Does Your Expensive "Well Designed" Website Work ?

Your web site, in conjunction with other internet tools, is now an essential part of the marketing mix as customers become increasingly resistant to the traditional invasive forms of promotion. But does it cut the mustard………….?


Customer “resistance” to traditional marketing programmes derives from the bombardment of promotional contacts to which individuals are subjected - estimated to be up to 3,000 hits per day from various sources. Consequently, your messages are likely to be lost in the ‘noise’ or even rejected. Customers want relevant information when (and only when) they need it!


The widespread use of the internet to promote organisations and their offerings has created millions of sites and pages. Cyberspace is a new battleground, with organisations vying for top billing - this is a war with NO prizes for runners-up!


You’ve developed your website and thousands of people are now racing to it!! Unfortunately, for many, we suspect not! How do you, therefore, develop an effective website?


Key considerations when developing your web site:
• The internet is potentially the ultimate tool for segmenting and targeting specific market niches and generating warm in-bound sales leads. This contrasts with relatively undifferentiated marketing and sterile out-bound cold prospecting of yesteryear.

• If your website does not appear in the first two pages (top 20 entries) of leading Search Engines [SEs] such as Google, Yahoo then it will be rarely found or accessed.

• The sole objective of SEs is to provide relevant content to user enquiries. To do so they continuously trawl the net for pages and their content, using programs called spiders.

• Indications are that SEs increasingly set rankings based on (i) themes across the site (rather than key words on individual pages) and (ii) links with other sites.

• SEs can identify many search engine optimisation [SEO] scams, such as word stuffing, and you risk being shut out if detected.

• Web-sites must quickly establish interest with the user – the next site is only a ‘click-away’ and users are very brutal in exercising their power. ‘Interest’ is gained by providing useful and meaningful information.

• Site traffic will only be retained long term if the site provides consistent quality and relevant information.

• Traffic will only be built if marketing programmes continuously promote the site.


Developing a successful web-site, therefore, is not a discrete design or copy writing exercise, but an integrated and ongoing programme, which must:

• Appeal to the Internet, ie SEs which determine your market exposure.
• Appeal to users with interesting, up-dated and useful content which causes them to repeatedly return to your site and recommend it to others.

• Undertake long term site development and promotion, both across the internet and in traditional marketing programs.



To make your website the ultimate marketing tool in maximising revenue earning potential, New Mindset recommends:


Develop Internet appeal:

• A themed site of up to 25 pages (maximum) focusing on a common subject, rather than producing a number of pages containing disparate topics. SEs are increasingly looking for sites with common “themes”. SEs will ‘mark-up’ sites which have consistency and ‘mark-down’ sites with a ‘hotch-potch’ of ideas. It is, therefore, recommended that multiple themes should be on separate sites.

• Use key words or phrases, on your site, which are not main-stream but niche-market. ‘Main-stream’ words will result in you to competing with millions of other sites, whilst less commonly used words will position you in niches which you can dominate. It is possible to determine the ‘profitability’ of key words by comparing the number of sites for individual words against the instances they are used in search queries. The aim is to find words with high query and low site availability.


• Proactively submit the web site for inclusion on the SEs directory – will save days and weeks rather than waiting for the SEs to locate and register your site.

• Use appropriate name and structure for your web site and pages. This is instrumental in affecting SEs assessment of content and thus your ranking – (i) the domain name for the site should ideally align with theme, whilst (ii) the titling, meta tags, key words and main text should be positioned to align with the sequence that the SE programs read the ‘page’.


Ensure User attractiveness:

• Establish (within a few seconds) the “what’s in it for me” about your site and your unique selling points (USP). Corporate babble, propaganda, vague and verbose statements will not cut it!

• Provide an easily readable and navigable site - where key information is readily identifiable and not lost amongst worthless text/graphics or buried on underlying pages.

• Minimise site loading time by cutting out complicated moving graphics - customers are interested in information rather than flashy graphics with questionable added-value.

• Regularly update the content – users will quickly stop using your site if they perceive it is unchanging and/or out-of-date.

Active site development and promotion is essential for achieving high SE rankings and traffic. Having initially established your site on the net by registering with the SEs, you must move to build your presence and traffic:

• Refine your site - adjust content, structure and use of keywords and monitor how the rankings and volume of hits changes. Re-iterate to gain higher rankings/hits.

• Increase the number of theme related pages which will improve your ‘ranking score’.

• Register with “Pay-Per-Click” [PPC] SEs as the number of pages on your site grows towards 20. It could cost-effective for higher margin products and services. The expenditure can be controlled by setting a budget with the respective SE organisation.

• Register with internet directories.

• Establish links with complementary websites. SEs see this a proxy for site quality.

• Promote your site on-line and off-line using web-logs (blogs), email, e-zines and more traditional marketing communications.

• Move into larger ‘internet-keyword’ sectors by using ‘mainstream’ words with higher search volumes. Your earlier efforts in building traffic, links and promotional activities will propel you up the rankings rather than leaving you floundering at the bottom.


As your traffic builds you can also build secondary revenue streams through either selling advertising or complementary products and services through affinity marketing programmes.


In summary - A well designed website, by itself, does not guarantee internet success. It is only one element of a wider programme which must be implemented to make your site stand out from the crowd!

In other words ….a website without internet appeal and subsequent promotion is akin to developing a creative and costly advert which is then place in your desk drawer rather communicated to your customers……No-one will see it!! Of course no one would do that, would they??