I know many of you readers have sales and marketing first and foremost in your thoughts. I’m seeing that sales are more competitive right now–more prospects are getting more bids for the work they need to do. So all of us would do well to tune up our websites.
On the other hand, it’s also the case that the same factors that are making it harder for you to do business will cause some of your competition to drop below the radar for various reasons. For example, not maintaining an excellent website presence will make more opportunities for you and those who are marketing engaged.
If your site is to work well as a marketing tool, then it must have robust health in 3 major areas. These are the 3 big questions to ask about your site:
- Is your website design up-to-date or out-of-date?
- Is your web copy selling or skimpy and lacking energy?
- online marketing-How does your site do on Google? What are you/ your online marketing team doing to draw traffic to your site?
–DESIGN If your site is more than 5 years old, it might be time for a redesign or new site. If your site is more than 5 years old, the colors and styles can become dated over time and might imply your business is out of date.
When I say “might” I mean it. It might be out-of-date or it might be fine. Look at the websites of well known and established companies. Compare the colors and styles…ask a couple of colleagues you trust who are marketing savvy. Or ask me.
For business you don’t necessarily need a “fancy” site, but you do need a clean, professional looking site that connotes credibility, reliability and with-it-ness. However, if you are in a design field you need a sophisticated design for your site.
–COPY is the most important part of your website. Sure, design counts too and ugly design will send people clicking away fast. However it’s the words that do the heavy lifting and helps people decide to work with you or not.If your site doesn’t seem to be helping you with sales, then be sure to scrutinize the copy. The words must create a compelling case for your business.
–ONLINE MARKETING Can people find you on Google? Do you have an online presence? This could be a valuable source of leads and prospects for you and there are now all kinds of online tools to make it easy.
New sites are going up all the time and optimized and reoptimized thus increasing the competition on Google. Therefore, if your site was built a while back or you haven’t been adding to it’s search engine ranking then it may be in need of ongoing optimization and online marketing techniques.
If you want to know more about online marketing, write me a note and I’ll send you the title of an easy-to-read, current book on online marketing.
There you have it–an annual check up for your website, if you will.