Mind on Marketing

What is the goal of your website? That’s the first question Seth Godin says you must ask yourself when you’re getting ready to overhaul your website or launch a new one. And I’ve seen first-hand how many site owners have difficulty extending the answer beyond “because we have to have one.” Yes, having a site in order to provide basic information about your business is important. But how will you gauge your site’s effectiveness? Expect your site to perform for you. Set goals. Review performance. Tweak content and navigation to better meet goals. Repeat.

“What outcomes do you expect?” asks Godin. Take your goals beyond just putting up brochure-ware. The web is interactive. Use your site to establish and nurture relationships that lead to ongoing business. How many leads do you want to generate for your business pipeline? How many do you want to convert to customers? How will you use your site to do that? If you’re driving people to your site via Twitter and Facebook, what’s waiting for them when they arrive? How well does it work?

These are tough questions for many business owners. Although they’re accustomed to looking hard at the performance of other elements of the business, the web site is often launched and forgotten. And forgotten sites get boring quickly. Not a good thing if you’re trying to engage people. Strong content that gives people the gift of deeper or broader knowledge, and/or that entertains is an important element of user engagement. Content that they can read, listen to or watch. Tipsheets, white papers, podcasts, YouTube videos all provide engagement on a variety of levels, as long as the content is relevant and well-presented. One great way to engage visitors is to put a blog on your site, using your own URL, and add to it frequently. The added bonus is that Google loves frequently-updated content, and your site will rise in their organic search results.

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