Some other ideas to advertise your website offline:

• Letterhead AND envelopes
• Personal brochures about you and your company or organization
• Your resume
• Newsletters sent to your clients (either email or in print)
• Signature tag of all email messages (no matter to whom they are sent… friends, family, colleagues, etc.)
• At the end of your voice mail/answering machine message (i.e., …. “and be sure to visit my website at www.yourbusiness.com”.
• Fax cover sheets (many people forget this one!)
• Flyer on free local bulletin boards (grocery stores, discount chain stores, shopping malls, dry cleaners, etc.) – print a flyer on bright yellow paper detailing your web address and your company. BE SURE to include your email address as well as your telephone number! Tack the flyer to bulletin boards all over your town. Keep a supply in your car for handy access.
• Magnetic car signs (many office supply companies will make these for you at a very reasonable rate)
• Neighborhood directories
• Bus stop benches
• Printed on mouse pads (give one to your clients at Christmas or on their birthday instead of sending flowers)
• T-shirts (white T-shirts can be imprinted with a one-color design for a nominal price). Think about how great it will make you feel to see YOUR web address “walking around town”.
• Business card (As simple as this sounds, it is often overlooked)
• Your business sign

1. Find A Role For Your Website

The single most important tip is to decide on what role of your website should play in your marketing program before you order it.  Do you want to educate the market about your products? Provide a 24-hour information resource for current customers? Showcase your products? Generate requests for literature and leads? If you set objectives and stick to them, your website will be a success.

2. Offer The Reader A Compelling Reason To Contact You

Turning a website visitor into a customer is the most-overlooked aspect of web-based marketing, even on the biggest commercial sites. You want those who visit your website to buy. The easiest way to accomplish this is to engage them in a two way dialog, so you can market to them on your own terms. Get them to volunteer their name so that you can inform them of specials, product upgrades, events, and new products via e-mail or regular mail. How do you get them to volunteer their name? Offer them something! A free catalog, a free quote, a free analysis, a free reprint of an editorial article — anything your buyers might find of value. Other methods might include weekly drawings for free gifts (T-shirts, free product, etc.), or other promotional giveaways.

3. Get Right To The Point

People are not patient. Studies have proven that people will read long ads and marketing materials, but only if it’s clear there’s “something in it” for them. Be concise. Be quick. Be interesting. Don’t beat around the bush with long introductions or unrelated information. Tell your customer what they want to know and they’ll stick around for more!

4. Focus On Your Audience

Remember, your website should appeal to the interests of your audience, no one else matters! Focus on your target audience and put yourself in their shoes. If they’re interested in your product because it saves them time, then focus on convenience; don’t start your pitch with a laundry list of less-important features. Focus on the key benefits of your product and leave the details for later.

5. Market Your Website

Would you open a sales office in a distant city and then not tell your clients in the area that it had opened? Of course not. Think of your website as an automated sales or service office on the Internet and let your “universe” of potential buyers know that it’s available to them. Put your web address on your stationery, business cards, ads, brochures, and other sales materials, use a rubber stamp if necessary.  Be creative! For example, send out an “birth” announcement on a postcard. You should also remember to keep your domain name easy to remember. There shouldn’t be any dashes or numbers if it isn’t necessary. The general rule of thumb is the name should either be the company name or something that will be so easy to remember that if you gave your business card to someone and they lost it, they should still be able to find the website.

6. Make Your Website Useful

Make sure the information your prospects or customers want is available. For example, websites are ideal ways to disseminate the latest information about your product. You can include specifications, case studies, success stories, white papers, or testimonials. And don’t forget to include important contact information like your toll-free ordering line, customer service number, or how to get technical support. Make people want to come back to your website, make it “sticky”. It should be updated continuously, with events and news. Your site should also give them the incentive of coming back (e-mailed newsletter, product specials, contests, etc.).

7. Make It Easy For Viewers To Respond

You’d think this was obvious, but it’s overlooked far too often. You absolutely must make it easy for a reader to express their interest in your website. Plaster your 1-800 number across it, make sure there’s a link to your e-mail system, and treat visitors with the care you show any other prospective buyer. I have seen sales-oriented websites that never once listed a phone number or a “click to send e-mail” button.

