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EXPERT INSIGHT

Seven Strategies for Web Site Success
By TEC speaker Philippa Gamse

Whether you’re concerned with business-to-business, or business-to-consumer, whether your organization is large or small, commercial or nonprofit, there are some fundamental questions around your Web site and technology strategy that should be addressed. Otherwise, you risk missing opportunities, and not maximizing the return on your investment in your online presence.

If you haven’t visited your own Web site for a while, look at it again in light of these questions:

1. Does your Web site present an appropriate image of your company? Marketers talk a lot about branding, and consistency of message. Does your site reflect how you’d like your customers to feel about your business? Is it sophisticated and professional looking? Does it speak directly to visitors in language that they’ll understand, and in ways that relate to their issues and needs?
   
   Image is also about public relations. Publicity is a powerful marketing tool, and reporters are increasingly looking for information online. Does your Web site offer a media center? Does it provide comment on current events in your industry? Do you face up to the bad news, and spin it to your advantage?
    
2. Does your Web site suggest potential for new or currently untapped markets? In almost all the sites that I’ve consulted for, we’ve identified markets or audiences beyond the "real-world" customer base of the business.
   
   This may be because the site extends the geographic reach of your marketing. If you have good content on your site, visitors find you in search engines, and come to read your articles and white papers.
   
   Either way, if you find many "non-traditional" visitors to your site, you should assess whether they constitute a possible new market area for your business.
    
3. Does your Web site suggest potential for new products or services? A clear understanding of your visitors’ needs may also encourage you to consider new products or services. On the Web, bundling expertise into downloadable, for-sale content provides valuable new revenue streams for many businesses and nonprofits.
   
   You can find great clues for development ideas by tracking the keywords entered into your own site search engine. These show what visitors expect to find on your site – and therefore what they expect your company to offer.
    
4. Does your Web site provide continuing added value for existing customers? Most site owners focus on acquiring new customers, and fail to maximize the opportunities to support and serve existing ones.
   
   You can better serve your existing clients with password-protected areas where they can follow the progress of their projects, share documents with you, etc. Personalization and pre-populated forms (i.e. which are automatically filled in with the customer’s details) help to create a feeling of value, and save time for your visitors.
   
   Check the average response time for a contact from your Web site. One of the top complaints about major company sites is that e-mails are not answered in a timely (hopefully 24 hours or less) manner.
    
5. Does your Web site support your internal operations and employee needs? This question relates to whether you’re making the best use of all available technologies, and integrating them with your online operations.
   
   Applications to consider include:
   • Instant messaging, fast becoming a serious business tool
   • Knowledge bases – continually updated databases that can provide automated customer support on a 24/7 basis
   • Streaming media, perhaps for just-in-time training or on-the-spot manuals for your operatives
   • Intranets and extranets, which are really just fancy names for password-protected employee and client areas
      
6. Does your Web site integrate fully with your "real- world" activities and processes? One of the most frustrating visitor experiences is to complete a form, an application, or to submit a search on your Web site, only to receive an error message.
   
   Customers want the security of an e-mailed purchase confirmation. They want to know that they’ll be taken off your mailing list quickly and without the need for multiple requests.
   
   With the complexity of technology and programs today, sometimes a change to a seemingly unrelated system can wreak havoc. Do you regularly check all the input forms and processes on your site to ensure that no unexpected gremlins have crept in?
    
7. Does your Web site provide you with a justifiable return on investment (ROI)? This is probably the most important question of the seven, and possibly also the most difficult.
   
   That’s because the answer depends on a clear understanding of the goals of your site, both in direct financial terms, and in other less tangible benefits, such as name recognition.
   
   The keys to evaluating ROI, to improving your site, and often to further business development ideas can be found in your traffic reports. These show what visitors are looking for, how long they spend on the site, where they go, when they leave, and what rate of response you get to the various calls to action.

