Why Do You Want A Website?

The underlying purpose of any website is to sell something. Whether or not you actually have a product for sale, you built a website to sell something, be it your business, your products or your services.

Your website is your chance to tell your visitors why they should choose you over the other guys as well as to show them how to choose you over the other guys. Are they buying online? Phoning? Popping into your store? Booking an appointment?

How To Build a Website That Sells Your Services/Products/Business:

1) Know your target audience – your website can’t be all things to all people, just as your business is not all things to all people. When you understand your target visitors, you can aim your site toward them.

2) Keep It Simple Content – you don’t want to give everything away on your website. You want your visitors to have a reason to call and learn more about your business. You want them to contact you for more information, fill out a form and book an appointment.  Web visitors won’t read all the content so make sure you format your content so it can be easily scanned. This means lists, putting things in bold etc. While you may wish to provide information on your website, make sure you use calls to actions throughout so they can convert from visitor to client.

3) Get Them To You – How many times have you visited a website and had to search around for the phone number, email address or business address? Your phone number, email address and even business address should be visible on every page. This includes your homepage!

4) Tell Them – Don’t beat around the bush. When you understand what your visitors are looking for and you know you can serve them well, be upfront and show your visitors why you are the right business for them. Then tell them what you need them to do. Use calls to action to encourage them to buy/call/contact etc.

5) Don’t Be Humble – Nobody wants to be a braggart; however, it is okay to be proud of your business, your products and services. Showcase your strengths.

Of course you want your website to look nice, but your ultimate goal should be that it serves your ultimate purpose: to sell your business to your future and current clients. You want your website to be an extension of your offline business and you may wish to provide valuable information on your website, but never lose site of your original website goal.

The True Cost of a Website

The first question a person usually asks when wanting a website is “what’s it going to cost me?”.

For people who haven’t had a website before or perhaps used an out-of-the-box solution, the expectations on what you get vs. what you pay for do not usually match.

The following are a few items to think about when getting a website and how your expectations may affect the end cost.

1) Design – There is a cost involved in the general design and layout of a website and generally, you get what you pay for. The more individuality and creativeness you require for your site, the higher the cost. A low end, low budget website is usually designed based on a template. These sites can still be very professional and visually appealing; however, customization will increase the cost.

Determine what exactly you are looking for in the look and feel of your website, as well as its layout and talk with your designer about a solution that will work for you.

2) Functionality – What do you want your website to do? A basic site that provides general information is what you can expect for a low-end budget or starter solution. Once you start adding features and functionality, the cost will increase. Features can include a blog or news system, a photo gallery, interactivity, database driven functions, shopping carts etc.

Determine your requirements with your web designer so that your end result works to meet your needs.

3) Strategy and Consulting – You should have specific goals for your website and your site should be built to match those goals. Are you trying to attract new business? Are you providing a service to your current clients? Is your market local? Is your market international? Determining your goals, market and reach is an important step to strategizing and building your website. By doing so, you can then get a site that is built to meet your goals, strategy and market.

4) Marketing – Who is your target visitor and how can you reach them? How you market your website is an important factor in the overall success of your website. Reaching your target visitor can depend on who they are and how they will find you. Will you reach them through the organic search engine results? Through the pay-per-click search engine results? Will they find you off links off other websites? Through social media? The saying “build it and they will come” does not work for your websites if they don’t know your website exists. Expect to include marketing into your web site budget.

5) Content Writing – Your message is important and it is critical that your content reflects your business. Why are your visitors coming to a website like yours and what are they looking for? You need to provide more than just useful information, you need to provide your visitors with a reason to do business with you… hook, line and sinker. There are options to hire a professional copywriter to write or edit the content for your website.

6) Formatting, graphics, images etc. – Making your words look nice is equally important. You want clear calls to action that entice the visitor to action. Perhaps you want a few graphics or images on each page. Choosing the right image and formatting it so it displays properly is an important task.

7) Hosting, Domain Name, Email etc. – You need a domain name. This is the URL that visitors will type in to reach your website. An example is getonmarketing.com or google.com. There are registration fees involved with securing a domain name. Next you will need hosting for your site. This is the server space required to hold your website on the Internet. There are monthly fees involved for this service. With your hosting and/or domain name you should get email services. Depending on your plan will depend on the number of email addresses you get. You can always add more but there will be a cost associated with additional accounts.

These are some of the most common factors that play into the cost of a website. This is why many companies provide an estimate for web design instead of a hard cost.

After all, as clients get more involved in the building of the website, or learn more about features and functionality, they often decide to add additional elements along the way.

While it is completely appropriate to want to know what your website will cost, the bigger, more important question you should be asking is what can a website do for you.

Higher ROI, conversions, increased branding, increased sales etc. can all be achieved with a website planned from the beginning with a good strategy and functional design.

By determining what a website can do for you, you will often come to your own conclusion of what you need out of your website which will then help determine your costs.

After all, if you know you are going to get more out of your website, you will be willing to put more into it. Likewise, the more you put into it, when done right, the more you will get out of your site.

Determine your goals and we will help define a strategy and design the tools and platform to reach them! Contact GetOn Marketing today!

Make The Most of Mobile

More and more Internet users are turning to their mobile devises and tablets to browse websites online. While many of our own clients are seeing big increases in traffic come from mobile users, mobile web browsing is increasing in general. According to an Ipsos Interactive Reid Report, Canadian smartphone users spend an average of 17.3 hours per week using their device. Smartphone users are using their phones to check weather, access social networking websites, look at maps, find a phone number, text, online bank and search the Internet. Ensuring your website is mobile friendly is a great way to take advantage of this growing way to surf the net.

