might have a string like: “Accounting, bookkeeping, records, taxes…”
  3. Meta Tag: description. The third item in the “Head” is a hidden sentence that describes both your page and your site. Make it vibrant, use as many of your Keywords as possible, and make it accurate. This is a one-sentence description of who you are, what you do and why people should visit your page. You’ve got 15-20 words. Use them!
  4. Visible Title. This is the first thing people will see, and it’s what most people think of as the “title” of their page. again, you want it to invite people: be accurate and brief. While a beautiful logo or banner may look nice at the top of your page, remember that 3-5 powerful words will download faster. The words in your title will also connect with search engines in a way that your logo can’t.
  5. First words on page. The first few seconds while a page is downloading are critical, and a short statement of what you do will download faster them most images. First impressions count! Search engines can catalog a brief but exciting description og your business, but they won’t catalog your pretty picture!
  6. Have multiple pages, each with their own marketing system. A simple way to increase the “hits” on your site is to increase the number of entrance paths. Rather than have one long page, divide it into three pages, each with its own title, meta tag, and description! If your pages are all linked within one site, you vastly increase the opportunities for people to find you.
  7. Submit to search tools repeatedly. Search engines constantly update and expand their databases. To stay in the game, I suggest you resubmit your site at least once a month. Using the Web to draw business is an ongoing project, not a once and forget it task! There are services that will do this for you (for less than $100), or you can do it yourself.
  8. Include you Web URL on your advertising. This seems obvious, but lots of people forget. Have your site on your business card, brochures, all of your advertising! If people are interested, want more information or are just curious, make it easy for them to check you out. Display your URL on everything!
  9. Exchange links. One of the best ways to increase traffic and target specific audiences is to resubmit your site at least once a month. Using the Web to draw business is an ongoing project, not a once and forget it task. There are services that will do this for you (for less than $100), or you can do it yourself.
  10. Have something of value that changes often. Give your visitors something they can learn, do or enjoy each time they visit. Let them sign up for your newsletter, post a “Joke of the Day” or a daily quote. It doesn’t have to relate directly to your business. People love parenting tips, humor, inspiration or practical tips for better living (Remember Martha Stewart?). Give them a reason to come back!
And we make it easy for you so you can focus on what you do best.
Stick to the knitting
Stick to the Knitting – Focus on what you do best

Knitting dates back to the 11th century AD and is much different than crocheting. I remember my grandmother crocheting when I was a kid. I used to help her with the yarn. I also wore the goofy shaped hats and scarves, and still have the 300 lb. king-size blanket. What I didn’t realize at the time is that she also gave me memories.

I remember asking her, “Why don’t you knit instead of crochet?”

And in broken English she said, “Causa I can’t goa so fast.” And as the mother of 10 daughters, who have been aptly named  Tasmanian Devils for the speed at which they do everything, my grandmother was right…stick to the crocheting.

Of course, that expression was not made famous until  Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. in their book  In Search of Excellence, was published in 1982. Of the eight themes they argued caused success in companies, #6 was, “Stick to the knitting – stay with the business that you know.”

A somewhat mixed message comes from, Michael Gerber in The E-Myth. He first talks of the entrepreneur who knows how to do the work. This person is a  “technician” and thus someone who is “sticking to the knitting”.  Gerber wrote,  “All of them believing that by understanding the technical work of the business they are immediately and eminently qualified to run a business that does that kind of work.”  But yet, these entrepreneurs fail because, “Suddenly the job he knew how to do so well becomes one job he knows how to do plus a dozen others he doesn’t know how to do at all.”

And what happens next, we do the same thing we did before and hope for a different outcome. (See definition of insanity.)

Both books though are saying the same thing. If you are going to start a business, at least let it be a business that you know something about. And then either find a partner, or hire someone, who has a skill set that compliments you. Too often business people are stretched too thin by not relying on employees or contractors they have hired.

It is as if they don’t believe the person they contracted with can do the job. Here is a perfect example in our business.

We do internet marketing and web design. In a nutshell, we:

1. Drive traffic to your site

2. Capture info from that traffic

3. Convert traffic to leads.

4. Constantly measure success of all the steps.

Everything we do is about increasing your efficiency concerning leads and sales.

So we are hired by a company who is having little to no success generating traffic to their website. Within 45 days, we revamp their website and successfully:

  • have them found on page 1 of a Google search (they weren’t within the first 8 pages before)
  • generate 145 unique visitors to the site (they had 0 before)
  • capture information of 86% of the visitors
  • convert 63% to leads
After all of this is done, our client decides they don’t like the look of the now productive website and request us to change it back to original website.
This is like me:
  • saying to my doctor who has diagnosed that I have to have my appendix removed, “No Doc, its only gas pains, no operation is needed.”
  • at a loan closing, desperate to get my money, agreeing to all the favorable terms, and saying, “No, I don’t want to close, I’m paying too little.”
  •  making the Olympic team, and deciding, “The weather in London isn’t nice enough, I’m not going.
Insane, yes. Real absolutely. And it happens everyday, in all types of businesses. And what we all need to do is, “stick to the knitting.” Focus on what we do well and keep on doing it.  Let the experts be the experts, prove themselves and then get out of the way of your business being successful. I can still hear my grandmother, after doing something she wasn’t happy with, say,   “Howa cuma you so stupid?” And I didn’t have an answer then, and I don’t have an answer now except, “It’s not me Grandma.”