You many want an interactive and flashy homepage that entices your user; however, it is important to understand that fundamentals need to be addressed first. Always keep in mind what is most important to your visitors!

Source: HubSpot, The Science of Website Redesign, June 2011

What is most important to your visitors is that they are able to find what they want. That makes sense. Remember, inbound marketing is all about being there when your customer is looking for you, giving them what they want and converting them into leads/customers for your business.

Your homepage is the face of your services or products. You only get one chance to impress that visitor, so make sure you carefully place the essentials you want them to know on your homepage. It should also act as a launching platform to places where they can contact you in the future (i.e. blog, social media, etc.)

In order to really get the most out of a website redesign, companies need to construct their website in the context of a greater Internet marketing strategy.You can get our checklist of the key issues to address on your homepage from our free eBook: 7 Steps to Website Redesign Success.

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Insure that your Websiteʼs Assets are In Order and Safe

You can actually do more damage than good by trying to undertake a website redesign on your own without understanding how you must protect the existing assets of your current site.

• Website assets such as content, inbound links, keyword rankings, and conversion tools are critical to a strong web presence.
• To preserve your web presence, you must keep track these assets to insure that they are all transferred in the redesign process.

It is important to do an asset assessment before you embark on a website redesign.

If you do not fully understand the importance and practice of proper SEO, doing a website redesign can be more damaging than helpful. If you do not feel comfortable around SEO work, it may be best to hire specialists to perform the redesign so all the hard work you have put into making a web presence does not disappear. Be sure to ask your website designer if s/he understands the importance of maintaining your current website’s assets and of using 301 redirects in a website redesign. If not, find another website designer.

Don’t guess when doing a website redesign – find out how to do it right! Download our free ebook: 7 Steps to Successful Website Redesign today!

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The 1st step to a successful website redesign is to determine why you need a redesign at all. Actually, website redesign is a continuous process that is just as much about functionality as it is design. There are definitely good reasons for a website redesign. To be successful you must think it through and set your redesign goals.

Wrong Reasons For Redesign
“We have a new corporate look and feel.”
“Itʼs been 12 months since our last redesign.”
“The CEO wants to do it.”

Right Reasons for Redesign
“Want to get found by more prospects.”
“Want to convert more prospects into leads and eventually, customers.”
“We want to improve branding.” (Only appropriate if oriented around one of the previous reasons.)

Misguided reasons for redesigning your website are driven by the thought that the freshness and “wow factor” of a new website will increase excitement over your brand. The main motivations behind website renovations should be to improve the performance of your website. A beautiful website, although intriguing and aesthetically pleasing, is secondary to a functional traffic and lead generating website.

Don’t guess – find out how to do it right! Download our free ebook: 7 Steps to Successful Website Redesign today!

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The King of Rex, and endorsed by the Mayor of New Orleans, has decreed that all commercial endeavors must cease and that pleasure rule for today. Therefore, we must follow their orders and will return to our blog tomorrow.

HAPPY MARDI GRAS!!!

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A good social media marketing plan takes into account where your customers are. What types of social media is your target market using? Are they more involved in Twitter or Facebook? Maybe, for your brand, Pinterest is the popular place.

We’ve been enjoying the parades here in New Orleans leading up to Mardi Gras. The crowds are huge and a large majority of them are using mobile for a variety of reasons. Some are checking out what the upcoming parades are on the local parade apps. Some are texting friends to try to meet up somewhere. Many are posting updates and pictures of their adventures to their favorite social media sites.

Now, if you are a bar or restaurant along the parade route in New Orleans, you probably have all the business you can handle right now (if you don’t, there is something seriously wrong). However, how about businesses outside the parade route, or even outside of New Orleans. Lots of people, all over the country are watching the New Orleans parades online and getting updates through Twitter. If you have a business that could benefit from some of the Mardi Gras excitement, maybe you should start taking part in that conversation, if that is where your customers are spending their time.

This is just one example of how your business can benefit by finding out where your customers are spending their time online and joining the conversation. Get some tips on how to kick up your internet marketing strategy by downloading the free ebook: Essential Guide to Internet Marketing today!

Happy Lundi Gras!

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Internet Marketing Improvement Steps

While you should try to reach long-term internet marketing goals, there are some short-term steps you should take to get there. The following are some elements of your website you can refine so you can reach your broader goals:

Keywords: Try new keywords or variations of keywords to see if they help you get found better. Since each page on your site can incorporate different keywords, there are tons of ways to do this.

On-Page SEO: See if changing a simple on-page factor can help boost visits. Examples of on-page factors are page title, meta description, and headings. As a simple test, try changing the page title of one of your web pages to see if you generate more traffic.

Conversions: Try new things with your conversion forms or landing pages. For example, try making the conversion form more prominently located on your web page.

Content Strategy: Determine which content is generating the most traffic. This could be an opportunity to either focus more on that kind of content, or refine your delivery of other content.

Social Media Promotions: Evaluate which social media channels are generating the most site visitors and leads. Again, you can either focus on your successful social media platforms, or try improving your performance in your less successful ones.

Lead Nurturing: Maybe you’re sending emails too frequently — or not frequently enough. Maybe the calls-to-action in your email are not appropriate for your audience. Always keep experimenting and testing.

Internet marketing may seem a bit daunting in the beginning. However, if you break it down into steps and tackle one at at time, it makes the process easier and you can more quickly start seeing results. Download the Essential Internet Marketing Guide today to see more information about all of the steps and to start seeing great results in your internet marketing today.

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Once you have your internet marketing strategies in place, you need to find the best way to use all the techniques to get found online and generate new customers.