Is Your Website Mobile Friendly?

1) Currently, mobile users are likely visiting your website to find quick information such as a price, your phone number, your address or directions to your place of business. Some businesses offering products or services find that having a separate mobile website is a great way to capture this audience. Others, find ensuring their own website is mobile-friendly with clickable phone numbers, the business address in the header or footer and even a map to their place of business is enough.

2) There is more to being mobile-friendly than simply ensuring your website works on a mobile phone. Is your website listed where the users are searching? Having a listing in Google Places, the Yellow Pages and other local directories can be very helpful in ensuring your site is found by mobile users.

3) Some businesses are finding that they are capturing the mobile user market by running an AdWords campaign. How does this help? Mobile users are turning to Google to find what they are looking for. A well-positioned and managed AdWords campaign will have your ad showing up at the top of the search results. On a small screen such as an iPhone or SmartPhone, searchers will see these ads without having to scroll down for the organic search results.

4) How does your website connect with a mobile user? Are you offering your visitors a way to connect with your business from their phones? You can ensure your website provides a way for users to quickly call, text or email your business, or offers a way for your visitors to share your products/information with their friends or themselves (when using the Internet from their computer), your website should offer a way for users to connect and revisit.  

The mobile market isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and continues to grow. Now is a good time to make sure your website is up to the task of quickly providing mobile visitors with exactly what they are looking for and giving them an easy way to connect with your business form the comfort of their smartphones.

For more information on mobile-friendly websites or to have your website analyzed for how it can best capture the mobile market, Contact GetOn.com.

Website Maintenance – Are You Doing it Right?

You launch your website and have a plan to maintain, update, enhance and market it.

Some businesses need to update their website more than others, but regardless, every website should get updated when needed.

Perhaps you are a realtor who is constantly adding and updating real estate listings? Or, maybe you run an online shopping website and are updating with inventory changes? Maybe you are a veterinarian who routinely answers frequently asked questions or shares patient-care stories on your blog? Maybe you are an artist and need to update your portfolio? Maybe you are a small business and are building upon your information pages?

In any case, when you update and maintain your website you should be sure that it remains consistent with your message, look and marketing plan.

Whenever you add or update a page within your website you should remember the following:

1) Your Top Keywords

if the page pertains to any of your top keywords you should be sure to include them within your page heading, website text and metatags (Title, Description and Keywords) where appropriate.

2) Formatting

if you are adding onto a page or adding a new page, is there a style or format that you need to keep for the sake of uniformity? For instance, perhaps all of your pages have a heading and a subheading? Perhaps you utilize an image on the right (or left)? It is important that as you grow your site that you do not lose the design and functionality that your site was built upon.

3) Page Links

can you link to other content within your website? Do you need to provide a link to an outside source? Linking to other pages within your website provides your visitors with a guide to help them find related information/products/services that they may find useful. In addition, a realtor likely wants his visitors to visit the real estate listings page and/or the contact us page; whereas a shopping site wants visitors to visit a product page. It is very helpful to link to these pages when appropriate.

4) Tone and Message

Often businesses ask a number of employees to udpate, manage and maintain a website. Each person may have their own writing style and/or vision; however, a similar tone, message and style should be used throughout the entire website.

5) Your Marketing Plan

Whoever updates your website should understand your Internet marketing goals and plan so that they can ensure that whatever they are adding will help (and not hinder) what you are trying to achieve.

Maintaining, Updating and Growing a website can take a lot of work, but ensuring that it is done right can make all the difference.

7 Tips for Good Website Content

We Share Our 7 Tips For Good Website Content

You wouldn’t write a letter to your Grandma the same way you would e-mail your best friend. The same is true for your Internet copy —it needs to be different than a business whitepaper or marketing pamphlet.  Your copy needs to be catchy, informative, relevant, succinct, portray your marketing message (if applicable) and be search engine friendly.  When writing content for your website less is more but only if you are able to say what you want to say, have your viewers read it, and encourage them to visit other pages.

Take the real estate industry, for instance.  While offline marketing techniques are still widely used and successful (newspaper listings, hand-outs, magazine and newspaper advertisements, mailers etc.) the Internet has quickly become a huge target for realtors.  Home buyers are turning to the Internet to begin their property searches. In fact, 9 out of 10 home buyers begin their property search online.

Do you know what terms they are searching? Are they finding your website?

This is where your website content comes into play.  If your website content is not related to the search term, your pages will not come up in the Search Engine’s results pages.  Or, if your visitor doesn’t find what they are looking for at first glance, they will leave and try another website.

Good website content is:

  • easy to read
  • easy to scan
  • succinct
  • incorporates keywords and keyword phrases to match the terms your potential visitors will be searching
  • portrays your marketing message
  • is informative
  • encourages visitors to view more pages or to contact you directly

For Realtors®, special attention should be placed on the copy they are writing for their individual listings.  Many realtors simply copy and paste the content from their print listings into their website. While this may be efficient, it may hinder your ability to be found online.

It is important to have your top keywords handy

Stick them on a cork board above your desk or on a sticky note attached to your monitor.  Realtors should refer to their keywords every time they publish a new listing online.  Utilizing one or two of the most appropriate keyword phrases within the listing content can go a long way in helping your website be found by potential home buyers.

As with most things, balance is key.

When writing website copy you need to balance your use of keywords with easy to read, succinct content and your marketing message. This way, you have the best chance of being found, being read and converting your visitors into clients.