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Building an effective website- 7 steps to ensure success

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This article describes the best practices in website design and internet marketing. BDC consulting in Canada offers to Canadian SME Internet consulting services that are exactly in line with what this article describes.

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Page 1: Building an effective website- 7 steps to ensure success
Page 2: Building an effective website- 7 steps to ensure success

How to Build an Effective Website - 7 Steps for Success

Have you started to think your company needs a new website? Do you have a

website that just isn’t providing any value? Or maybe you have lost traction with

traditional marketing efforts and just come to the realization that Google is,

indeed, the most powerful tool in the industry and you’re not relevant.

Regardless of your current situation you probably understand the potential

benefits of marketing your business on the internet effectively.

Internet marketing is hugely powerful and productive when in the right hands.

When poorly executed it is nothing more than a credibility piece or method of

direct contact. Designing a website that is visually pleasing alone does not

create a true internet marketing foundation. Your business needs a better tool if

it’s going to drive conversions and new clients.

There is much at stake, you need to make the right decision, and we are here to

help you make the best choice. The following 7 steps are meant to spur critical

thought and planning on your part. By employing our step by step guide we

believe you will be able to make web-based decisions that will also lead to profit

and success.

Step 1: Choose the right website design

What is the real reason for which your company needs a new website? Is there

something you are failing to grasp with the old one? What does your site fail to

produce now that a new site will hopefully accomplish? Have you thought about

how to make things happen?

Many companies have no idea how their website should be managed. They only

know that it should be there and it should magically produce profits. They are

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under the illusion that simply having an existence on the web will create results

without breaking a sweat.

If your goal is to produce new leads, clients, and profits with your website you are

correct. If you understand that your website is the foundation and starting point

of an entire Internet marketing campaign, you are on the right page.

Companies that are striving to build an Internet marketing campaign that

produces results must focus their efforts on building a dynamic and strategic

website. Those that just want a few pretty pages to magically produce results

without ongoing efforts should keep the cash. How about you?

Website Redesign Half-Life Chart

Source: Hubspot, Webinar Redesign Strategy, 2010

Wrong Reasons for a Redesign

“We have a new corporate look & feel”

“It’s been years since our site was

designed, it looks outdated”

“The Owner wants a new website”

Right Reasons for a Redesign

“We want to get found by more prospects”

“We want to convert more leads for our

sales staff”

“We want to strengthen our brand

message”

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Key Concepts and Statistics

• 78% of Internet users conduct product research online1

• The excitement you and your CEO will have from a complete renovation of your website will be short lived.

• A complete website redesign may drive away some regular users. o Users like the familiarity and the constancy of your old website. o They need time to adjust, and they will be terribly confused at first.

Takeaway

Misguided reasons for redesigning your website are driven by the thought that

the freshness and “wow factor” of a new website will increase excitement over

your brand. The main motivations behind a website redesign should be to

improve the performance of your website. A nicely done website, although

intriguing and aesthetically pleasing, is secondary to functional traffic and lead

generation. Create a site that will produce results, not short-term excitement.

Step 2: Protect your Website’s Assets

Many companies, frustrated with their current web design, often decide to walk

away in anger from their previous design firm and web host service. Caution,

however, is highly advised as this should not be done hastily.

It is critical to procure, document, and properly protect every current asset you

have in place before moving forward. Failure to ‘get the keys and lock the door’

can lead to delays in redesign and double spending.

Your assets are the most important thing you need to take along with you when

you change your hosting service. You already paid for them, so make sure to

preserve and protect them so you can further capitalize on them!

Key Concepts and Statistics

• Website assets such as content, inbound links, keyword rankings, and conversion tools are critical to a strong web presence.

• To preserve your web presence, you must keep track of these assets to insure that they are all being moved in the redesign process.

• Source files, hosting credentials, domain access, and cms admin access are essential documentation pieces.

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The Asset Check List

� Establish how many pages you have. � Find out which pages are the most popular or powerful. � Determine how many inbound links you have. � See where these links are coming from. � Look up what interior pages have inbound links. � Figure out which inbound links are most popular or powerful. � Determine what keywords you rank for before making the transfer. � Find out which keywords are most effective. � Carefully document all access credentials.

