 Web Site Best Practices
Blogging, Googling, & Surfing
Driving Customers
To Your Business Web Site
By Shawna Vercher and Benjamin Daniel
Published: February / March 2008
By the time you read this article, something in it may
no longer be true. The statistics may already be
outdated. The leaders of the marketplace may have
shifted. That’s how rapidly the pace of technology
changes. The Internet is driven by innovation, with new
ideas constantly shaping what it means to be successful
in business. The web presence representing your company
in this global exchange is now just as important, if not
more so, than your physical office space.
So with the pressure on to allocate more and more of
your firm’s resources toward an impressive web site, how
do you make the Internet work for you? More
specifically, how do you make your web site a tool that
generates money for your company instead of a financial
drain? It all comes down to a game of exposure.
There are hundreds of millions of people online, and
every person that looks at your web site is a potential
customer or someone that may refer your product or
service to a friend. Here are five keys to increasing
exposure for your business online:
1. Find out how much traffic you are already getting.
It’s important to know how many people are already
visiting your site and whether or not they click past
the home page. If sixty percent of visitors leave once
they see your site, the problem is that your site is not
what they were looking for or not enticing enough for
them to want to learn more. This is a good indicator
that it’s time to discuss the marketing message your web
site is conveying with a professional.
Most hosting companies offer some sort of free tracking
software that your webmaster may be able to access for
reports. If not, have your webmaster install Google’s
free Analytics tool on all of the pages of your site and
spend at least a month tracking the results before
investing in other means of web site exposure.
2. Make Google your friend. Being listed high in search
results for particular keywords and terms is critical to
ensure that as people are looking around for your
services or products, they find you in their search.
There are literally hundreds of search engines, but over
eighty-five percent of the searches conducted online are
either directly on Google or on a search engine that
gets its results from Google. Gain visibility with
Google and a significant part of your search engine
battle is already won.
Target your efforts to ensure that your site is as
“Google-friendly” as possible. The text should be
original and relevant to the keyword(s) you are trying
to top. Since Google cannot see images in the
traditional sense, your webmaster should “tag” each
image with a description that also includes keywords.
Your webmaster can also use some free diagnostic tools
that are available online through Google’s webmaster
portal to ensure that there is nothing on your site that
Google considers to be detrimental to your search engine
ranking.
3. Advertise online where your prospective customers are
already going. People tend to see an ad or a listing
three times before deciding to click on it. The good
news for your finances is that this holds true for both
large and small ads. Create a few general ads and
listings that you feel would entice people to visit your
site and learn more. Make sure that they are focused,
succinct and drive home the message of what your service
or product could do to make their lives or businesses
better.
Maximize the results of your advertising budget by
listing your site on free or inexpensive directories, on
other sites that link to related businesses, and on
locally targeted web sites. The key is to think about
the web “surfing” habits of your target market and try
to be wherever they visit on a regular basis.
4. Get on board with blogging. People who read blogs are
typically curious, loyal and active Internet users.
These are just the type of clients you want! Consider
having someone on your team write small articles at
least once a week about how your marketplace is
changing, about the adventures of a particular aspect of
your business, or about a niche topic that your target
audience would find interesting.
Blogs tend to be a large time commitment and your web or
marketing company may need to help you get started both
from a technical and a branding perspective. However,
the advantages to the visibility of both your web site
and your business can be more powerful than almost any
other type of advertising.
5. Bring your web site marketing into the real world.
Your web site address should appear on every piece of
marketing material for your business. Place your address
on the bottom of business cards, within each brochure,
and even at the end of all radio and television
advertising. Every contact you make should be driven
directly to the web site so that they can learn more
about what you have to offer.
Of course, if the thought of having everyone you know
pour through your web site makes you either a bit
uncomfortable or completely nervous, it is time to find
a good webmaster who can help get you back on track.
Shawna Vercher is CEO of
the award-winning web-based technology firm VTi Group
headquartered in Clearwater, Florida. Having managed
global projects for Fortune 500 companies, she
specializes in harnessing the power of the Internet to
grow small and mid-sized businesses. For more
information, please go to
www.vti-group.com
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