Optimizing Your Website Marketing

The following outlines a basic 4-part strategy for optimizing your website marketing. Parts 1 - 3 are parameters that can be adjusted to improve your marketing results. Part 4 describes how the parameters should be changed.

  1. What Is Your Message?

    Before you put words on a website, think about the message you want to send to website visitors. Why should a potential visitor care about your website instead of a similar website competing for their attention? Do you have a niche? A specialty? What makes you special?

    If you're not special, you have to market yourself by shouting. If you're special, you can market yourself by clearly saying who you are.

  2. How Will You Express That Message?

    Your website is the primary vehicle for expressing your message. Make sure you're letting website visitors see the message. Don't let bright colors and cute animations obscure it. Design your website for your visitors, not for you.

    Give your words a human voice. The words should sound natural, like you were saying them to someone face to face. The worst voice is the anonymous, impersonal "marketing speak" that large companies feel obliged to use. Visitors to your website should feel like they're listening to a real person.

    Answer the questions the visitor would most want to ask you.

    Your website should be a dynamic marketing tool. A "finished" website isn't dynamic or effective. Your website should be a variable, an extra degree of freedom that gives you more possibilities of finding a better marketing result.

  3. How Will You Reach Potential Visitors?

    This is where you go fishing. You hook on a bait and you cast it somewhere.

    Search engines, directories, online ads, and print ads are some obvious possibilities. The winning approaches will probably depend heavily on the nature of your business, organization, or project.

    A reasonable starting point is to go where your potential visitors are most likely to look for you. A message (Part 1) that highlights your distinguishing characteristics will help you stand out from your competitors. However, it often makes more sense to fish where there are fewer fish but even fewer competitors.

  4. Test, Assess, Revise, Repeat.

    The measure of success for your website and your marketing is how well they bring you the kind of traffic you want. Website traffic by itself isn't a success but it is a critical part in the evaluation of your marketing.

    If you're having trouble getting website traffic, then Part 3 is the parameter you need to adjust. Change the ads, or run them somewhere else.

    If you're getting website traffic but are having trouble converting website visitors to customers, then Part 2 is the parameter to adjust. Make sure your website says what you want it to say and that it isn't inadvertently saying something that sends potential customers away.

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