Do you have a website that just bleeds money each month? Or perhaps you are planning a site but want to understand just how to make it profitable? A great deal of business owners decide to make the leap and build an internet presence, then find themselves with a lemon that adds little to their business profile, sales or income. So what’s the answer? How do we turn a static website into a business generation engine? Like most things in life a website needs a little TLC to blossom into a great asset for your organisation. PurposesHave you sat down and worked out exactly what your site is for? It can be used to sell a product or service, as a brochure to attract business or showcase products, or as a relationship building tool. If you can come to a definitive decision as to its purpose, it will provide a clear path and enhance your chances of constructing a dynamic and effective web presence.
- Who is the site aimed at?
- Have you considered what appeals to your target customer base in terms of site content, look and feel?
- Does the site successfully deliver what it was it was developed for?
- If not how can it be improved?
- Are you using analytics to see what is and isn’t working in your site?
Relationship Building Building a long term relationship with a large network of potential customers is the sure way to ongoing profits and a website is one of the best tools to achieve this.
- What’s the difference between pushing for an order and building a relationship?
- Do you have a generous offering of free stuff for your visitors?
- Do you have a forum to promote the development of a community?
- Can you become the owner of the “net conversation” that relates to your product or service?
- Can you turn your site into a place where people choose to hang out because it has so much on offer?
Using data intelligently There are a host of excellent analytic tools readily available to all website managers. Tools that can present detailed traffic analysis and break it down any way you wish. Smart use of data analysis tells you how your site is performing and what changes are called for to improve results.
- Do you get regular site traffic analysis reports?
- Do you know what information is important to you?
- What decisions are you making from your analysis?
- Are you testing different site scenarios to improve effectiveness?
So what other aspects do you need to consider if you seek to turn your crusty old site into a dynamic, dollar printing domain? Here a few more areas where small, intelligent changes can produce dramatic results.Landing PagesWhen a new visitor comes to your site what’s the first thing they see? The arrival point is called the landing page, the design of this is crucial in determining whether or not the visitor completes the desired action or not. That desired action maybe purchasing something, registering as a member, entering their name and email into a form, joining an email list or a number of others. You need to decide what you want from the visitor and then construct the landing page to guide them to that result as directly as possible. Where too much information, cluttered design, unclear messages, unclear calls to action all take away from its effectiveness and success.
- What pages are constructed as landing pages?
- Where do they source their traffic from?
- What search terms (keywords) are these pages built around?
- Can you change, or broaden, the use of keywords to bring more traffic?
- Does the page present a clear message?
- Does the page present a clear call to action?
- Are you testing different versions of the page?
- Are you using analytics to ascertain if the page works?
Site OptimisationSite optimisation is what makes your site more successful with search engine rankings. Understanding the small things that the search engines consider important makes a big difference. Universal search was adopted by Google this year to revise the way its algorythms assess and rank websites. Content rich pages with video, pictures and soundbytes are rewarded with higher rankings. The site that keeps abreast of the changes in the search engine industry will succeed in achieving higher ranking and higher traffic.
- Have you set the keywords in each page of your site?
- Are these keywords relevant to the page content?
- Have you researched the keywords to ascertain how popular they are?
- Is you site content rich, are you using pictures, videos and podcasts in your site?
- Have you used the search terms in your page content?
- Do your pages continually offer new content?
- Have you got a site map?
- How many other sites link to yours and how can you increase this?
Email marketing Using email allows you to stay in touch with your prospects, build stronger relationships, build brand awareness, and generate sales. To succeed this requires a good system to develop, transmit, analyse and manage the campaign for your email marketing.
- Are you offering a freebie to capture name and email information?
- Do you have a well-managed database of all your clients and prospects?
- Are you designing powerful messages in your emails that have clear calls to action?
- How do you capture the information generated from each email campaign?
- Do you split test different titles, content, calls to action in each campaign?
- Do you have the data to be able to analyse and refine your campaign effectiveness?
BloggingThe explosion of blogging on the world wide web shows just how popular this communicative format has become. The corporate world gradually caught on and began incororporating business blogs in their sites to connect to their target client base. Although not initially a business medium, blogging has evolved into a positive method for keeping the message alive. The best blogs on the net are those written by bloggers with a genuine interest and passion for their topic. Companies that present dry corporate content blogs are not going to tap this rich resource with any effect. The only cost in running a blog is the time and resources required to post the articles.
- Have you set up a blog on your site?
- What aspect of your business activities could you generate regular articles of interest about?
- Is there a passion in your organisation that needs broadcasting to the world?
- Is there someone in your establishment that has a passion and could write your blog?
Tags: , internet marketing promotion, search engine optimization, web site marketing, website internet marketing, website marketing strategy
