Marketing 101 (part four) When Will My Web Site Be Complete?

by James Fowler
www.mywebsource1.com

Previous Posts:
Marketing 101 (part one)
Marketing 101 (part two)
Marketing 101 (part three)


“When Will My Web Site Be Done?”


This is probably the most common question I hear from my clients. They want to know when their web site is going to be completed and the money is going to start rolling in. If this is how you are looking at your web site, you are going to be sorely disappointed by the answer. The answer is a simple one. “Your web site is never finished.”

All right. Perhaps that answer is a little too simple. What I should have said was, “If you want your web site to be successful, then your web site is never finished.” A web site is not a brochure that you hand to someone. It is a living, breathing advertising tool that you have to work at – on a weekly, if not daily basis.

But what is there to do? You have paid the designer to build your web site. You have had the text of your site optimized to be search engine friendly. The web site is customized to the needs of your clients. What else can you do? Below is a short list of answers to keep people coming to your web site and have the search engines continue to find your site.

Search Engine Submission: How often do you submit your web site to search engines and directories? You should be within the first two pages of a search engine to have successful results. This is not easily done, but can be achieved with due diligence. When you first start out this process will take 6-8 weeks for the web sites to place you. You can have this time reduced if you pay to do so. For example, Yahoo! will look at your web site within 7 business days for the price of $299.00. I am not suggesting that you do this, but it is an option. I suggest submitting your web site every 4-6 weeks to at least 30 new search engines. There are literally thousands of search engines out there, and you should submit to as many of these as possible. Each search engine has different criteria for indexing to their sites. This is offered as a paid service through my company or you can do this yourself. It takes about 3-4 hours to do initially and if you document everything in your personal files correctly, this time can be reduced with subsequent submissions.

Build a Link Strategy: A very effective method of getting people to your web site is to have a link strategy. This will help bring your web site higher up in search engine pages. Building link strategies is easy to do, as well, but time consuming. Ideally, the links should be incoming to your web site and they should have a relationship with the topic of your site. Be warned that there are FFA (free for all) sites out there that send your link and email out to thousands of web sites. This is basically spamming and will do nothing to help your web site. Some search engines, such as Google, are rumored to actually penalize you for joining these sort of link sites. I would advise against using a FFA site to build your link strategy. Also, do not sign up for too many links at one time. The major search engines also view this as spamming and will penalize your site. I would advise against more than ten links a day.

Create a “What’s New?” page: This is something that you can add to your site to keep people coming back. This is especially helpful if your site is particularly static because it states basic information or is a manufacturing site. There are many items you can place in the What’s New section. These could be a calendar of upcoming trade shows or events, press releases, special offers, or promotions. It could include an educational program that you are offering. The most important aspect of this is that it changes on a regular basis. From this, you can have an email alert to your customers that informs them when something is added to this section. This will help bring people back to your site and also give you permission to email them on a regular basis. It is a proven fact that the more permission you have with your customers, the more they will buy from you. I will speak about permission marketing in a later blog.

Offer Something Free: People love free stuff. They tell their friends about it and this brings more people to your site. A free offer doesn’t have to cost you anything. It can be a coupon or a screen saver. You can find free screen savers on the internet that will allow you to customize them. With these, you can put your web site name and logo to remind your customers of who you are. You can offer free online post cards. This is especially effective if your target audience is children or people with a special interest. You could have online post cards of pets, cars, or landscapes. You just have to find a niche with your customers. Other free items that can be offered are samples of your product. When you introduce something new or are featuring an item, this is the ideal time to offer a free sample. Finally, you could offer an informational piece for free on your products or services. People like to read about information from experts in the field they are interested in. Create an eBook and offer it for free. You will find that the informed customer is the return customer.

These are only a few examples of how your web site should be ever-changing. A fluid web site is a visited web site. If your web site stays static, what need is there for your customers to return to your site other than find your phone number or address? Give them a reason to return and they will. Additionally, the search engines also need to have a reason to come back to your site. If you change your site, they will come back and build the online relationship that you have formed with them.

I hope you find this information useful and will continue to have online success.