Is Your Website Paying for Itself?

Tips to make your online presence more productive

So your website has been up and running for a while now, and all in all, it looks pretty good.

But now’s the time to ask the tough questions: How well does it work as a marketing tool? How many leads has it pulled in? How many prospects has it converted?

Has it really been worth all the time, energy and money you’ve sunk into it?

1. Know who you’re really talking to.

Perhaps the biggest misconception about B2B marketing is that top-level decision makers aren’t online.

Far from it. According to a recent study by Forbes.com and the Gartner Group, C-level executives are among the most active and engaged Web users. Even more so than their senior- and mid-level managers.

What does this mean for your website?

Your online audience is not a bunch of stereotypical young technogeeks. The people who come to your site will be smart, experienced, gimlet-eyed executives. And this isn’t their first time at the digital rodeo.

So you’d better be sure that your site is tonally, graphically and strategically aimed at their sensibilities. And that it’s written around the search terms that they use.

These days, just having a website isn’t enough. Your prospects expect your site to be as sophisticated as the products and services you’re trying to sell them.

2. It’s not a brochure. It’s HBO.

When was the last time you changed any of the content on your site? Last week? Last month? Last year?

Unfortunately, there’s a still widely-held belief among B2B marketers that a website is basically a brochure. Once you’ve written it and sent it out, you’re done.

There are two problems with that mindset: If your site hasn’t been recently updated, it won’t seem relevant or trustworthy. And it’s probably plummeting in the search engine rankings.

Ideally, your website should function like a premium cable channel, with a constant flow of new, high-quality content about your company. That’s the key to boosting your search rankings, creating new links, attracting visitors and converting prospects.

An important note: Web shops can’t develop this flow of content for you; they don’t have the expertise. Advertising agencies can’t do it, either; this is not advertising. You’ve got to do it in-house, or hire a public relations firm with digital capabilities. Or both. PR firms understand dialogue, which is the key to joining the internet conversation.

3. Forget the Flash.

Now take a hard look at your Home page. If yours is like most, arriving visitors are treated to a beautiful Flash-animated intro-duction to your company.

Very nice. But the truth is, those animated introductions are usually a waste of time and money and valuable online real estate. Why? Because visitors invariably skip them. And search engines can’t read them.

When anybody comes across your Home page, whether it’s an actual human or a web crawler, they’re looking for immediate answers — in simple, memorable, Google-friendly text — to four basic questions:

    • What is this site?
    • What can I find here?
    • What can I do here?
    • Where do I go next?

Of course, you want visitors to be intrigued with what your website has to offer.  And you’ll need colors, images, and yes, perhaps a bit of judiciously-applied Flash to engage them.

Just remember: The primary function of a Home page is to get visitors off the Home page, and deep into the site. Where the sale is actually made.

4. Digital selling is personal selling.

If someone mentioned they were interested in your company, would you hand them a business card and walk away?

Of course not. But this is exactly what happens with most websites. Visitors are shown an anonymous corporate phone number or a general email address and told to “Contact Us.”

The fact is, online salesmanship has more in common with its offline counterpart than most people suspect.

So structure your site like a digital Dale Carnegie. Create mechanisms to gauge your visitors’ interests and solicit their opinions. Ask them to fill out a survey, post a comment, or rate an article. Instead of insisting that they register (most people hate that), offer them something of value: a white paper, an article or a prospectus.

Then put a spotlight on your people. The same things that make them so effective in person work just as well online. Wherever possible, leverage their charming personalities with pictures, biographies, blogs and Twitter feeds. 

Because in the online world, familiarity breeds confidence.

And confidence creates sales.