Takeaway

If you do not fully understand the importance and practice of proper SEO, doing a

web redesign can lead to unwanted results. If you do not feel comfortable around

SEO work, it may be best to hire a specialist to perform the redesign so all the

hard work you have put into making your website stand out in the first place does

not disappear. A SEO expert can also help you set up a system that can track

these metrics if you don’t already have one in place. We have several free tools

available to help educate you about your current status and rankings, take us up

on a free consultation to get started.

Step 3: Effective Homepage Formatting

Flash and flare versus function and fundamentals. Everyone likes the breakaway

dunk but fundamentals win championships. We know you want an attractive,

dynamic website that pops. We want you to have the same thing! However, we

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don’t want to drop the ball and good fundamentals need to be addressed first and

foremost. We are experts in helping clients balance the two critical elements of

website redesign, so don’t hesitate to call us.

Key Concepts and Statistics

• Simple websites make the best first impressions.

• 75% of Internet users never scroll past the first page of search results.2

• 76% of consumers want a website that makes it easy to find what they want.3

• Highlighting your blog on your homepage leads to improved traffic.

• Set up a 301 redirect, for SEO’s sake!

• Have a permanent redirect.

• Limit the amount of choices the consumer must make. o If you offer 25 services, put those 25 under 4 overarching umbrella

services so consumers will not be overwhelmed by choices.

• Links to social networking pages are a must on your homepage.

Source: HubSpot, The Science of Website Redesign, June 2011

Takeaway

Your homepage represents your services or products. You only get one chance

to impress that visitor, so make sure you carefully place all the important stuff on

your homepage. Easy navigation must be your major concern, as the homepage

must easily take visitors to anywhere on the site they want to go, be it various

services or a contact form.

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Step 4: Add Original Content that Attracts and Converts

If you want your website to produce results you need to understand that original

content is what will get you traffic. Relevant traffic to your site converts into leads

with the proper offers, and leads turn into paying customers.

By understanding the critical importance of constant fresh content and offer

design you will be setting up your website for success. If that sounds daunting

don’t worry, marketing agencies such as us are here to help you. Besides, you

surely have better things to do with your time and someone is going to have to

manage the improving flow of fresh leads and new clients!

Key Concepts and Statistics

• Blogging brings a 55% increase in website visitors.4

• Search engines love fresh content, which increases your number of indexed pages.

• People also like fresh content. o Companies that blog have 2x as many Twitter followers than those

that don’t.5 o Companies that blog have 97% more inbound links than those that

don’t.5

source: HubSpot, 100 Awesome Marketing Stats, Charts and Graphs for You, 2011

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Takeaway

Original content is essential for your website as it will inform your prospects on

what you do, and how passionately you do it. With a vast array of formats to

create content on, you should be continuously contributing fresh content to keep

your prospects engaged and constantly interacting with your website.

Step 5: Format Your Landing Pages

Are you aware of the power of the landing page? Do you know what a landing

page is? Compelling landing pages are extremely important to show real results

via Internet marketing. Track-able landing pages convert prospects into the

funnel, harvesting leads from direct sources as they accept the offer you will

undoubtedly present. We specialize in building landing pages that drive results,

and we have the metrics to prove it.

Key Concepts and Statistics

• Leave Landing Pages out of any website navigation.

• Keep the description of the offer clear, simple, and concise. o One company found that they had a 32% conversion rate with longer

description and form field.5

eBooks

Video

News

Releases

Slide Shows

Podcasts

Blog

Original Content Vehicles

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o They cut it down, which brought their conversion rate to 53%.6

• Keep the form above the fold.

• To maximize efficiency, consider these questions: o How fast can you launch a new landing page? o Can one person do it in 30 minutes? o What is the cost of experimentation?

source: Revenue River Marketing, 2012

Takeaway

Landing pages are where the magic happens; they are the gateway to your

conversion offers that create engaged and interested leads. Make sure you can

grab their attention with an interesting offer, but use the landing page to explain

what you are offering! A good looking landing page will help build more value

and more leads.

