Now that most businesses have realised that a website has become an essential part of their marketing armoury, there is a growing realisation that a website alone is about as visible as a speck of dandruff in a snowstorm.
Web Marketing is not about building a website, it is about bringing visitors to that website and then giving them something worth having when they get there!
It is about making your offer as irresistable as possible, and making it as easy as possible to find and to buy.
It is about standing out from the millions of other websites out there in a very crowded market place.
Web Marketing - The Basics
- Know your market. Understand their problems, needs, wants and interests. Consider where they “hang out” in cyberspace. Where do they look for the information, products and services they want.
- Focus on the needs of your market as you build your website. Identify their problems and needs and present the solutions and benefits they need.
- Develop your web content for the benefit of your visitors and customers, but be also aware of the needs of the search engines. A high proportion of first time visitors to websites find their way there via their favourite search engine.
- Don’t rely on just one route to market, develop a marketing strategy comprising multiple methods, both on-line and off-line.
- Create a simple, clear message that communicates the key benefits that your business can bring to your market and present that message couched in their language. Use your website and associated marketing methods to drive home that message at every possible opportunity. Visual imagery should be carefully selected to enhance your message, not distract from it.
Getting visitor traffic to your website is key to your entire strategy. That traffic can be generated in only four ways……
- You can earn it
- You can buy it
- You can borrow it
- You can steal it
In future articles I shall develop the first three further. Option four comes under the black arts of web marketing - we won’t go there!