Yesterday, I saw the company truck of a business that I know has a website. While looking at the truck, complete with all logos, etc., I noticed it did not have its website URL listed. I was flabbergasted. I asked myself, “Why don’t they have their website listed on their truck?” Then, my next thought was, “I guess they don’t really value their website.” Which makes me wonder why they went to the trouble of building a website to begin with if they are not going to promote the site.
In this day and age, we are lead to believe, a website is indispensable, and I believe it is. However, if we don’t value the website, we might as well not have one at all. There are three ways (at least) that businesses don’t value their website.
First, a business does not value its website if they do not promote the site. Not putting your URL on your business card/company vehicle/stationary, etc.? Then, you really don’t value your website. You are not putting the website to good use if that is the case, and what other tool of business would we invest money (you did invest money didn’t you?) in and not use as it was meant to be used?
Second, a business does not value its website if it does not utilize it to generate leads or customers. Would you invest money in retail space and not bring customers in to buy your product? That is what you are doing with a website if you do not learn how to bring in traffic and convert them to customers or, at the least, a good lead.
Businesses put up websites because “everybody is on the internet.” However, when we let the website become stagnant, then we have wasted the money that we invested in to begin with. This brings me to a third way that businesses fail to value their website.
Businesses fail to value their website by having it built for free or cheaply. If you don’t believe it is worth investing in the website up front to get it designed well, then, then you do not value your website.
Businesses often wonder why their website becomes useless, but they fail to value it enough to invest properly in it’s use. That leads to little to no results. If you don’t invest up front, then what incentive to do you have to promote the website or use it well.
People who are good at this cost money. However, the rewards are many. Have you wondered what it would be like to be on the top of the first page in your major key words? How about what would it be like getting quality leads from your website without sending a salesperson?
Solutions
First, you need to invest up front in a good website. Find a good website designer who has done good work, and get over the sticker shock because he or she is worth the money. If you don’t know anyone, contact me and I will help you find someone. Having this done right up front can save you a lot of time.
Second, you need to either learn or pay someone to optimize your website for maximum performance. This involves skills such as search engine optimization (SEO) and copywriting. The copywriting can be tricky, but you need to find somebody who knows how to do it for the internet. A good place to start is with Copyblogger. They have a lot of articles to help you learn on your own.
Third, you should consider a social media marketing campaign. This involves setting up social media profiles for the purpose of marketing your business. You need to know that you cannot market the same way you do in traditional channels. In the realm of social media, people mostly listen to those they trust. A good to place to start is with Shama Kabani’s new book The Zen of Social Media Marketing which I have reviewed here.
If you need help in mapping out your new website strategy, don’t hesitate to contact me. The fuel that runs the engine of these three solutions is having a strategy.
Photo Credit: Dude With Camera on Flickr
All the best,
Todd