Marketing a website, any website, is basically the same as marketing anything else, anywhere else. Customers are still human, they still respond the same way to particular levels of communication, and react predictably to certain situations. For example the typical consumer will take personal references about a product far stronger than the best commercial on television, whether that personal reference is from someone we know or not.

Most website owners tend to believe their website must be listed high on the search engines for the site to be noticed and make a profit for their business. In reality what needs to happen is that they are noticed and found. While search engines are a very good way of getting this result to occur they are certainly not the only way, or even the most effective way.

Before we do anything we need to look at the web site we are about to market with a savvy eye. In truth it is easy to get visitors to come to our websites, what is difficult is getting them to come back, or stay long enough to buy something. In a survey done by the Netsmart group, over 80% of those that leave a website after viewing the first or second page, do so from frustrating navigational systems. Navigational systems also ranked the highest in what people want to work well on a website they are visiting. The percentages of things most valued by web surfers were :

Easy to Navigate 71%
New, Updated Info 64%
New Product Info 57%
Links to other sites 53%
Local Dealer/Sales Info 41%
Graphics 40%
“Cool” Features 25%

What is amazing is that these same percentages are very close to what Google and Other search engines are looking for as well.

One of the catchy rules for web site design a few years back was the “3 click” rule. The idea was that you wanted to keep everything on your website only 3 clicks away from where the customer was at any given time. The idea is sound, and a good goal to keep in mind when trying to evaluate your current navigational system. I personally like the dummy version. I have people who are not web gurus go to the site and find 3 or 4 things on the site.

The other two highly coveted criteria for users to find and remain at your website have to do with the content that is on the pages. Design, and Graphics and cool features are all well and good, but the real thing people are looking for is a clear understanding of what you do, and an intelligent description of why they should care. If you read between the lines in those first four questions though, it is fairly plain that what people really want is for you to be able to answer their questions, now and in the future. They want to know if your website is a source of good, up-to-date information.

I have seen many websites over the years of working with Google as a Researcher where I could not figure out what they did, even though they were supposedly in a business area that I had a level of expertise. I’ve been on others where the product looked great, but I could not find a way to make the purchase.

A good site to visit and find great examples of what not to do with navigation is Web Pages that Suck. The owner of that site wrote a book several years ago, and has since kept an up-to-date website going.

Once you have your website designed and the content written, you are ready to start attracting visitors. If you have created a website designed to be a source of information, a great deal of this work will be done for you by the Search Engines, and by creating site maps for those search engines to use. Which is what we will talk about next.

Posted by Glenn Hefley in Web Content, Web Design