Article by Jacques de Villiers published in Meetings SA and CEO Magazine.
“If you build it, they will come.” This is the attitude of many companies when they build their websites. They think that customers will come streaming in and that a website will be a panacea for all their financial woes. It may have been true when Theodore Roosevelt uttered those immortal words about the Panama Canal,
but it’s not true
for your website.
A website is like a marriage … if you want it to be successful, you need to work at it consistently. If it is neglected, it’ll wither and die. In Google terms, it means your website ends up on page 1000 in the rankings. Your website may as well be dead.
Savvy companies make sure that their marketing specialist is the architect of an Internet marketing strategy (there’s more to an Internet marketing strategy than just a website).
A marketers hand at the tiller is important because marketers are trained to ask the essential questions of a successful website:
- Who do we want to come to our website?
- What are we going to tell them?
- What do we want them to do?
2. Your website is too complicated to navigate (Don' make me think)
If your website is complicated and you make me think too hard, you’ll lose me. Keep it simple and easy to use and I’ll hang out a bit so that you have enough time to persuade me to do something that will bring your company profits.
Road Map to Successful Internet Marketing (and dating Angelina Jolie)
If you’re at all serious about generating revenue from your website you have to take search engine optimisation seriously. If you don’t have any visitors, you can’t convert any sales. And, to get eyeballs onto your website, you need to be in at least get a Top 20 ranking on Google. The ultimate, of course is to get a #1 ranking on Google. This is where you you start hitting the jackpot.
You’d employ the same strategies to get onto Google’s radar screen as you would to get onto Angelina Jolie’s. Why would an Angelina Jolie consider dating you in the first place (if she weren’t attached to Brad Pitt, of course). She’s not going to hang out with you if you don’t have charisma, if you’re unknown and unkempt, is she? She’s going to hang out with someone that’s confident, charismatic, knows where he’s going and how he’s going to get there, someone who is popular, and someone that others will vouch for. Google works in very much the same way.
People have to be talking about you
Like Angelina Jolie, Google also likes to hang out with the popular crowd. Google wants to know if you are popular and if you have information that’s relevant to your target auience. Google is looking for your URL(website name) to be on other websites. The more popular the website is that vouches for you, the better chance you have of getting ranked higher in the Google hierarchy.
You’ve got to be industrious
Angelina Jolie likes to see her man at work - it shows that he’s diligent and productive. So does Google. She likes websites that are worked on. The more you work on your website, the more she visits you. And, the more she visits you, the more chance you have of raising your Google rankings.
Size Counts
I’m not sure about Angelina Jolie, but Google definitely likes size. The bigger your website the better. So, if you think you’re going to cut it with a Readers Digest version, think again. Think Leo Tolstoy’s novel, War and Peace. Remember, Google is a purveyor of relevant information. The more information you can give Google on your specific offering, the better. When Google sees lots of pages, she considers your site to be a valuable resource site. This favours your website tremendously.
Age is an Attitude
Why do some women date older men? They’re normally more stable, credible and valuable. They make one feel safe. Google also likes her men older. She likes a website that’s been around for a while and will be around for a while. She wants to see stability, credibility and value. This normally comes with age, doesn’t it? That’s why, when a new website is born, Google puts it in a sandbox with the other kids so that it can play. If you’re lucky, you’ll only get indexed on Google six months after you make your new website live. So, don’t ever retire your existing website, rather improve on it.
Romance is a Good Thing
Getting Google to rank you highly so that you get quality visitors to your website is one thing, keeping them there is another. Sometimes your visitors bounce of your site at a rate of 80%. This means that they’ve spent less than 30 seconds on your site because it hasn’t hooked them or the site is not relevant to their needs. That’s why you should make your website sticky. Use persuasive words, words that are compelling and words that get people to take action.
Follow these rules of copywriting and you should do just fine - State a problem you can solve, make a big promise as to how you’ll solve the problem, show a solution that will solve the problem … make sure it is packed with reams of benefits, have testimonials, give a guarantee and have a call to action.
If you want Google to help you achieve your business objectives, then you’ve got to take Internet marketing seriously and see it as a mainstream marketing discipline that will add profits to your business.
About the Author
The Business Generator, Jacques de Villiers is a professional speaker, consultant and trainer specialising in marketing, Internet marketing, public relations and sales. For more information or to sign up for the free 'Marketing and Sales Strategies' newsletter, email jacques@jacquesdevilliers.com. For resources take a look at
http://www.jacquesdevilliers.com
http://jacquesdevilliers.typepad.com/jacquesdevilliers/
http://www.successseminars.co.za
NOTE: You're welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint to jacques@jacquesdevilliers.com
“If you build it, they will come.” This is the attitude of many companies when they build their websites. They think that customers will come streaming in and that a website will be a panacea for all their financial woes. It may have been true when Theodore Roosevelt uttered those immortal words about the Panama Canal,
A website is like a marriage … if you want it to be successful, you need to work at it consistently. If it is neglected, it’ll wither and die. In Google terms, it means your website ends up on page 1000 in the rankings. Your website may as well be dead.