2. 10 statements that make my head explode, and what they really mean by Ian Lurie on Conversation Marketing

3. Email Dominates on Mobile by Allyson Kapin on Frogloop

4. Business Owners Can Now Respond to Reviews on Google Place Pages by Christina Warren on Mashable

5. Two New Free Fundraising e-Books for You! by Jocelyn Harmon on Marketing for Nonprofits

Did you have a favorite article from last week? Feel free to share it below, or send us a tweet @4mwebdesign.

2. Two Subject-Line Traps to Avoid from MarketingProfs Daily

3. Cool PC Apps: The Top 50 PC Applications for Freelancers

4. The power of sync from Seth’s Blog by Seth Godin

5.  7 Cutting Edge Web Design Trends (that Can Actually Improve SEO)

Did you have a favorite article from last week? Feel free to share it below, or send us a tweet @4mwebdesign.

When asked about the size of their commercial social network communities, survey respondents indicated an average of 2,440 members on Facebook, a sizeable drop (55%) from the 5,391 member average Facebook community size reported in 2009.

At first glance, this drop would seem to indicate that nonprofits are getting fewer supporters on Facebook and therefore less value.Yet upon further inspection, it becomes clear that many new nonprofits are coming onto the Facebook platform. Nonprofits reporting a presence on Facebook increased by 16% in the last year. Thus, the dip in average Facebook community size is likely more a result of the many new nonprofits coming onto the platform that are building an audience but have not had sufficient time to accumulate a large base of support. Stated simply, an influx of new Facebook-focused nonprofits that have yet to build a big audience is skewing the average community size downward this year. In contrast,Twitter showed a large increase in average community size, increasing 627% to 1,792 (286 in 2009). Community sizes also increased on LinkedIn from 291 to 450 and on YouTube from 268 to 447. MySpace average community size, however, dropped from 1,905 in 2009 to 1,794 in 2010.

Respondents reported community sizes on Facebook ranging from 1 to 250,000 fans, but 96% of the communities were 10,000 members or less with three very large communities of 214,000+ members skewing the average. Remove these three outliers, and the average community size on Facebook is 1,773 members. The nonprofit-specific social network, Change.org had an average community size of 1,334, a large increase (449%) from last year (243 members in 2009).

How does your website measure up? Not sure?

Take advantage of our Complimentary-No Obligation Analysis of your web site or download your free copy of our Website Planner Workbook.

When you compare the cost of establishing a website to what it costs to promote your business in print or on the air, you’ll see that a website is the cheapest form of marketing. A radio campaign featuring several 30-second spots per week for three months could run you $10,000 – $15,000. That gets you five minutes per week of exposure for three months in the local area only. Newspaper and magazine ads are similarly highly priced, and they only last for the life span of that particular publication. A website has virtually limitless space.

You could put up a brochure website with dozens of photographs and several thousand words for under $5,000 for the first year, and keep it up and running for a few hundred dollars per year after that. What would it cost to run a newspaper ad of this size for a year? Imagine how much it would cost to produce a catalog for 200 different products, and keep it in consumers’ hands for an entire year. You can accomplish this with a website very easily, with low development cost and almost no distribution cost. Websites are in full color – a palette of 16.7 million colors for your photographs alone.

A website is accessible worldwide.

There are no physical limitations to broadcast areas as in radio and no circulation region restrictions as in newspapers or magazines. You can keep your website more current more affordably than any other media; you can update a website immediately, and as often as you like. Imagine you sell products whose prices fluctuate. With a website, you can change these prices every time they go up or down, so your marketing materials are always accurate.

Websites are economical and not limited by size.

This means a small business can present as large or creative of an image on the Internet as a bigger company – with the right design team. A website also allows easy and safe communication between the consumer and you so that anyone who visits your site can contact you at any time by sending an email. Unlike communications that originate from other forms of advertising, consumers who send emails don’t have to deal with many problems of everyday business: pushy salesmen, remembering to call during business hours, having to battle crowds to get to your stores, spending time waiting on voice mail or getting the wrong information. It’s convenient, easy, and safe for the consumer. Email is also convenient for you.

