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Using Clear Website Strategy to Achieve Marketing Success

A quick search with Google, Yahoo! or any of the search engines will reveal millions of websites, the majority of which were created with a focus on publishing content about a particular business or product, with little thought of how practical the website really is or what the website is supposed to do.

Wants vs. Needs

It is important to distinguish between wants and needs and to focus on functionality-what's really necessary to reach specific marketing goals.

Developing a website strategy is not just limited to achieving your website goals, but should also be a part of your overall marketing plan.

Just about every business today has a web presence. However, most websites are often treated as a marketing afterthought without a specific purpose for the website besides offering basic company information and an e-mail form.

Your web presence should be viewed as an interactive extension of a company, and a marketing tool to help support your overall marketing plan.

Setting Goals

The first step in creating your internet strategy is to list all the specific tasks you want your website to accomplish. Besides offering a potential customer information about your company, what should your website "do?"

Should you offer E-commerce? Should your website serve as a lead source? Should you distribute information to your customers or offer enhanced customer service? Should you recruit online or survey customers? Or should you simply market and advertise?

Often, websites tend to become a sort of online "Swiss Army Knife" that does a lot of different things for different audiences. The reality is that many visitors to your site only visit a few pages and can quickly get frustrated when they encounter large, complex information portals.

Creating a List of Priorities

As you make a list what you want your website to do, prioritize your list into three categories: 1) Primary, "must do" goals, 2) Secondary, "it would be nice if..." and 3) Back Burner, "if we have to postpone this, it wouldn't hurt us."

When grouping your goals, keep in mind the one overwhelming reason for having a web presence in the first place and compare it to each of your specific goals as you prioritize them.

After establishing clearly what your stated website goals should be, compare these goals with what is actually happening with your current site and your marketing and advertising plan.

This exercise will help you to see what the gap is between what you want or need to accomplish and what's really happening based on site statistics, customer and employee feedback or surveys.

Separating Wants From Needs

The final step in creating an effective internet strategy is to separate wants from needs. It is easy to want "cool" capabilities you have seen elsewhere on the Internet, but it can be hard to determine if certain functionality will actually help your business marketing effort.

Do you really need distracting animations on your website, a chat room or a message board on your website? Do you need an online operator on your website if ther is no one standing by to answer questions?

Perhaps it is actually more important for you to know who is using your website and how often they are coming back for more information, or if your print marketing campaigns and online marketing is really bringing you new business-or not.

Ordering Your Website Priorities

Having your priorities outlined and your goals detailed will help you to determine what you really need to accomplish your goals. Go through your priority list and compare it against your web site goals.

If a site feature you want will help you to accomplish a specific marketing task then include it as long as the feature utilizes current Internet technology or browser technology that is widely supported by today's browsers. Offering "cutting edge" features that most of your website visitors can't use is simply a waste of time and effort.

If you have items on your list that don't match your website goals well, it is probably a good idea to hold off implementing them-put them into a "phase II wish list." Finally, having a website priority list will make it easier to decide what to include or exclude in your website when working within a limited website budget or creating requirements to give to your website designer.

Fine-tune Your Internet Strategy

It goes without saying that planning and decision-making will take some time and will not be easy. Markets and marketing plans can change almost overnight, and you have to be ready to change your Internet strategy as the marketplace changes.

The old saying that goes, "knowledge is power," applies well to your website marketing strategy. Once you do your homework and understand your website goals and what's needed to reach-or exceed-your goals, putting your strategy to work will be the easy part.

10 Tips for an Effective Web Presence

1) Making great first impressions is important. Your website may be the first exposure to your company a potential customer experiences. Strike a balance between content and design; too much of either will push visitors away.

2) Avoid focusing exclusively on graphic design. Focus on making your site useful—give your visitors a reason to add your website to their favorites list and to return often.

3) Create simple navigation. Design your pages so your users can go from one page to any other page. Avoid navigation schemes that rely on the user having to search for a secondary navigation menu or having to use their browser's "back" button in order to navigate.

4) Distribute your website information on several pages. instead of having long pages that scoll on and on, break extremely long pages into multiple pages. Also, by optimizing and distributing your photographs and graphics over several pages, your pages will load faster.

5) Know who is coming to your website. Be sure to keep tabs on how your site is being used on a monthly or quarterly basis. This information will be invaluable for updating or re-focusing your site to better serve your target market or customers, and for deciding what new features to add in future redesigns.

6) Update your site frequently. Be sure to create a reason for your website users to keep coming back. Repeat visits give you an opportunity to repeat your marketing message to prospective clients, and for visitors to become comfortable and familiar with your company and what you offer.

7) Capture information with your website. Use forms, offers, surveys and promotions to get your visitors to tell you who they are and what they are interested in. Not only will this help you to design a more useful site, collecting e-mail addresses can allow you to notify customers and potential customers about new products or services.

Avoid excessive bells and whistles. With the Internet, today's fad is tomorrow's eyesore. Invest in tasteful, unpretentious graphic design and compelling content. If you must use animations, have them stop after a few cycles so they don't become obnoxious.

9) Review your internet goals quarterly. As the Internet evolves and as new technology becomes mainstream, it is good to review the purpose of your website and the usefulness of new tools as they become more widely accepted. Only implement new tools or website applications when they make sense.

10) Avoid "do-it-yourself web design." Creating your own website may ultimately cost you sales and convey a less than professional image of your company. If you don't have experience in graphic design or producing professional websites, hire a web development company with proven abilities to help you.

About the Author

Vann Baker, president of Design-First, is a graphic designer who has been creating websites since 1995, from small business websites to large ecommerce, social network and informational websites using content management systems. For more website design tips and project information, visit Design-First.com

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