Over the years as the internet and online commerce have evolved so have the functionality requirements for successful company websites. Websites build just a couple of years ago are often out of date and underperforming against their competition. It’s fair to say that today’s best practices for websites are to be a continual “Work in Progress”.
A few years ago, we built “set and forget” static websites that functioned primarily as a corporate brochure with pages and pages about our company and our products. Today this approach presents several problems for your online success.
First, when searching for products and services people want “RECENT” information. Even if your products and services haven’t changed your search results can look dated compared to more recent updates from your competitors.
Second, the search engines provide more recent and relevant content a higher ranking than dated pages that have not been updated recently.
Third, today’s online presence is more than just your website. It consists of new and evolving ways of finding information. Depending on our market you need to understand what search devices dominate your user’s demographic (phones/tablets/pc’s/etc.) what search engines would be most effective to engage and what social media platforms make sense for you and why.
Google – 88.65%
Bing – 6.11%
Yahoo! – 3.55%
DuckDuckGo – 1.33%
OUR BASIC ASSUMPTION IS THAT MORE LEADS AND BUSINESS IS DESIRABLE!
What do we mean by Websites “Built for Business”?
We mean that you need a website that is designed with a marketing business plan.
A plan that uses every available online resource available to:
Drive traffic to your website
Convert that traffic into identifiable new prospects
Measure the cost and effectiveness
Iterate and improve our success rate
What are some of the online available resources?
There are basically two different marketing channels that need to be considered and optimized.
INBOUND CHANNELS
Marketing Tools that help people looking for products and services similar to ours online:
· Search Engine Optimization (SEO, SEM, ADWORDS, etc.)
· Social Media Platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc.)
· New Media (Video’s, Virtual Reality, GIF’s, etc.)
OUTBOUND CHANNELS
Marketing Tools where we push branding and information out to a market segment that should have some level of interest in our products and services:
· Email Marketing
· Events/Shows
· Press Releases
What do all these marketing tools have in common?
They need regular, consistent NEW CONTENT!
What makes our website more relevant to prospects and search engines?
They need regular, consistent NEW CONTENT!
This leads us to the conclusion that the key to a Website that is “Built for Business” is one that is supported by a marketing business plan that creates ongoing new content that can be used for both inbound and outbound marketing activities.
Simply building a nice new site with a few calls to action may be a step in the right direction but you need to have an ongoing content plan for your website and its related inbound and outbound marketing campaigns. At LFS we have developed a content planner which we welcome you to use in your marketing planning activities.
It is available by clicking here.
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