Don’t Forget About Your Website
Whether you’re tweeting like mad, airing dozens of radio spots or plastering your name on billboards around town, you most likely will feature your Website in these communications, right? It’s just how the modern world works; regardless of what type of business you run, maintaining a Website is the new norm in providing your audience with information.
With that said, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been given a company’s URL only to find that their site is “under construction”, completely outdated or worse—expired. So before delving into any tips, be sure that you are not guilty of any of the aforementioned conditions.
Your Website can be one of the strongest marketing tools you have at your disposal. Think about it; it’s on 24/7 - beckoning new customers to do business with you. Something this important shouldn’t be set on autopilot. Make it a point to regularly check up on your site to be sure that you are capitalizing on its potential.
Here are a few things that will help you get the most out of your site:
Avoid the Bottomless-PitBrevity is the soul of wit. This saying applies to your site as well. Keep your homepage verbiage and content brief. All too often, sites are so eager to provide “details” that homepages turn into one incredibly long page – an unending, scrolling nightmare.
The Treasure Trove of DataThere are a number of free site traffic tools that will provide substantive data on your visitors. You can uncover things such as: most-visited pages, how people found your site, words or phrases that brought them to your address, how long each page is viewed, what part of the country or world they hail from and so much more. The point is this data can be used to sharpen your communication with those who frequent your Webpage. So be sure that you don’t overlook this valuable information.
Access For AllOne day while reviewing my company’s site data, I realized that there were increasing numbers of Mac and iOS users coming to us. I happen to know that these users (in most cases) cannot see or hear graphics or audio that’s coded with Flash. So we slowly began to phase out our use of Flash as an interactive tool in exchange for something that just about everyone can access. I’d encourage you to think about doing the same. This is especially true if your site is totally based on this technology or even if your landing/homepage is built on Flash.
Make It IntuitiveIn the online world, there’s no bigger turn-off than not being able to find what you want fast. In fact, this often leads to visitors vanishing shortly after arriving to a site. So do yourself a favor and make things easy and intuitive. Here are some suggestions: have at least two easy-to-find menus on every page of your site, install a search feature on every page and be sure your “contact us” info is prominently displayed.
Walter Dailey is a proven creative strategist. He’s the lead consultant and executive producer for Dailey Sound Vector, a creative services organization that specializes in jingles, radio ads and marketing campaign development for small and mid-sized businesses. Ask Walter your questions at walter@dsvmedia.com