Winning on the
Web vs. Being on the Web

An Introduction to Winning on the Web for Current Website Owners and Those About To Launch.

Think of your website as an employee. Given the competitive nature of the Web, you want your best employee to greet visitors and nothing less. It’s not about getting something up on the Web, it’s about winning on the web. It’s not about having a website, it’s about developing a winning website. Small business owners or professionals on a tight budget shouldn’t dismiss the suggestions here simply because they advocate a little work. You get out what you put in. As investments go, the return should exceed the initial investment by hundreds, if not thousands of times.

Businesses with winning websites sleep better at night. Businesses with winning websites can focus on winning marketing strategies with the conviction that they will contribute to success rather than being “hopeful they might do something.”

A winning website is one that has both design and marketing working in tandem to attract and win over prospective clients / customers. Gone are the days when you could just upload a template website and work on some content over the weekend, just because you think you need a website.

1. You may have heard, “Content is King.” Why is that? Because the more quality content you have, the important search engines will perceive your website. The more important they perceive your website to be—the higher up in search results you will get. The higher up in the search results you get—the more traffic and customers/clients you get. Make sure your content is keyword-rich, without being obvious, spamming, or looking dishonest. Most of my clients spend at least a month on their initial content.
Goal: to create a meaningful visitor experience through informative and interesting content.

2. Design is also key. The web design should not only look attractive, professional, and trustworthy, but it should also guide the visitor where you want them to go. As part of the design process, work in a little SEO. Make sure your website has well-written title and description meta tags as well as ALT image tags. Search engines don’t pay much/any attention to the keyword meta-tag.
Goal: to complement the content with a professional appearance and easy navigation.

3. Web Marketing. I have heard too many stories of people expecting a handful of links and/or deep linked banner ads to catapult their web traffic. It’s not likely. Stick with the basics: get on a few A-list business directories first, then add your niche directories, then mix in some Google AdWords and if you can afford it—banner ads on quality and relevant niche directories/websites.
Goal: to entice visitors to your website through advertising (paid) and to get them their through search engine results (organic).

Those are the Big 3—the triangle of web success. You can easily check how you are doing by utilizing Google Analytics, a completely free web tool created by Google.

Content + Design + SEO = Winning on the Web. The more you put into your web experience, the more it will give back in the form of revenue generation.