The document discusses ways to improve a business website through inbound marketing techniques. It provides 9 tips for improvement, including adding calls to action, creating relevant content, blogging regularly, using social media, monitoring website traffic, increasing inbound links, optimizing pages for keywords, ensuring good usability, and incorporating business processes. The goal is to harness the power of the web to generate qualified leads and customers through an effective online marketing strategy.
Improving Your Website - 9 Tips for Making it Effective for Your Business
1. Improving Your Website:
Make it Effective for Your
Business
Rebecca Kotz
Web Marketing Consultant
Empowering You to Harness the
Power of the Web!
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2. What we’ll cover …
• Outbound Marketing
• Inbound Marketing
• 9 Ways to Improve Your Website
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Power of the Web!
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3. Traditional Outbound Marketing
Interruption
Prospects
TV / Radio Ads
Direct Mail
Paid Advertising
Telemarketing
•Spam blockers
Tradeshows
• Sirius radio
• Tivo
• Do-Not-Call List
Company • Caller ID
• Trash can!
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4. Online Statistics
97% Research products and services online before they
purchase.
55% Of all local searches are done with an intent to buy.
80% Of all local searches result in a phone call or visit a
store and 60% of those result in a purchase.
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5. Why use Inbound Marketing?
Outbound marketing: $1 Investment = $11 Return
Inbound marketing: $1 Investment = $60 Return
80 ROI Comparison by Marketing Program
60:1
60
40
20 ROI
11:1
0 2:1
Social Marketing Direct Marketing Media Advertising
Programs Programs Programs
Source: Next Century Media. (Jan. 2009). 2008 Social Marketing ROI Report and Benchmark Guide. Powered.com
[Online] Available: http://poweredcorp.dc.powered.com/download/p/courseId/24
43/White_Paper_2008_Soc.htm?courseSessionId=2201 [Nov. 4, 2009].
Empowering You to Harness the
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6. Inbound Marketing Components
Keywords Web Design & Post Content Participate & Measure &
Structure • Keyword-based Build Track
• Bridge the Internet • Keyword content. • Where is your • Benchmarking,
to your website optimization. • Start target market statistics and
through search • Easily add/edit conversations, congregating? analysis.
engine content. educate, be an • Join or create • Continual
optimization and expert . social media evaluation to keep
• Web 2.0 and social
online advertising. media integration. • Blogs, videos, communities, up with an ever
white papers, e- participate changing
• Well organized
books, RSS, free regularly. environment.
design.
tools/trials. • Build links to
website.
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Power of the Web!
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7. Why is a Bad website… BAD?
• Lost opportunity!
– Little to no traffic.
– Visitors bounce and never return.
– Lack of lead capture.
– Too little or too much information.
– Difficult or confusing to navigate.
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8. What does a Good Website do?
• Pulls in traffic from search engines.
• Captures leads.
• Provides competitive differentiation.
A quality website is your 24/7 sales team!
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9. 9 Tips to Improve
Your Website
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10. Tip 1: Calls to Action
• Capture lead info with an offering:
– Webinar
– Whitepaper or ebook
– Trial or product sample
– Contest
– Coupon / discount
– Special tool
– Proposal / quote
– eNewsletter
Include at least 1 call to action on
your website to increase visitor
interactions.
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11. Tip 2: Create Content
• Create 1,000s of pages!
– Small business websites have approx. 10-20 pages
(home, about us, product, contact us…)
– Add photos, blog posts, videos, podcasts, webinars,
presentations, kits, whitepapers, ebooks, online tools,
games, quizzes, press releases, etc.
The more content on your website, the better your
chances of being found by your target audience.
Create 1-2 pages a week!
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12. Tip 3: Blog
• Want to be at the top of page 1?
– One of the best ways is to blog.
• Add a blog to your website to increase your
search engine rankings:
– Adds keyword-rich pages.
– Increases the potential for incoming links.
Create a plan for content and post to your blog
once a week about topics important in your
industry. Use good keywords!
Empowering You to Harness the
Power of the Web!
#gemsseminars
13. Tip 4: Social Media
• Facebook – A Business Party After Work
• Twitter – The Old Water Cooler
• LinkedIn – A Networking Event
• YouTube – Open Mic Night
Join social media sites and post tips with links to
your blog posts, special content and offerings to
help increase leads.
Empowering You to Harness the
Power of the Web!
#gemsseminars
14. Tip 5: Monitor
• Install traffic analytics into your website.
– Google analytics
• Utilize monitoring tools to find mentions of your
company, products, services, etc.
– Google alerts
– TweetBeep
Analyze your website monthly for
the amount of traffic, # of new
visitors and length of time a visitor
stays on your site.
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15. Tip 6: Increase Links
• Directories
• Blogs
• Social media sites: digg, delicious, twitter, …
• Partners
• Customers
• Membership organizations
• Charities You want lots of links to your
• Vendors website to increase your rankings
and help attract more visitors.
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Power of the Web!
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16. Tip 7: Optimize for Keywords
• Update your page content and page titles to be
keyword-rich.
– Keywords = the words your customers type into
Google search to find your company, products and
services
• To find good keywords, try:
– seokeywordanalysis.com
– google.com/sktool
A website without keywords is like a
car without gas… it’s going
nowhere!
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17. Websites with Keywords
• 75% of clicks are to natural search results.
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18. Advertising with Keywords
• 25% of clicks are with ads…
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19. Tip 8: Usability
• Make sure your website is easy to use:
– Navigation
– Search
– Site map
– White space
– Images
– Consistency of font, design, voice
– Quick load time
Analyze your homepage and every
page on your website to make sure
it is easy for visitors to use.
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20. Tip 9: Business Processes
• Google Map Integration
• Comment System
• Weather
• Event Calendar
• Photo Gallery
• Document Manager
• Message Board
Try to incorporate some sort of
• Forms System
business processes to streamline
• Live Chat
• E-News System
your sales process.
• Quiz / Survey System
• Online Donations
• Product Catalogue
• E-Commerce Shopping System
• Employment System
• Event Registration
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21. Virtual Coaching
• Go to www.gems-solutions.com/virtual-coaching
to sign-up for FREE 9 Lessons to help you
improve your website.
• Simply add your name and email address.
Empowering You to Harness the
Power of the Web!
#gemsseminars
22. Thank you!
GEMS Solutions, LLC
• Website Design Connect with Us!
• Website Marketing
• Website Training
• Website Seminars www.twitter.com/gemssolutions
www.facebook.com/gemssolutions
www.gems-solutions.com
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