Reaching new clients through
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Ken Kowalsky
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Stan Cohen
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Synopsis Comments Photos Press ReleaseKen Kowalsky & Stan Cohen Notes Ray Forgy Speaker NotesThis Meeting Next Meeting 2003-04 Meetings 2004-2005 Meetings 2005-06 Meetings |
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Or ― Okay, You Have A Website, Now What Do You Do With It? Having a professional website for your business is no longer a luxury; it's a necessity. Whereas six or seven years ago the average business did not have a website, by the beginning of 2004, four out of five businesses in the United States had some form of "web presence." For creative professionals, having websites to promote their businesses is even more important than it is for someone like a building contractor because creative professionals usually work on projects involving communication with the general public. And that means they are more connected to the latest trends in popular culture. Therefore, not having a website suggests that creative professionals are behind the times and thus not a good fit for a project dealing with modern communications. In addition, having a website is more than just "window-dressing" for the creative professional, as it can also be used as a tool to attract potential customers via a combination of design, promotion, and optimization. Better yet, a website can also act as a way to communicate with existing customers by providing them with information they can access on their own, such as additional services you may offer, samples of your work, or access to specific documents of interest to the client, among many other possibilities. But once a website is created, if it is not used properly, it can become just a big, expensive electronic bulletin board that nobody sees -- a fate which plagues all too many creative professionals, I am sad to say. The good news is that it doesn't cost much to turn your website into a lead-generation tool. In fact, for less than three or four dollars a day, creative professionals can use their websites not only to attract new clients, but to better serve existing clients, and even keep in contact with former clients through the improved communication tools that the computer, the Internet and a well-designed business website offer the creative professional. So, to answer the question, "Okay, you have a website, now what do you do with it?" my answer would be "to use it to communicate with your customers, whether they be past (via website design), present (via website promotion) or future (via website optimization) ones." Now let us look at all three types of Website communication, design, promotion, and optimization individually. DESIGN The single biggest element of design that will help you use your website as a promotional tool is to design it so that its pages are easily indexed by the search engines. This is important because if a website's pages are not indexed by the search engines on a routine basis, there is no way those pages can provide web traffic. On a practical level, making your website "search engine friendly" means using as few bells and whistles as possible (i.e., moving graphics, elaborate presentations, background music, etc.) because they interfere with how the search engines index your site. Now, this doesn't mean you cannot use any fancy design elements, but it does mean that you should use them sparingly and judiciously. Perhaps the best reason for creative professionals to have websites is to display their portfolio of work samples to the public. However, from a promotional point of view, it is not enough that your work samples be merely displayed; rather, it is essential that creative professionals also describe each work sample in a way that will show the Web visitor your thought process behind the project. In this way, not only will professionals' talents be displayed, but also their understanding of how to solve the creative problems that come with each project they are hired to do. Having a search feature as part of a creative professional's design can also be a big benefit to visitors. This allows visitors to zero in on what they want to see. Using keywords and key phrases accurately in website pages will help facilitate this. Another important aspect of Web design for a creative professional is to allow prospective clients to contact you as easily as possible. What this translates to in a design sense is not just listing your address, phone number, and e-mail address on every page, but having an interactive contact form so that visitors can ask you questions or inquire about your services without actually having to call you. You would be surprised how many people feel more comfortable e-mailing you with their questions than calling you directly for fear of being pressured by a salesperson. In the form, you can request information about your visitor. You can ask what services are they interested in, how did they locate you (search engine, word of mouth, yellow pages, etc.) and other marketing questions. PROMOTION There are many ways to promote your website, both off-line and online, so I will limit my comments to only those online marketing methods which use search engines and directories. Briefly, some off-line methods include putting your website/e-mail address on your business card, any printed promotional material, or in an advertisement. Essentially, there are two types of web traffic that a search engine or directory can send to your website: organic and pay-per-click. Organic refers to traffic generated