I’m having a blast with the free Internet Marketing series I’m teaching here in Saint Louis. The room has been packed at each session and the one I’m teaching tonight is no doubt going to be the same.
Tonight will be the final of three awesome classes. Of the three, I enjoy teaching Marketing Your Business Website the most. It’s basically a ten thousand-foot view of Internet Marketing, including pointers on good domain names, design and of course SEO.
I’ve been teaching this particular class for over four years now, and the expression of people’s faces as I close out the curriculum is nearly always the same.
Shock. Surprise.
“We had no idea there was so much involved in getting our site to rank.”
“This is a ton of work and we’re already busy running our business.”
“We’ve got to do this but can’t believe all that’s involved.”
The realizations are always about the same. There’s a lot to do to get your site moving towards the top. There’s more than just coming up with a list of twenty keywords that you think are important (because your web guy asked you for them). Lots more. Not to mention social media, PPC or blogging.
So what do you do from here?
Do Some Research
Research is (mostly) free. It’s something you can do over a week or two. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Join Google’s Adwords program.
It’s free to join. Then use their keyword tools to get a nice list of keywords and keyphrases together that fit with your company. - Visit your competitors’ websites.
Can’t think of any more keywords? Chances are their web guy asked them for a list of words, too. Right-click on their home page and select View Source from the menu. Use the search function (usually CTRL-F) and find the word ‘keywords’ in their source code. Read that line and see what they’ve deemed as their most important words and phrases. - Compare the Look and Feel of your website with your competitors
While you’re at their website, check out the things you like and take notes. Write down what you don’t like, too. Is their site way more professional looking than yours? Do they use colors that are pleasing? How does your website compare?
Interview a Professional
Obviously the answer here is to hire me. But if that’s not what you want, or you’ve already got a good web designer, set up a meeting with them. Quiz them on their Internet Marketing knowledge. Use some of the things you learned in class to feel out their level of expertise. Here are some pointers:
- Designer or Marketer (or both)?
If they’re the one that designed your website, did they approach you in the past about marketing your site? If not, chances are they don’t understand the value of a website beyond a brochure. - Old School Methods
Ask them about hiding white text on a white background that’s full of your keywords. If they say yes they can do that, RUN.
Tell them you’ve found a few websites that want to swap links with you. If they nod and agree, RUN. - Hat Awareness
Ask your person if they know any black hat or gray hat methods. If they say yes, this is probably a good thing. Being aware of these methods tells you that they keep up with the good and bad in their industry. Now, if they use any of these methods, I suggest you not hire them. Ethics is key when hiring anyone, in my opinion. - Deliverables
What sort of items would they give you to show what they’re doing? Do they have a project management system that you can access? Do they provide reports on your ranking growth? Do they have three or six month reviews? Do they keep in touch with you over the process, or do they just collect your check and do their magic? - Practicing what they preach
Does your professional rank for what they do? What does that tell you? There’s a reason why I’m on top.
Build your baseline
Whether or not you’re thinking of hiring someone to take your website beyond the brochure, you need a nice baseline of statistics. You should know where your visitors are coming from. You should know how people are finding you, and you should be aware that your website visitor count may be very dismal.
To get some of this data, I suggest you join Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. Verify your site and start collecting about your visitors (or lack of!).
Know what you need
Now that you have a basic understanding of what your customers are looking for, what your competitors’ websites look like, and what sort of professional services you need to hire, you need to for a plan.
- Website redesign
If your website didn’t measure up to your competition, chances are the first thing you need is to get a professionally-designed site going. - Call to action
If you’ve already got a pretty decent site, perhaps you need to simply add some buttons that pull those customers in or engage them in some way. Perhaps a free white paper download, or a contact form that gets more info. - Track and learn
Watch new visitors that come to your site. For the ones that don’t bounce, see how long they stick around. Are they all abandoning your site at the same spot? Maybe there’s a problem there. Or maybe your call to action is weak or non-existent.
For the ones that did bounce, check out the path they used to find you. If it’s a valid-looking lead ask yourself why they hit the back button. What did they see (or didn’t they see) that made them get out so fast? Is it easy to fix?
Getting past the cost
Once you reach the point of understanding the basics of SEO, and you have a good feeling about a professional or agency that you’d like to hire, don’t be surprised at the cost. This is normally the spot where a lot of businesses ‘freak out’. They’re looking at what they’re going to spend instead of what they’ll make. Very typical for small businesses especially, where pennies are already squeezed tightly.
While your neighbor’s sister’s dogwalker can build you a website for a few hundred bucks, it may not be the best idea to hire them. Is that what got you into this situation in the first place? A good website design/redesign can cost from one thousand to tens of thousands. It all depends on the goal you have in mind, and what you’re willing to spend to get it there.
If you’ve already got a nice site and want to get a professional involved with marketing, growing and ranking your site, you should understand that they’re not cheap either. Since you’ve already established a baseline, their improvements will be easy to track. Over the next year that you’ll be working together, so you’ll have plenty of data to judge their output with. Just don’t jump ship early.
No Loitering
There’s only so much I can type. There’s only so long I can keep your attention before you hit the back button, so I’m sure there’s plenty I missed. But I hope you get the idea. It’s a process. A process that, if you’re even considering it, probably needs to be started. Your competition may not know about online marketing, and you’ve got the advantage. Don’t squander it or wait until they find out.
Being the leader is more fun than playing catch-up.
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