Getting the most of your website

You have heard the term "website optimized for the search engines" and how "blogs" always make it to the top of the searches and all other statements like "tableless design with css" by fans of design and web marketing.

While some of the above terms do contribute to achieving a professional online presence there are irrelevant if what you have to offer does not get in front of people that look for it

If you have an established service in the real world and you want to take it to cyberspace or improve your online presence here are the milestones of building a highly optimized website.

Planning

The most important phase in my opinion.  If you do this right or hire the right person, everything else would flow smooth and some months down the road your website will be rockin!

The SEO Pyramid

SEO Pyramid does not apply only to Search Engine Optimization - this video explains how you should go about building your website and perform all the actions for making your brand and services popular online. Just listen and read between the lines.

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday - The SEO Fundamentals Pyramid from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

Choosing the Right Website URL

Search Engines and users alike love keywords describing your primary service in the url. I fix websites so I chose websitefixes.com for my URL although I do SEO and other services. You can imagine that websites like www.seo.com are long taken  so use a service like www.nameboy.com to find a good url for your website. 

NOTE: If you like your old website name and its old enough ( 3+ years or more) keep it or if you find a new good one you can redirect the traffic and the authority it has acquired with a Redirect /we'll take about those some other time/.

Findability and Usability

Presentation these days seem to be everything. There is so much competition nowadays that you have only a second span to catch the eye of your visitor before the flip to the next website deemed #1 in providing the service they are looking for. I personally believe that a clean, user friendly design which is right to the point beats the Flashy graphics you have to go through to get what you need. Following standards set by professionals like Aarron Walter combined with latest trends on resources like Smashing Magazine guarantee your design concept is up to date.

Using the right platform

Now that you know what it takes to plan for a winning website and have a design concept its time to choose the platform to build it on. You would listen to a lot of programmers that whatever they will build will be "the best" and will cost only  "a few thousant" and will do "everything". While that may be true, nothing beats FREE and developed by an army of maniac programmers. I am talking about award winning platforms like Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal. Using CMS like this would mean greater flexibility, ease of use high level of code. Not to mention thousands of add-ons premade for your convenience.

And if people tell you that it does not matter how your website is programmed, I will prove them wrong in upcoming case studies.

The website is ready - now what?

If you have made it up to here following the previous points you have set yourself up for success. From now on there only one step: Produce valuable content promoting your company and your services. While its only one step left to dominating your niche it is also the hardest. Different ways to create and promote valuable content will be discussed further so stick around.

Of course - you need to host the website online and here is a good suggestion

Driving Traffic to your Website

Last paragraph it said one last step so what is this for? Ideally if your content is valuable and unique, people will give to others, post it on their websites  and a flood of traffic will follow. But thats only in the ideal world. In reality you have to go out and actually promote your content.  Driving the traffic that will convert is never easy and always requires dedication and analysis. One of the purposes of this website is to discuss link building techniques that work. Until then if you are unsure what to do with your website just contact me.

Developing and promoting your business and brand online has changed dramatically in the past 2 years. Technologies are evolving to provide services for the regular user which were only available to fortune 500 enterprises with massive IT infrastructure. Now your online presence can be like theirs. Thanks to the power of the WordWideWeb you can become the leader in your market and be huge!

#1 Finding the right Keywords

Use specialized advice and software to gain thorough insight on search queries people use to find the products and services you offer. This would be the foundation of your online presence strategy. I use wordtracker and google adwords keyword tool to discover keywords for businesses that are established offline and would like to improve their online presence. I will be touching on techniques for keyword research so stick around.

#2 Optimize your Website

Your Website is your main marketing vehicle, the heart of your online presence strategy. It combines and flows all the different alleys you are using to attract traffic. With the power of CMS like Joomla or Wordpress for example , ANYBODY can build an optimized website and start working their way up to be a leader in their niche. So if you don't have a really experienced web developper handy, I suggest you use a cms. If you have an old site, get a new design that  feels 2009ish and convert to a template for one of the CMS. This would guarantee you better look, improved usability and cleaner code - things loved by search engines and users alike. Use the keywords you found and incorporate them into your website.

#3 Start producing relevant content

Most of you may not find this their thing but when it comes to doing online business in 2009 content in all its forms is the king. So start writing, shooting videos, taking pictures and recording audio. There is a good chance your competition is already doing it so you have to start now! Again, incorporate keywords searches you found in all their forms in writing, talking and etc.

#4 Give away your knowledge

You are an information guru in your industry. Start giving out interesting insights on your work and educate people why and how your products and services will benefit them.  Publish content on websites that your target audience may be visiting. Provide free reports that other people can use in their research of your industry. Asking for people's email in return so you can send them cool stuff in the future here is never a bad thing.

#5 Build an audience

It has never been easier to leverage the power of the WWW to build an audience that is interested in your industry. Using Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Linked in is fun and easy way to both build customer lists and promote your brand. Combined with email lists you gather you are building your research and development army.

#6 Interact

A lot of business are building products they believe will be useful for their clients. Large percent of those products fail. Why? Because it was not what customers really needed but what a marketing manager thought a super cool idea. Smart businesses interact with their customers online and develop products when people ask for them. Ask your audience to join you in being successful. You will be amazed of the results.

#7  Build the Sale

All these new technologies mentioned above have had tremendous effect on marketing but also on people's indecisiveness. With so many options to choose from what do you do? Successful online entrepreneurs understand that so instead of relying on one step sales they try to build a relationship through online presentations, mini coaching courses, $1 trials to attract customers. And it works, just have to find the right sales pitch for your service.

#8 Stand behind your product/service

Its hard to sell online without money back guarantee. Nowadays everybody has it. Whenever possible follow this trend. Following the #7 customer indecisiveness this would help you make a sale. And if your product is as good as you say, you want have any issues.

#9  Affiliate Marketing

I am a big fan of affiliate marketing because with the right strategy it can really save you tons of money that you would waste trial and error in advertising. Coach your affiliates, give them solid tools and an attractive commission and you might never need to worry about marketing. Also if your product is spotted by one of the affiliate gurus you can see their techniques to bring you revenue and mirror them on your website.

#10 Staying on top of things

A lot of people would say that if you need to do all this you would be working 80 hours a week - what about all the rest of the tasks my business needs. Not true. Again with the power of technology you can have all your information sources, social networks, affiliate campaigns and web services syndicated so you spend an hour or two a day with your online presence and the rest of the time you tackle offline issues. A plan will always help. 1-2 videos and articles, free report once in a while will build you massive audience over time.

If you have any specific questions on any of the above tips, please comment so we can dig deeper into the 10 tips that will make your business successful online in 2009.