Step 6: Conduct Conversion Experiments

Conversions are the name of the game. Without the ability to track leads through

to conversion you will have a hard time calculating ROI (return on investment).

This is where we believe you could use some expert help. The tools we have at

our disposal make the tracking, reporting, and tweaking fast and efficient. You

can quickly track an offer’s conversion path, adjust it to increase performance,

etc. The ability to react and improve with detailed analytics will greatly improve

conversions. And let’s not forget profits!

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Key Concepts

• Your offers should be living, breathing documents that are constantly changing.

• You must educate your prospects on the purchasing process.

• If your landing pages and offerings do not seem to be reaching their full potential, you should try to:

o Attach links to your email newsletters. o Have your pay-per click ads send visitors right to the landing page. o Use them as the next step after a trade show or event. o Use them as RFI correspondence.

• Helpful sites for experimenting with your conversion events: o Five Second Test o Feedback Army o User Testing o Loop11

Takeaway

Website design is not a one and done deal. Your web pages must evolve and

improve over time. This is especially important for your landing pages since they

help convert your faceless website visitors into opportunities that you have

collected vital information about.

Many companies build a site and let it sit when they could simply continue to

work on the site and greatly improve results. Make a commitment to forward

progress with your website just as with the rest of your business, and watch your

flow of profits increase.

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Step 7: Review Your Metrics on Visitors and Leads

Metrics tell you a whole story, especially about where the money is. Without the

ability to improve on your performance you will never reach your true potential.

Your web redesign should kick start your Internet marketing campaign and the

project will continue forever. That’s a good thing! With positive metrics and

return on investment in place, you will find yourself increasing your success as

long as capacity can handle the velocity.

Key Concepts

• Stay away from “paralysis by analysis.”

• Do not bother with metrics that track the technical performance of your website.

• Focus on these three metrics for success: o Visitors.

� How many people are coming to my website? � Where are they coming from?

o Leads. � How many visitors converted to leads? � What did they convert on?

o Sales. � How many leads converted to sales?

• These metrics will help you determine what parts of your website are in need of revision.

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Takeaway

Metrics are essential for pinpointing the exact pain points of your website. By

doing small, but constant adjustments to your website, you will be able to

maximize its utility so it becomes a platform for generating visitors, leads, and

last, but not least, sales.

So We Got Your AttentionJ Now What?

Hopefully by now you have learned some things that will help you build a

successful web redesign project. To ensure success it is important to keep the

following basics in mind.

Begin with the end in mind

Redesign your site for the right reasons

Protect the assets you have in place

Format your Homepage for effectiveness

Continually create fantastic, original content

Master the art of the Landing Page

Experiment using metrics to grow conversions

Page 13: Building an effective website- 7 steps to ensure success

Redesign projects can be overwhelming, and many companies ignore the fact that they really just need to take better advantage of what they have. A new design can be a powerful tool, just don’t let sexy be priority over function. Inbound marketing tactics such as SEO, blogging, and social media are easy to include in your existing site and are twice as effective as traditional web redesign elements such as flashing imagery. You should strive to make small but constant and continuous improvements to each element of your current website so your website becomes a powerful traffic-generating machine.

We build websites that contain all of the features you need to launch a successful

Internet marketing campaign. We have tremendous tools that make the work

easy, efficient, and effective.

We can blend world-class design with fundamental tools in place for a loud

launch and productive campaign moving forward. Once the foundation is in

place we can build metrics for success and constantly improve, growing website

traffic, leads, and conversions.

Here’s another way to look at itJ. If you can’t put your name in the blank you

probably need help with your rebuild... ____________ has lots of time, relevant

expertise, tremendous efficiency and effectiveness in web design, development,

and Internet marketing.

We like coffee, let’s talk.

SOURCES, UNLESS CITED:

1Hubspot, Marketing Transformational final

2MARKETSHARE.HITSLINK.COM, OCTOBER 2010

3Hubspot, THE SCIENCE OF WEBSITE REDESIGN, JUNE 2011

4Hubspot, 2010

5HubSpot, State of Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Report, 2010

6Hubspot, Webinar Redesign Strategy, 2010

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