via the free or natural search results you get when doing a search, while pay-per-click refers to traffic generated by so-called "sponsored listings," which are usually found directly above a search engine or directory's organic listings. Organic web traffic is influenced by two major website factors: its content and the number of links it has from all the websites pointing to it. Basically, the more relevant and interesting content your website has and the more links it has pointing to it, the higher it will rank in the both search engines and directories, and therefore the more web traffic it will get. While organic web traffic efforts can take weeks or months before results can be seen, they have the benefit of producing free, targeted traffic for one's website on a long-term basis. You can also have an "opt-in" Subscribe page for your monthly newsletter as another promotional feature and benefit for your visitors. Providing value on an ongoing basis is an important aspect of having a website. Keeping your website "fresh" by doing monthly updates is another reason to promote your website by publicizing your new additions. This gives visitors a reason to return to your website. On the other hand, pay-per-click generated web traffic (or that traffic where the owner of a website pays a fee for every person that visits or clicks through to their websites from the sponsored listing in the search engine) can be set up in a matter of minutes. This type of Internet promotion also has the advantage of giving you much more control over which keywords you use, which page you want to direct visitors to, how much you want to spend per day or month, etc. However, this form of promotion can be very expensive. The two biggest players in pay-per-click are Overture.com and Google.com's "AdWords" program. Although there are many other pay-per-click websites out there, Overture and Google represent at least 85% of the pay-per-click market. Of the two, I would recommend a beginner use Google.com's AdWord program because you can set up a campaign in 15 minutes while Overture.com requires that all ads must first be reviewed by an editor, a process which can take one to three business days to complete. OPTIMIZATION Perhaps the most cost-effective way to promote a website is to optimize it so that it produces organic (i.e., non-paid) web traffic. Optimization (also known as "search engine optimization" or SEO) is the process of making a web page highly relevant for both search engines and searchers. Successful optimization helps a web page gain top positioning for relevant keywords (i.e. any word or phrase that has particular significance to the content of a given web page) when a search is done using that keyword. Successful optimization will continue to produce web traffic for many years, especially if an optimized web page is updated every few months to keep up with changes made by the search engines. However, because the type of web traffic that optimization produces is organic (or non-paid) in nature, it can take weeks or months before even the best optimized page starts producing web traffic. When website owners are at the mercy of the search engines and directories, they have very little, if any, control over how fast their optimized web pages are indexed. Another benefit of optimization is that many people who use the search engines prefer clicking on the organic or non-paid listings rather than the sponsored or pay-per-click listings. In fact, studies have shown that as many as 70% of all searchers ignore the pay-per-click listings completely, thus giving those Webmasters who choose to use optimization to generate web traffic to their websites a huge pool of searchers to draw from. The final element of good search engine optimization is what's called "conversion rate," which is loosely defined as a website's ability to convert web traffic into customers. However, even the most expertly optimized web page that ranks well in the search engines is a complete waste if it's not designed in a way to produce some sort of action on the part of the visitor. The form that the action will take depends upon what you hope to accomplish with your website. Some examples of common types of actions Web visitors are asked to take are: Buy a Product Now, of the five types of actions listed above, by far the most common action most websites ask of its visitors is the last one, "call or e-mail the Webmaster." This also happens to be the most ineffective and wasteful request because its place on a web page is more of an afterthought than a call to action. Ideally, a website should give its visitors a reason to call or e-mail the Webmaster such as requesting a specific piece of information about your business or services (i.e. price guide, work samples, list of references, free estimate, etc.) General Do's and Don'ts 1. Make sure you have a custom 404-error page up to catch those people who come in through those pages at the search engines. Use a nice sitemap page, as your 404-error page is often good for that purpose. 2. Also make sure you're not using more than three query string parameters in the URLs of your dynamic pages. They are hard to get indexed sometimes, although Google seems to index some of them these days. 3. Use a sitemap, because you want to make sure you have static links to any dynamic URLs. 4. Flash is fine if it's used like regular .gif or .jpg graphics. Entire pages embedded in Flash are definitely a bad idea because there will be no content for the search engines to index. Little bits for emphasis, instead of a static graphic, are fine. Ken Kowalsky # # # |
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