Getting a website up and running is the easy part: the real challenge is in then making that web presence a success. Like gardening, the successful company website takes time, patience and effort to cultivate.
Fair enough, but sometimes sites that aren’t living up to expectation are attempting to do so with one hand tied behind their back. So how can we ensure our site has the best fighting chance in a highly competitive marketplace?
Focus
A major shortcoming for new under-performing websites is often a lack of real focus. The site may look pleasing to the eye, but it also has to be unequivocal in its purpose and intent. Visitors should know instantly the purpose of the site. There must be a clear call to action. Just as bad as having no definable objective are sites that attempt to be all things to all people.
Defining a site’s reason for existence provides site visitors with clear directions and leads them into other parts of your site. Signposting should direct users onto the pages you want them to visit next. Think of the way a site is navigated as a signposted road that takes people through your site in a logical fashion and gets them to where you wish them to go.
The aim is to lead your site traffic to your products and services in a way conducive to them being converted from visitors into paying customers. No two sites will be identical in this respect as the goods and services being provided will largely dictate how they are sold and what type of information needs to be put in front of potential buyers.
While sales will be the objective in most instances, a website may also have alternative or complementary goals in mind, for example, forwarding marketing information or requesting a call from a sales representative as a means of sales lead generation.
Locus
It may appear glaringly obvious, but build and promote the site for your target audience. Knowing your customers and target audience will illuminate and determine the approach to be taken. For once you know who your traffic is going to be, it is then possible to build a site that presses all the right buttons and will be appealing. The first taste, they say, is with the eyes. Get it wrong and site visitors won’t stick around for long when there are so many other websites to choose from.
Think of it as the difference between the Sun and the Guardian. Imagine they both receive the latest story about the credit crunch from the Reuters press agency. What reaches print the next day in these respective newspapers will be vastly different but essentially the same story. So tailor your content to suit your readership in the same way.
Equally, giving away free ringtones will appeal to a younger audience, but probably leave those of more mature years somewhat cold and disinterested.
Pocus
Key to getting the ‘right’ traffic is search engine optimisation and careful keyword selection. The aim of search engine optimisation is not to drive irrelevant traffic to a website, but rather to get eyeballs there that are qualified sales. There’s no point spending hard cash on a site if it is marketed to the wrong people. Quality traffic that is qualified, i.e. actually interested in what you are selling, is infinitely better that traffic quantity. At the end of the day, 10 visitors that are predisposed to your wares are worth 100 random visitors with no real inclination to buy.
Search engine optimisation is often referred to as a black art, but this is grandiose – it’s more about stacking the odds in your favour by knowing what makes the search engines tick.
