How To Kick Off A Great First Quarter

The New Year is here and there are a few things you can do to ensure you have a productive first quarter online. It's the time to take a good look at your website and make sure it is ready to effectively carry out the tasks you had it built to do. Ultimately you want your website to satisfy both the people who do business with you, and the search engines, which help to drive the people there. So you need to prepare for both.

Make Your Website an Enjoyable Place to Visit

Do you have a favorite restaurant or coffee shop that you go to over and over again? Have you ever considered why you keep going back? Something about the place makes your time there enjoyable. Maybe it's because you can always get your favorite beverage. Maybe you like the look of the place. Or maybe it's because of the way you are treated. They are always courteous and professional and you are made to feel important. So you return again and again. And you always leave with a satisfied feeling and the intention to come back again soon. You've even encouraged your friends to go there. Your website can have the same positive effect on your customers if you do what is necessary to make it an enjoyable place to visit.

Potentially you are serving three customer segments: prospects, existing customers and former customers who have not visited in a long time. Each one comes with a particular expectation to be fulfilled and a different level of understanding of who you are. With prospects, for example, you want to make a positive, lasting first impression. You want to instill trust by showing your professionalism. You need to look good and be prepared to give them what they want. Consider the look and feel of your website. Does it visually represent the quality products and service you offer? Is it pleasing to the eye? Is it inviting? Does it relate a respect for the person visiting your site? A professional appearance speaks volumes, especially to someone who doesn't know you. Think of how your lawyer's office looks. He wants you to believe, "I'm a winner. See how beautiful my office is?" And it works. He looks successful so he must be successful.

Many industrial websites look unfinished. They lack style, organization and are quite frankly hard on the eyes and difficult to navigate. They often lack the details a customer needs to make a decision. They present technical data sheets or part numbers a mile long that have not been properly converted for viewing on the web so are fuzzy, often too small and exhausting to read. This is not enjoyable. It is detrimental to the end user experience. Your website needs to contain elements that add to the viewing pleasure of your audience and speak directly to their needs. It is much easier to digest information that is cleanly and clearly presented. It is also much easier to order a part or a document if all one has to do is click on it.

Depending on the condition of your site overall, it may require a few simple things like cleaning up documents and images or adding an interactive presentation to enhance the visitor experience and improve conversion. Or it may need a complete re-design. A sharp, professional look does not mean your website needs every bell and whistle as though it were some sort of an amusement arcade. On the contrary, you want a balanced, clean look that presents information in an easy-to-read, accessible and intuitively navigable format.

A well-organized site encourages prospects to stay and customers to return. Prospects, for example, expect to find what they are searching for right away. They have no particular loyalty to you and are initially extremely impatient. If they don't immediately find what they came for, within a few (lightning fast) seconds they are gone. Returning customers are equally interested in finding and getting what they want quickly and easily. You need to look at your site honestly and consider whether you may be losing potential customers because your site is uninviting and difficult to use. You may benefit from both increased lead acquisition and higher conversions if you improve the look, the organization and the navigation of your website.

Drive More Leads With Better Search Engine Rankings

While you are preparing your site to provide your potential customers with an enjoyable experience so they will want to do business with you, consider how great it would be to increase the number of qualified leads you receive every day without it costing you a dime of your advertising dollars. That is the benefit of a natural (a.k.a. "organic") search listing. Search engines provide a wonderful opportunity to attract qualified leads at the exact time they are searching for what you have to offer. The goal is to achieve top rankings naturally, without having to pay for placement, so that potential customers will find you first and know you have information relevant to their search.

Search engines are designed with a single objective: to match web pages with a search query. They use proprietary mathematical formulas to help them determine which pages best match a particular search query. Those that come closest to fulfilling their criteria obtain a higher ranking in the search results pages.

With that basic understanding, there is one thing you can do for your website to improve your search engine rankings and attract potential customers: search engine optimization. What search engine optimization gives you are web pages that are ready to rank well for the search terms, or keywords, that are important to your business, and additionally a greater chance to convert more qualified leads. From the information you present on your web pages and in your meta data to the organization and linking structure of your website, things have to be a certain way or the spiders will just move on to another site. Top rankings achieved naturally in the major search engines provide long term marketing value and cost savings.

Conclusion

Now is a good time to take an honest look at your website and make sure it is prepared to do the job you need it to do in 2007. Does it accurately represent your professional image? Is the content well-organized, easy to read, up-to-date and readily accessible? Will people enjoy spending time on your site? Are potential customers finding you in the search engines? Prepare your website now to satisfy your potential customers and the search engines and you will be well on your way to tapping into its revenue-generating potential.

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In the next issue...

Next month, we will continue the discussion on how to make search engine optimization work for you. Through an understanding of the effective use of words and links, both inbound and internal, you will learn how to improve your search engine rankings and generate qualified leads that have the best chance of converting into a sale.

Contact us to learn how to prepare your website to attract, convert and track leads.

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