Today it’s hard to find a company that doesn’t have a website, most likely because it’s easy to build a website or easier still to hire someone to do it for you. But building a website is like erecting a billboard in the forest. To get people to see it, you’ve got to build a road to get them to it. So it’s less about having a website and more about having a website that is an integrated part of your marketing strategy. And the integration part is much more difficult—it requires planning.
Here are some tips to get you started on the right path:
· Remember, it’s Marketing—Stick to tried and true marketing principles. Understand your value add, articulate a clear message and distribute that message. A website is simply a new tool to accomplish this.
· Determine the Purpose of the Website (before it’s built!)—A company’s website is usually a critical component of the overall sales and marketing strategy. Some companies may also want to utilize it to hold information for its employees, clients, partners, and prospects. It should have its own clearly defined mission statement. If it doesn’t, you might end up with a great informational site that no one will ever find on the all important search engines.
· Get Ranked on Search Engines—Everyone wants to be #1 on Google, but few know for what. It isn’t going to help if you’re a specialized grocery store and are displayed on the first page when someone searches for ‘computer bytes’ Understanding your website’s positioning in the marketing plan helps you to know whether search engine ranking is important, it isn’t valuable to all businesses. If it is important to your business, then Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is critical. Most people aren’t looking for you or your products or services, they are looking for a solution to a current problem. In search-engine land, the way to find a solution is by using keywords to search the vast stores of information. Behind the scenes, Search Engines electronically read a website’s content and index it. The website is then categorized based on its content, the categorization is largely based on the words the website uses and delivers to the search engine. For example, if your website mentions ‘woolen hats’ often, then it has a better chance of getting displayed when someone searches for ‘woolen hats’ in Google. For SEO, picking keywords early in the game is important, but it doesn’t stop there. Search engines also cross-reference your website with others. For example, if other websites (or even blogs) mention that your website has the best woolen hats, then search engines understand that this is a good thing and increase your site’s ranking for ‘woolen hats’. This can end up being a lot of work. Many companies are exploiting Web 2.0 (blogs, micro-blogs, and other social networking tools) to increase their search engine visibility.
· Paying for Visibility—A ranking based on content, keyword relevancy, and links from other sites is defined as an ‘organic search’. The other options to increase website visibility entail spending money—either by paying for the distribution of press releases from one of a number of web providers (search for ‘press release distribution’ and note that some of these have ‘free’ services), or by joining a Pay per click (PPC) program like Google AdWords where you pay for certain keywords and then get your ‘ad’ displayed in the ‘Sponsored Links’ area on the results page(s). PPC programs are not immediately intuitive. Do some research to understand the process before investing.
· Commit the Time & Energy—It takes commitment and it takes time for a successful outcome. After kicking off a website marketing program, it may take months to get your site moving up in the rankings. Significant, continued effort is also needed. By frequently updating content, images, keywords, meta tags and title tags and by re-indexing the site, the search engines will consider the information you are providing as more valuable and relevant, and will keep it visible. If you plan the website, integrate it with your marketing efforts, and buy into the time, effort, and cost of frequent, on-going updates, you will see the benefit.
Rick Huebner is President & CEO of VISTECH.com, a technology company based in Hartford, CT. Go to VISTECH.com for information on complete website solutions. VISTECH.com is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner offering software development, website development, computer/network support, Microsoft Unified Communications implementations, and IT consulting.