You can respond to all your customer inquiries at the same time, and do it when you have a free moment – not in the middle of rush hour when someone calls up to ask for product information or directions to your location. You can save money on tech support and answering questions. If your employees spend a lot of time answering the same questions and sending out the same material, you can reduce that labor cost significantly by providing the information on the website. For instance, a client can avoid having to mail or fax information for over 1,000 phone call solicitations in a one-year period simply by providing the information on their site. Your website can also take orders while you sleep as people can place orders on a website at any time, day or night.

How does your website measure up? Not sure?

Take advantage of our Complimentary-No Obligation Analysis of your web site or download your free copy of our Website Planner Workbook.

Planning:

• What advantages would you like to gain from your web site?
• What disadvantages do you think you may encounter?
• How do you plan to overcome those disadvantages?

Target Market:

• Who is your primary target market?
• Who are the main customers you wish to reach?
• Who is your secondary target market? (If any)
• To whom do you sell or want to reach primarily? Other businesses or to the general public?
• How will your web site compare to the way your business / organization currently operates?
• Are you planning an online brochure to enhance your marketing or showcase your product / service?
• Would you like to receive orders and sell merchandise over the internet?

Setup:

• Have you selected a domain name for your web site? Is it currently registered?
• Will your site need a security certificate?
• Will you be processing credit card transactions?

Advertising and Promotion:

• How will you generate demand for your product or service?
• Will you offer banner ad space?
• Will you offer referrer bonuses?
• Will you offer contest-based promotions?
• Will you offer coupons for using the web site?
• Will you be participating in email marketing?
• On what other media will you be advertising your business?
• Will you be adding your web site information to that media?

Customer Service:

• Who will be answering email generated by the web site?
• Will your customers have a phone number at which you can be reached on the web site?

Functionality:

Which functional features should your web site offer?

• blog
• e-commerce/shopping cart
• site search
• customer service/support
• tech support
• discussion forums
• newsletter
• catalog/information
• order forms
• feedback form
• member logon
• password protected areas
• SSL-encrypted areas

Information:

Which informational elements should your site contain?

• about us page
• contact us page
• copyright notice
• privacy statement
• disclaimer
• sitemap

With anything you should start with a plan. We use a Navigation Tree Diagram to easily layout our navigation. It helps you decide what pages go together, which pages are top level, sub-level and/or secondary. While there are no rules for laying out your navigation, I use one rule of thumb. Visitors should be able to get where they want in no more than 2 clicks.

Below is an example of a site navigation tree. Your main page to your website is where “Home Page” is written on the top box. In the boxes below write the pages that your website will contain. Each box shows a single page from your website. If this is a redesign of a website, you can place the pages you currently have on your existing website, then cross out the pages that you would like removed and add any additional pages.

To properly layout your navigation we designed a blank Navigation Tree Diagram you can download. Enjoy!

How does your website measure up? Not sure?

Take advantage of our Complimentary-No Obligation Analysis of your web site or download your free copy of our Website Planner Workbook.

By a large margin, Facebook continues to be the most popular commercial social network with 86% (74.0% in 2009) of respondents indicating their organization has a presence there, an increase of 16% year-over-year. In tandem, the use of Twitter has increased by 38% in the last year, moving from 43.2% in 2009 to 59.7% in 2010. Usage of YouTube rose to 48.1%, up slightly from 2009 (46.5%), while LinkedIn followed at 33.1% (basically unchanged from last year). While commercial social networks continue to appeal to nonprofits overall, there is one exception. The past market leader,MySpace, dropped from 26.1% in 2009 to 14.4% (or a drop of 45% year-over-year).

How does your website measure up? Not sure? Take advantage of our Complimentary-No Obligation Analysis of your web site or download your free copy of our Website Planner Workbook.

As you can see from the results visitors to websites were most interested in:

• Service descriptions (87%)
• Description of industries served (78%)
• Success stories / case studies (73%)
• Professional website design and presentation (69%)
• About Us/Biographies (64%)
• Clients List (64%)
• Online Resources/White Papers (60%)
• Video or Online Presentations (57%)
• News Items (47%)
• Podcasts or Audio Content (40%)

How does your website measure up? Not sure? Take advantage of our Complimentary-No Obligation Analysis of your web site or download your free copy of our Website Planner Workbook.