More Value for Your Website
Most of us are continually challenged to deliver more for our marketing communication budget. One good place to start is to take a look at your website. There are a lot of free or almost free tools and information on the Internet. Taking the time to learn about them and allocating a modest budget to get your IT support team to deploy some of these tools could yield good returns in a relatively short time.
Start by taking a look at how your website is doing—traffic patterns, visitor profiles, how the site is being used, etc. Google Analytics not only provides great tools, which you or your IT team can customize, but also case studies and tutorials that I found very helpful in bringing me up to speed on relevant metrics and how to improve them. Check your web hosting service—many also offer analytics, sometimes complementary to what you can get on Google.
For most websites, search engines are the main source of incoming traffic. It is no wonder that search engine optimization (SEO) consultants command premium fees for their expertise. Whether or not you have the budget to retain SEO consultants, understanding the basics goes a long way. Google offers a very comprehensive, easy-to-read starter guide that you can download and review. Obviously, SEO is something you want to consider when you’re building the site, not after the fact. However, even if you are not planning a major overhaul of your site anytime soon, you can make incremental improvements as you upload new content onto your site and definitely when you update sections—for example, to support a new product launch or product enhancement.
Give it a try. Just taking an analytical look at your website and implementing some basic good SEO practices may yield surprising returns. What do you think? Drop me a note or post a comment.