My Web Site is Built - So Where's the Traffic and Business?
By John Clark (c) 2008
 Article printed from SiteProNews:
Your website is built and sitting pretty. So where are all the
people you hoped would come over to play? You need traffic for
your site to be effective and to start generating leads. Now
that you know that just having a website won't necessarily
drive business to you, you should consider the most important
thing most people miss in this effort.
Here are the 3 factors that need to be in place for a successful
website and successful business. I'll list them from least
important to most important:
1. Sound 'on-site' Search Engine Optimization strategies. This
refers to the things many consider the most important. There are
the basic A-B-C's of getting things set up with keywords and
phrases so that you will rank well against your competition in
Google, Yahoo and the like. This involves a lot of elements that
you, as the end user, may never realize or see. Having the
proper titles for each page, putting in the right key words and
header tags. There are solid things that should be done and most
web designers that I talk to rarely take it beyond this point.
Being ranked well by search engines starts here but the best
realize this is only the start.
2. Content That Is Effective. Visitors are useless unless they
buy something or make contact with you. We call this "Conversion
Ratio". What percentage of your website visitors convert into
buyers and users of your services? This can and should be
measured. The important things here are the attractiveness and
professional appearance of the site with content that is
compelling. Having the right mix of words, graphics and
informational content can take conversion rates from being
non-existent to well over 10%. Do this right and your income
level can really zing.
Web designers get so many calls from business owners that can
only think to ask, "how much do you charge to make me a
website?" What they miss is what it will cost them in business
profits if it is not done right. Web designers may know how to
make a good looking site but not necessarily how to input the
words and content for the best results. Writing compelling
content is a very specialized talent. This takes more work and
more time to do. It costs more, but the difference can be huge
on your return on investment.
When you have this part right, the most important part of
driving traffic can be taken advantage of. This aspect is where
many web developers simply drop off the map in helping clients.
If you are shopping price only, you won't find this part of the
mix. What is it that they miss?
3. Off Site Factors Are Most The Important Factors in Driving
Traffic! What are 'off site factors'? The most important key
for ranking well with Google are the links that come to you from
other sites that Google considers to be important sites. MSN and
Yahoo are important sites. So are Digg.com, Wikipedia.com and
WowWebWorks.com. OK, so the last one is more important to me
than Google.
Here is the rub. How can you control whether or not other sites
talk about you and link to you? I don't mean calling other site
owners and saying something like, "Hey, I'll link to you if
you link to me" stuff. Mutual links are not important anymore.
One way links are. So how can you get those rolling? Well, this
takes work. The nice part is that it is work that will have a
direct effect on your bottom line. You have enough "busy work"
as a business owner. This isn't busy work; it's vital.
Social-Business Networking Sites - Use Them
This is where sites like LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com and even
MySpace.com come into play. I recommend using LinkedIn.com for
business development. From there you can refer to your website
and create interest in your site in others. I have a full
article of ideas for this elsewhere so I won't elaborate here.
For more on this see "Why Bother with 'LinkedIn' or
'Facebook'?" (http://www.sitepronews.com/2008/05/22/
why-bother-with-linkedin-or-facebook/). Posting your
information and inviting contacts to link in with you can be
huge. It's like having a second or third website with positive
recommendations about you and your business.
Effective PR Campaigns
This can be the most important foundation for your business
success. As our business partners Ray Lohner and Jerry Ogg from
E3 Public Relations have drilled into me, most businesses have
it all backwards. Here is what they preach for priorities:
1. Advertising => 2. Marketing => 3. Public Relation (If at all)
Wrong!
1. Public Relations => 2. Marketing => Advertising (If still
needed)
Right!
Many businesses we build websites for already do some
advertising with varying degrees of success. They do
advertising yet often don't know how that differs from
marketing and ignore PR altogether.
It is PR that really sets the table for all the rest to work.
The Internet is transforming even PR. Every time you have a bit
of company news from hiring a new employee to lending support to
a local charity it deserves a PR piece. Open a new office? PR.
Have a unique solution to a problem? Let the press know - they
may just do a story on it.
The idea is that if you get enough good PR working for you it
opens doors for marketing and advertising because your company
and name are more recognizable and respected. Just knowing who
you are can be huge.
What has changed in the PR realm in recent years is the rise of
online PR companies that will take your electronic releases and
send them as feeds to news services nationwide. An example is
www.prweb.com. It is chock full of information about good PR and
advice on how to write it for best effect. Your submissions are
sent out and picked up as a feed by other services. If your PR
piece has a reference to your website, you now have 1 if not
dozens of incoming links to your website. Do dozens of releases
and you have dozens of one-way links and start to get noticed by
other people interested in your field. Google notices this
also.
Why Is PR All But Ignored?
So why don't more businesses use this? Why do business owners
nod in agreement but rarely follow through doing this? Because
it takes time and effort to put together a good PR piece in a
form that will be picked up by other sites or publications. It
takes some knowledge to know where to even send it after you
write it. Frankly, you probably don't have time to sit down and
pen out a 700-word piece. Few have the writing talent to do it
right. It's a skill, a specialized skill. Even if you do have
the ability, you may well not know where to send it or who at a
publication might be interested in it. This is exactly why PR
firms exist. They do it well, know where to send it for greatest
effect and they know what is newsworthy to send. They usually
know people at the publications on a first name basis and what
they are looking for.
I'm betting that if you cut your advertising budget in half and
put that half into paying for a PR firm to take over that job
that your remaining advertising will be even more effective than
before.
This is one of the added values for quality web development
companies. Next time you call a web design firm and ask, "How
much does it cost to build us a website?" find out if "fries"
come with that. Do you get just a website or do you get the
added value of expertise in Public Relations, Marketing and
Advertising. Trust this, you will get no more than you pay for.
If your web developer doesn't do this, find a good PR firm and
make sure they work together to do the job right.
Find out if they know enough about LinkedIn to even be there. If
not, maybe they can't help you there. How about their press
releases? Do they even do them for themselves? How do they
pro-actively do marketing for themselves? There are probably
reasons why the cheapest bidder is the cheapest bidder. I hired
the cheapest bidder to pave my driveway. Huge mistake now that
it's cracking after only 3 years.
A larger vision can make you a lot more money. You have to
decide if "who's the lowest bidder" is more important than
how much money and exposure the site adds to your bottom line.
After all, isn't making money the point?
John Clark is the President of Wow Web Works in Kalamazoo, MI.
This and other articles of interest are posted on his blog at
www.wowebworks.com/community. His profile in LinkedIn. You can
also contact us at wowwebworks.com or at 269-321-5041.
Copyright ? 2008 Jayde Online, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
SiteProNews is a registered service mark of Jayde Online, Inc.
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