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Set Your Website Apart From Your Competition
I had a friend call me the other day and tell me that she wanted to change the design of her website, because it wasn’t getting enough sales. I was a little shocked at first because she actually thought that changing ‘the look’ of her website would make a huge difference in how many people would show up.
It was then that I understood just how many folks actually think that putting up a website will automatically garner millions of hits and thousands of dollars. It’s no wonder, and I don’t blame them, especially when you see all the late night ads depicting Internet millions just by ordering a course from an 800 number.
If you are one of those people who have created a website, or had someone do it, and you just aren’t seeing the results you want, I will give you five things that can set your site apart from the rest of the pack.
1. Have a Plan That Reflects Your Goals
This is probably the most important thing you can do. When Ray and I started our company, we struck out with stars in our eyes thinking we were going to be millionaires by being web guys and doing web guy stuff. We didn’t have any specific written goals, any type of plan or even a clue. We jumped from idea to idea, and while we made some decent money, we were nowhere near where we wanted to be.
Unfortunately, this reflected most of our clients as well. They would usually call us, we would meet, agree on a design, agree on a price and low and behold they would have a really great looking ghost town on the Internet! They were missing the most important piece of the puzzle to a great website…a specific plan that reflects its specific goals! What is your website supposed to do? Make money? Teach people? Prevent disease? How are you going to make money, teach people or prevent disease? If you haven’t, you should think long and hard about your website’s goals and come up with a plan to meet them.
2. Have Great Content
How many times have you heard people say the key phrase, “content is king”? Well, it is, and you should have listened! In our experience with clients, the ones who have the least amount of visitors are the ones who have minimal content that never changes. Do you know how many times we have been given one paragraph, an address and a phone number and are expected to create a full website out of that? Too many to count!
If you want to be ahead of the game, you MUST keep your website fresh and updated with content. That is very hard work, but you don’t win a marathon by sitting on the couch; you have to put in the work. Our advice for you is to get a website with an integrated blog, like Wordpress. This will give you control over updating content without the help of an FTP client or a Webmaster. Your plan might include one or two web posts a week geared toward what your clients need or want to know, and by blogging even that little, you are still ahead of most of your competition!
3. Use Social Networking
The bottom line is you should at least be using Facebook and Twitter. With Facebook saying that it now has 400 million users, why aren’t you trying to tap some of that market? Most likely, a majority of your users are using Facebook and/or Twitter, and your job is to find potential clients and engage them in these social media outlets.
We will have complete posts later on how to actually use social networking as an effective marketing tool, but for now just remember that it’s not who you know or what you know, it’s who knows you! If you are absolutely clueless about this subject, start researching social network marketing on Google, and get your learn on. After all, it is your job to stay ahead of the pack.
4. Be Authentic
Times have changed! We don’t trust or believe big business anymore, and today people want authentic. Your clients would rather you be professional and authentic than professional and masked. Don’t pretend to be something you are not. Be honest and be yourself.
There are several things you can do to be authentic, but it really starts with your attitude. You need to really care about your clients and their well being. If you blog, give them the best advice and write like you really care (because you do). Also, be yourself and use first person; this is a smaller world than it used to be, and people want to trust you. Embrace the idea of serving others, and let it show. I promise that will put you even further ahead of your competition!
5. Clean Up Your Design
I put the design issues last, because we believe that design is that last thing that needs to be addressed in building a great website. However, design is a factor. If you have a cluttered site that is confusing to navigate, then you need to change. Having a website is not about filling up every corner of 10 pages. You might only need 3 pages. The point being, you shouldn’t invent shallow content and images just to be like everyone else. You should go with what works for your goals, plans and situation.
Your clients would much prefer to see a main page with a blog, an authentic about us page and a contact page than an assortment of nonsense that you wanted because company xyz had one just like it. Again, design for goals and plans, and by all means…trust your web design company; it’s what they do!
Is your website doing what it is supposed to? Is it an Internet ghost town? Do you have many visitors? If you aren’t sure where to turn, you can implement these five strategies and be ahead of your competition, or you can always contact us, and we can help you out!
