Five Reasons Why Your Website Is Still Important

The increasing popularity of social networks in the last few years has seen huge changes in the way people access the web to socialize, shop and build their online profile. It has also influenced the way
businesses of all shapes and sizes have adapted their web presence to gain an advantage

So with so much interaction taking place over social media websites, you might be forgiven for thinking a conventional website is surplus to requirements.

The following five reasons outline why your website is still the most important component in building a successful online presence for your business.

1. Maintaining Ownership

It is critical to protect your company identity by owning your business web address and website. This will avoid surrendering control of your brand to the mercy of a third party website – and their ads.

2. Your Content, Your Way

Content is still King, so being in control of how your content is presented is key to effectively getting your message across. Maintaining control of the user experience will enable you to manage content relevancy and your conversion process.

3. Create a Content Hub

Your business blog should be the focal point for all your content marketing activities – using your social media presence as a means to engage your audience and ultimately bring visitors to your website.

4. Attracting Search Traffic

A well optimised website plays a vital role in attracting valuable Search Engine traffic. Facebook after all is still a closed door to the Search Engines.

5. Monitor, Tweak, Improve

Being able to analyse website statistics to measure conversion rates, monitor backlinks and assess visitor engagement is essential to improving your online marketing activities – and ultimately achieving a return on your web investment.

In conclusion, if you want to take online marketing seriously, don’t neglect your most valuable online resource; your business website.

If you would like help improving your online presence, or planning an effective online marketing strategy, get in touch.

Landing page optimization

There are five things that always exist on a successful landing page:

1)    Headline

2)    Demonstration (if you don’t have pictures or descriptions on what the visitor has to do on the page, they will leave)

3)    Value – there has to be a reason why they should choose you instead of your competitors

4)    Support

5)    Action – tell people what they need to do. There has to be a single call to action on your landing page – if you expect someone to do four different things, they’ll do none

Every time you give someone an excuse to leave your page (like a social sign in), you’re giving them the opportunity to leave and never come back.

You have to think about why the visitor wants to interact with your content. Nobody cares about features – if you’re creating the right emotional feel for a product, you’re going to have higher conversion rates.

Things that can help your landing page:

• Bullets
• Graphics
• Emphasis (italic, bold, underline)
• Images

Many of your customers don’t think about your product in the same way you do, this is why testing is so important. Always try to find out what a potential customer would want to invest in emotionally when creating a landing page.

Test your content

If you’re selling a luxury item, you’re probably going to need to provide more content. If you’re just asking someone for an e-mail address, keep the content short. The important thing is that you test the content to see what works for you. Don’t argue with people about changing the headlines or other content – just change it, test it and use the one that performs the best.

Creating a great landing page: The Process

Phase 1

• Brainstorm content
• Design and write
• Create more content than  you need
• Create control page
• Create variations
• Test

Phase 2

• Analyze your results
• Choose new control
• Revise variations
• Test again

Phase 3

• Headline
• Call to action
• Large images
• Length of content

Your headline needs to take the visitor from “I think this is the right place” to “I know this is the right place”. Once they realize they’ve come to the right place, they have patience.

Images

Sometimes a picture of a woman works really well and sometimes a picture of a man will work. You need to test the images and choose the one that conveys the right emotion for whatever you are selling.

If you use a picture of a person on your landing page, make sure the person faces the action on the page. If they’re looking at you, you start thinking about the person in the image instead of the content on the page.

Buttons

One of the last things you need to be testing is the buttons on the landing page.  Your headline and images are more important.

Ways of expressing value

It’s a requirement that you communicate value. After the website visitor realizes they’re in the right place, you need to make sure they know that what they’re about to buy or sign up for is valuable.

Forms

Don’t create long forms that ask a visitor to give you their name, phone number, e-mail etc. Don’t use the word “submit” on your buttons. People don’t want to “submit”, they want to “buy”.

Content critique

People don’t care about you and your company; they want to know what you can do for them.

Written by: Francois Muscat ,  WSI consultant