These reports can be daunting – a mass of figures, graphs and URLs. But someone in your organization should understand them. Otherwise, you’re shooting in the dark with your Web investment.

© Philippa Gamse. All rights reserved.

Philippa Gamse, CyberSpeaker, is a Web strategy consultant and professional speaker.

Created for MyTEC. Copyright 2003, TEC Worldwide, Inc. All rights reserved.

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EXPERT INSIGHT

Five Ways to Be Found on Major Search Engines
By TEC speaker Thomas Wood-Young

What do you need to know about search engines so that your Web site is found by your potential customers?

From a big-picture perspective, marketing on the Web is no different from any marketing initiative; it begins with a solid strategy and vision. You must be very clear about whom you want to visit the site and what you want them to do when you get there.

First, you have to be found. Here is an overview of five key areas that business leaders and marketing professionals need to know about in order to get their Web site found in the major search engines.

1. Most popular search engines. Just as the big three television networks dominated the airwaves for many years, there are currently three companies dominating the search engine world: Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Savvy Web users looking for relevant information fast use Google. The second most popular engine is Yahoo, followed closely by Microsoft (MSN). This will change over time as the three competitors battle for market share.

If you’re promoting niche products or services that have small markets, it’s best to promote your business on Google. If you’re selling branded consumer products, then you’ll likely have greater success on Yahoo or MSN, though there is crossover among all three. Google is great for driving traffic because of its huge reach, while MSN and Yahoo are great for selling products because they’re designed to promote Web sites, and because they’re used as portals, online newspapers or magazines. On the other hand, Google is mostly used for searching the Web and for research.

Obviously, it’s best to be found on all three, and it’s important to understand how they differ.

Action item: Determine which search engines your target market uses and how they buy online.

2. Terms people use to search on the Web. Don’t make assumptions about what keywords people use to find a Web site. Go and research those terms and target the search phrases that best fit your business model. The Web site Overture.com has a tool that allows Web marketers to see the number of monthly searches for a substantial portion of the Web.

Some search words are very competitive and other terms are less frequently used. The best strategy is to target many of the lesser-used terms because they’re less competitive. This means the site has a better chance of getting found because the amount of lesser-known terms all added together can get quite large and are easier to target in the search engines.

Action item: Go to Overture.com and learn how to use the search-term suggestion tool to determine the key words used to find your site.

3. How to get to the top of search engines. The only way to absolutely insure that a site will be found at the top of searches is to pay for it. The two leaders in this field are Google and Overture.com. MSN currently uses Overture for their paid listings program, but that will change next year when MSN launches a paid listing program. Your marketing team needs to truly understand how Internet advertising works. Thousands of companies miss great opportunities to market through this vast growing and highly targeted advertising. It also has incredible ROI as every click to a Web site is tracked in detail.

Action item: Research paid listings programs on Google and Overture.com.

4. Target found without paying. If a Web site is found in the natural or organic listings, then it must be optimized. Optimization is the science of designing Web pages so that search engines can find it and rank the site’s pages ahead of competitors (because the search engines see the site as more relevant). Optimization is a time-consuming task that requires skill and experience usually not found in most companies. This is best outsourced. Look for a company with a track record of results in this area. They don’t have to be a specialist in your market; in fact, a broad range of experiences and clients is better.

Action item: Find a search-engine optimization firm that can help your site be found online.

5. Plan out the ROI. Here’s the bottom line: A smart search engine program will return leads and direct sales that pay for the effort many times over. If this doesn’t happen, then there’s something wrong with your strategy or implementation. Use a combination of paid listings and optimization for best results. The Web is a hot marketplace where very particular customers can search and generally find what they want. A solid Web marketing strategy can position your Web site to be a player in this lucrative market.

Action item: Develop reports for tracking visitors, search engines, leads and online sales.

TEC speaker Thomas Wood-Young is an Internet marketing consultant based in Colorado Springs, Colo.

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Created for MyTEC. Copyright 2005, TEC Worldwide, Inc. All rights reserved.