May 4, 2011
10 Ways to Boost the Marketing Value of Your Website
Are you getting the results you want from your website?
Whether you’re a business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) marketer, a great website is essential for a smart marketing strategy.
Here are 10 ideas to boost the marketing value of your site through higher traffic, better search engine rankings, and more effective engagement with your customers and prospects.
- Add video. Adding video to your website is easier than ever. Create a YouTube channel, post your videos there, and link to YouTube from your site. Use a professional videography team to produce higher-end videos and a smartphone to record your own real-life videos. Videos also are an ideal way to feature customer testimonials and stories related to your products.
- Rewrite your copy. Take a fresh look at the copy on your site. Is the content focused on what your visitors really want to know? And have you written your copy around the keywords in your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy? Google Analytics can tell you which keywords people are using to find your site. Use Google Ads Keyword Planner for suggested keywords to use.
- Add a blog. Blogging brings many powerful advantages to a website. A blog constantly adds new, high-value content, which keeps your site interesting and improves your SEO results. It gives your company personality by sharing your unique voice and point of view. And it enables visitors to engage with you by adding their comments to your blog or sharing your posts with others on social media.
- Consolidate your high-value content. Your site should be the focal point of your web marketing. Post all your content – your blog, news, white papers, case studies, webinars, and e-newsletters – on your site and share links to that content via your other marketing channels, especially social media.
- Use marketing automation. Adding a tool like HubSpot or Salesforce to your site enables you to automate repetitive marketing tasks, nurture leads, personalize prospect interaction, and integrate your site with your customer relationship management (CRM) and customer data platform.
- Showcase your staff. The people who work at your company and deliver your products and services are your biggest asset. Let visitors get to know some of these folks by profiling them on your site. Don’t be afraid to share a bit of personal information, like their favorite hobby or pet. Being real adds warmth and authenticity.
- Add pictures. There’s a wealth of great stock photography available to add visual interest to your site. Check out istockphoto.com, Adobe Stock, and unsplash.com. If you have the resources, invest in original photography to illustrate your products and services in use.
- Use the best design conventions. There are established conventions for website navigation and content access. Don’t fight what works. Be sure your site design is intuitive and simple.
- Feature your social media links. Put prominent links to your social media channels on every page of your site, especially the home page, if you’re communicating with customers, prospects, and colleagues on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media sites.
- Make an offer. Give away something of value to demonstrate your expertise and get prospects to give you permission to communicate with them in future marketing campaigns.
Why Your Website is Still So Important
Nearly everyone who is considering doing business with your company will visit your website at some point in the sales process. That’s why keeping your website fresh, interesting, and engaging is so important to a smart marketing strategy.
Image by Carl Heyerdahl
Burst Marketing
This is an excellent list! Business owners could definitely use this as a checklist to verify that their websites are doing everything they can to pull in new clients and engage repeat customers. Under #2 (Rewriting Copy), I would also add that a business owner should make sure that the content on his/her site emphasizes the benefits of the products. I’ve come across many sites that still put an emphasis on product features instead of product benefits, and this makes the copy much less persuasive. Potential clients often scan websites so quickly that it’s important to make every word count!
jeangianfagna
Thanks for the feedback and the reminder about the importance of promoting the benefits of products more than the features. It always surprises me how many marketers fail to do this-thanks for pointing it out!