How to Market your Website and Bring the Results you Want

Our job as web developers is to build a site that is functional and navigational once a visitor arrives to your website. We make the page aesthetically pleasing and attractive to the customer, as well as to you. But despite the website itself, there needs to be promotion, advertising and marketing of your website. Would you ever building a hotel, and just expect customers driving down the highway to show up at your door step? By simply hoping that visitors will find you on "Google, Yahoo or any of the search engines, you are doing just that, hoping. Although search engines are not a bad way of getting your website exposed, you have little control over them and there are much better ways of promoting your site in addition to appearing on search engines. This article will better explain a few ideas on how you can get the results you want, and maximize the investment of your website.

A couple days ago, I was talking with a local businessman I know . Since I am in the web design business, I asked him if he had a web site for his business. He replied that he had a web site a few years ago, but never got any business from it so he shut it off. My next question was “Well, how did you market it?” He stared at me blankly and asked “Market it?”

I hear that response or variation often. Many people believe the old adage, “If you build it, they will come.” But web sites don’t work that way. A web site can be a great marketing tool, if used correctly, but it is not a magical sales machine! Simply, sticking a web site out there and waiting for the customers to start pouring in is not the correct way to use a web site.

First of all I would like to straighten out a myth that most service-oriented businesses have been falsely believing in regards to their website. Unless you are selling a product nationally or on a large scale, it is very unlikely that you will obtain new customer from a website. Yes, very unlikely. However, your website is a conversion tool, you convert information seekers into your customers. I was talking with a local contractor recently and we begin to discuss the way a website could increase his business. I began to explain that when people see your name around town, they will look online, and do a little research. If you have a decent website they can read about you, see the recent jobs you have done, and get a good idea about your business. After reading about you online the chances are much greater that they will actually contact you. It rarely works the other way around. Nevertheless, you should be a part of the search engines, you want to make it easy for others to find your site, but chances are, they are not folks out of "the blue".

Since we are talking about making your site easy to find, we should be talking about search engines. Over 80% of the people that start looking for something on the Internet use a search engine. The search engine Google performs over 200 million searches everyday! With that kind of traffic you can see what a gold mine search engines can be for your business.  The best option to get listed on search engines is to advertise with them. Our WebTraffic Program extremely customized and specifically targeted to your customers. We choose the keywords that relate to your product or service and your advertisements are only shown when someone searches for those words. It is a great idea and I have personally seen businesses increase a lot by using it.  (Contact Us about WebTraffic Programs)

Speaking of promotion, here are some other ways that your web site can save you money are:

• Placing shorter advertisements in printed materials for less cost. Direct the client to your web site where they can obtain all the necessary information about your products or services.

• Not needing to hire additional staff to answer telephone calls with common questions. If you have questions that more than one client is asking, put it on your web site. Most people will check a web site for answers to their questions before calling. It also gives you more specialized content and remember, for the search engines, content is king!

• Providing common forms and/or applications on your web site that you request your client fill out. This works especially well for contractors and those in the health professions. Save your client time and money by allowing them to fill out your questionnaires before meeting with them and email it to you. Or, even better, let them submit it online and store the information in a database. Not only have you increased your customer service, but once again, you have saved yourself time and money.

Okay, so you’ve have a web site now. How do you tell people about it? How do you get people to look at it? If you have 1000 brochures printed, but leave them on the shelf in your office, they are not helping you to bring in new clients. Just so with a web site, tell people about it. Put it on your business card, on your brochures, on your car, or wherever you can. Get it out there where people can see it.

Here is a quick checklist of things that you can do to drive traffic to your web site on and off line.

1. Put your URL on all printed materials.

2. Use your email address @yourdomain.com not your AOL email address.

3. Create a signature for your email and then make sure that your signature is in every single email that you send (even to your mother!) Just a quick note here, I sent an email to my sister explaining how to fix a certain computer glitch. Well, she printed it out (with my signature line) and gave it to a friend of hers who had the same problem. Her friend ended up needing a web site and guess who she called? Your signature needs to include: Your Full Name, Your URL, Your Email Address, Your Phone Number, Your Tag Line or Slogan and Your Company Name.

4. Try to find publications your industry and suggest or submit an article. Your URL should be listed with any article you write and if it appears on a web site, then it should be a hyperlink.

5. Networking Just because you have a web site, don’t sit at home and expect the customers to call you. Go find them. Attend networking events in your home town and hand out your business cards with your URL on them!

Ryan E. Vaught
Vice President Sales & Marketing