S o you have a website. Big deal almost everyone has a website now if they have been in business for any length of time. Most startups(successful) include a website as one of the most important elements of their marketing plan. Inexplicably, so many seem to take no though to the actual user experience, how to make their site a sales tool rather than a business card, and even more shocking, no thought is given to search engine visibility.
Websites come in all shapes, sizes and functions. Cost can range from hardly anything to massively expensive. Unfortunately, many of the "experts" out there are either living in the past when it comes to online technology or purposely doing a shoddy job to increase profits. The majority of business owners aren't online marketing experts or web developers, and shouldn't have to be. However it is their job to find the right company or consultant to create a solid online foundation since advertising ROI can be directly tied to online perception.
Your presence online is the first perception of a company for the majority of potential customers. It's normal to spend millions on brick and mortar locations, yet the vast majority have done no form of keyword research to determine their customers are searching for, and no user interface studies to design a site that converts visitors to customers. Your website is the powerful sales tool at your disposal, or at least it should be.
No matter what you spend on your website, you will get no ROI without two things: visibility and conversion.
Visibility comes from search rankings and using traditional and online advertising to drive traffic. What good does having a $100k website if nobody knows you exist online. It's like having the best oasis in the Sahara and being hidden behind a giant sand dune.
Drive traffic, drive traffic, drive traffic. It's the smartest most effective way to increase ALL advertising ROI. The great news is that with a good search engine optimization company, some patience and vision, improving your search engine ranking is entirely within your grasp.
Drive traffic, drive traffic, drive traffic. It's the smartest most effective way to increase ALL advertising ROI. The great news is that with a good search engine optimization company, some patience and vision, improving your search engine ranking is entirely within your grasp.
Step #1 is targeted keyword analysis research. It's amazing how often the keywords that make the most "logical" sense aren't actually the most searched. Sometimes keywords with lower search volume actually generate more qualified leads. This is the foundation to actually generating the conversions which make SEO pay for itself. Once your top 5 keyword strings have been determined, the ardous and time consuming task of achieve a higher search rank begins. The most important element to consider is this...SEO takes time! But significantly less time than you might expect to be considered the "top dog" in your business category. If you stick with it till you are on top of Google, it's almost impossible to NOT get more customers.
Conversion isn't really a "next" step in online marketing, but is what follows after SEO and traffic driving mechanisms are put in place. This is where your website not only pays for itself but starts generating massive return. That being said, how great your products are, your fantastic pricing, customer service etc are completely irrelevant if you have a high bounce rate. Bounce rate is a percentage of total visitors that come to the site the immediately click away. There are many potential reasons for a quick departure, but the most common reason is negative perception of the website.
You only have 2 maybe 3 seconds to convince them to stay and dig deeper. We live in a world where the next option is literal just a click away. If you site looks out of date or poorly designed, a reasonable perception is your business is poorly run and may not be the kind they want to do business with. Of course this probably isn't the case, but you never get that opportunity to sell them. Ease of navigation, quality design, and great content are what start the sales process. The reason your website has the potential to be your best salesperson is the customer can sell themselves at their own pace. If your site is created with "user paths" that act as roadways through your site with a phone call, store visit, or online purchase as the destination, the customer is being "guided" to your goal without them even realizing it.
This is where you start to see the real return from your website and marketing in general. With website analytics you can track where they came from whether it be a search engine, a custom url from a TV or radio campaign, and even which online ad is actually sending customers.