You have invested a good deal of time, money and effort to create a beautiful website with the latest technology. You’ve invested months of planning, dozens of meetings, countless revisions and a lengthy rollout process. Now you can sit back and watch the leads flow in and your sales skyrocket, right?
Guess again. While it may pain you to hear it, your work has just begun. If you want that sparkling new website to help you generate more business, there are a number of things you can – and should – do, today.
Search Engine Optimization – Of course you developed content with SEO in mind, but you must think of “optimization” not as a one-time thing, but an all-the-time thing. Products change. Industries change. Prospects’ needs change. If your site doesn’t change with the users, you’ll find yourself losing ground to competitors who stay on top of these subtle (or sometimes not so subtle) shifts.
Pay-per-Click Advertising – Not every company uses PPC campaigns to generate business. Some feel that a well-optimized website will bring in all the new leads they can handle. In rare cases, that proves to be true. More often, the company leaves revenue on the table. The beauty of PPC is that you can control, down to the dollar essentially, how much you want to spend each day. Unless you have a good reason, you would be foolish not to at least dip your toes into the pond and use analytics to measure the ripples.
Content Marketing – Like SEO, content marketing must be an ongoing process. Even if your site has an extensive library of informative and intriguing content, prospects will still ask, “What have you done for me lately?” Give them a reason to come back. Rather than waiting for content to expire, create an ever-growing shopping list of topics. Don’t simply churn out new content, reinforce your value by updating existing pieces.
Update the Onsite Experience – The apps you can use to educate, amuse or otherwise engage your website visitors constantly evolve. Tools that let a prospect configure their own product on-the-fly or generate customized marketing materials to share with their peers, for example, get better all the time. Ensuring that you understand them and implement or update them as needed is critical.
So, rather than seeing your website as a completed work of art to be put on a pedestal and admired, think of it as living, breathing animal that requires constant nurturing. Art is wonderful, but once you’ve seen a piece, you’ve seen it. A majestic beast, on the other hand, will continually bring people back for another look.