5 Steps for Analyzing & Refining Internet Marketing Strategies

1. Implement an Analytics Program: In order to analyze, you need to have an analytics program in place.
2. Identify Opportunities: Figure out what you want to improve. Get in the mindset of constantly looking for new opportunities.
3. Set a Metric for Success: Your metric should be quantifiable and involve a set time frame.
4. Refine: Analyze how your programs performed and make changes.
5. Evaluate: Determine if you’ve met your success metric. Continue to monitor it to make sure the improvement has a long-term effect.

Metrics to Analyze

Before diving into how to improve them, let’s first discuss what the relevant metrics are. This is just a minimal list of what you should be monitoring.

• Website Grade: How well optimized is your website overall?
• Traffic: Overall, how many people are coming to your website?
• Leads: How much of this traffic are you converting into leads (e.g. potential customers)?
• Customers: How many sales did you close this month?
• Customer Acquisition Cost: How much are you investing to draw in each new customer?
• New vs. Repeat Visitors: Of your overall traffic, how many visitors are returning to your site, and how many new people are finding you?
• Effectiveness by Channel: What promotional channels or referring sources are sending you the most traffic?
• Traffic by Keywords: Which keywords are drawing in the most visitors to your site?

Steps for Improvement

The following are some elements of your website you can refine so you can reach your broader goals:

• Keywords: Try new keywords or variations of keywords to see if they help you get found better.
• On-Page SEO: See if changing a simple on-page factor can help boost visits.
• Conversions: Try new things with your conversion forms or landing pages.
• Content Strategy: Determine which content is generating the most traffic.
• Social Media Promotions: Evaluate which social media channels are generating the most site visitors and leads.
• Lead Nurturing: Maybe you’re sending emails too frequently — or not frequently enough.

The key is to alway keep experimenting and testing.

Get more information on Analyzing & Refining Internet Marketing Strategies as part of a successful internet marketing strategy from the Free ebook: Essential Guide to Internet Marketing. Download it today!

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Having a mobile friendly website is essential to a successful internet marketing strategy. Smart phones have changed the way people shop, communicate and live. According to a survey by telecommunications equipment vendor Ericsson, 35 percent of Android and iPhone owners in the U.S. use apps such as Facebook before getting out of bed. In 2010, over 50% of internet access was done via a handheld device. Many of the under 30 crowd don’t have a land line and never use yellow pages.

We used to say if you aren’t on the web, you are invisible to much of your market. Now, you have to think about being found and seen on mobile or you will be invisible to much of your market.

• Try it out and see. Look at how your website shows up on a mobile device (or if it can even be rendered by mobile). Does it need some work? Think about adding a mobile friendly version of your site that will render when it is being viewed on mobile.
• Check out your social media presence. Are you building your network on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter? If someone asks, “Does anyone know someone who _______________?” (fill in the blank), will anyone think of you and your business? If you have social media accounts that you don’t use to engage and inform, you may not be on the radar for a recommendation.
• Consider offering mobile coupons and running mobile ads to drive traffic to your location. Studies show that mobile ads are five times more effective than internet ads.

Get some great tips and advice for being not just mobile friendly but for using mobile as part of a successful internet marketing strategy from the Free ebook: Essential Guide to Internet Marketing. Download it today!

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Lead nurturing is the process of developing that relationship with your potential customer by sending targeted, relevant, and valuable messages to them in a timely manner. Companies that excel at lead nurturing are able to generate more sales-ready leads at a lower cost-per-lead.

Email Marketing Best Practices:

List Building

• Create opt-in opportunities.
• Give people a reason to opt-in.
• Only send messages to people who have explicitly opted in.

Sending

• Stay relevant.
• Get personal. Use a name and email address in the “from” line of your email that your recipients will recognize.
• Get into the mind of your recipient and ask, “What’s In It For Me?” (WIIFM) Make the value clear in both the email body and the subject line.
• Don’t rely on images.
• Be consistent.
• Brush up on CAN-SPAM regulations to make sure your email practices comply.

Converting

• What do I do here? When someone opens your email, make it clear what they’re supposed to do.
• The landing page is part of your email campaign. Make sure your email offer and landing page flow.

Measuring

• Click-Through Rate (CTR) measures response.
• What about open rate? Open rate is an increasingly unreliable metric. Focus instead on how many clicks your email received.
• Unsubscribe rate measures annoyance and spam. You want to make sure your unsubscribe rate does not exceed 5%.
• Conversion rate measures actions. Test different landing pages to improve the conversion on your website.

Lead nurturing is all about developing relationships with your leads. Do it right and it can payoff big time.

For more information on nurturing leads with email marketing download our “Essential Step-by-Step Guide to Internet Marketing”.

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Is your website a static brochure or is it a lead generating machine? When people think about designing a website, or redesigning a website, they sometimes overlook the most obvious question which is, “Why?” Why do you want a website or a redesign? Often we hear that the reason is to get a “fresher look” or to incorporate new products or services. Sometimes, business owners want a redesign so they can make edits themselves. However, once they are able to make edits and add content, many times, the website still remains static and changes are seldom made.

What is missing here is the development of goals and strategies for your website. It is much easier to work on generating leads for your website when you have a plan in place. A lead generating plan for your website should start with some basics:

1. What kind of content can I create on an ongoing basis that will attract visitors (and search engines) to my website?
2. How will I research keywords that are necessary to include in my content?
3. When people visit my website, what compelling calls to action can I offer that will encourage them to convert from a visitor into a lead?
4. What different offers can I create for people who are in different places in the buying cycle?
5. Once someone has converted to a lead for my business, how am I going to nurture that lead into a sale?
6. How am I going to analyze my strategy in order to see what is effective and where I need to make adjustments?

All of these questions can help you start creating a strategy for turning your website into a lead generating machine.

Learn more about converting visitors into leads for your business from the Essential Guide to Internet Marketing.

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