Besides not working on their website, companies make these two mistakes:
1. A graphic designer is in charge of building the website
Savvy companies make sure that their marketing specialist is the architect of an Internet marketing strategy (there’s more to an Internet marketing strategy than just a website).
A marketers hand at the tiller is important because marketers are trained to ask the essential questions of a successful website:
- Who do we want to come to our website?
- What are we going to tell them?
- What do we want them to do?
2. Your website is too complicated to navigate (Don' make me think)
If your website is complicated and you make me think too hard, you’ll lose me. Keep it simple and easy to use and I’ll hang out a bit so that you have enough time to persuade me to do something that will bring your company profits.
Road Map to Successful Internet Marketing (and dating Angelina Jolie)
If you’re at all serious about generating revenue from your website you have to take search engine optimisation seriously. If you don’t have any visitors, you can’t convert any sales. And, to get eyeballs onto your website, you need to be in at least get a Top 20 ranking on Google. The ultimate, of course is to get a #1 ranking on Google. This is where you you start hitting the jackpot.
You’d employ the same strategies to get onto Google’s radar screen as you would to get onto Angelina Jolie’s. Why would an Angelina Jolie consider dating you in the first place (if she weren’t attached to Brad Pitt, of course). She’s not going to hang out with you if you don’t have charisma, if you’re unknown and unkempt, is she? She’s going to hang out with someone that’s confident, charismatic, knows where he’s going and how he’s going to get there, someone who is popular, and someone that others will vouch for. Google works in very much the same way.
People have to be talking about you
Like Angelina Jolie, Google also likes to hang out with the popular crowd. Google wants to know if you are popular and if you have information that’s relevant to your target auience. Google is looking for your URL(website name) to be on other websites. The more popular the website is that vouches for you, the better chance you have of getting ranked higher in the Google hierarchy.
You’ve got to be industrious
Angelina Jolie likes to see her man at work - it shows that he’s diligent and productive. So does Google. She likes websites that are worked on. The more you work on your website, the more she visits you. And, the more she visits you, the more chance you have of raising your Google rankings.
Size Counts
I’m not sure about Angelina Jolie, but Google definitely likes size. The bigger your website the better. So, if you think you’re going to cut it with a Readers Digest version, think again. Think Leo Tolstoy’s novel, War and Peace. Remember, Google is a purveyor of relevant information. The more information you can give Google on your specific offering, the better. When Google sees lots of pages, she considers your site to be a valuable resource site. This favours your website tremendously.
Age is an Attitude
Why do some women date older men? They’re normally more stable, credible and valuable. They make one feel safe. Google also likes her men older. She likes a website that’s been around for a while and will be around for a while. She wants to see stability, credibility and value. This normally comes with age, doesn’t it? That’s why, when a new website is born, Google puts it in a sandbox with the other kids so that it can play. If you’re lucky, you’ll only get indexed on Google six months after you make your new website live. So, don’t ever retire your existing website, rather improve on it.
Romance is a Good Thing
Getting Google to rank you highly so that you get quality visitors to your website is one thing, keeping them there is another. Sometimes your visitors bounce of your site at a rate of 80%. This means that they’ve spent less than 30 seconds on your site because it hasn’t hooked them or the site is not relevant to their needs. That’s why you should make your website sticky. Use persuasive words, words that are compelling and words that get people to take action.
Follow these rules of copywriting and you should do just fine - State a problem you can solve, make a big promise as to how you’ll solve the problem, show a solution that will solve the problem … make sure it is packed with reams of benefits, have testimonials, give a guarantee and have a call to action.
If you want Google to help you achieve your business objectives, then you’ve got to take Internet marketing seriously and see it as a mainstream marketing discipline that will add profits to your business.
About the Author
The Business Generator, Jacques de Villiers is a professional speaker, consultant and trainer specialising in marketing, Internet marketing, public relations and sales. For more information or to sign up for the free 'Marketing and Sales Strategies' newsletter, email jacques@jacquesdevilliers.com. For resources take a look at
http://www.jacquesdevilliers.com
http://jacquesdevilliers.typepad.com/jacquesdevilliers/
http://www.successseminars.co.za
NOTE: You're welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint to jacques@jacquesdevilliers.com
Always excellent advice, well done Jacques
Posted by: Richard | January 22, 2010 at 08:48 AM
Thanks for the reminders, Jacques. I was about to retire an old website that I thought was worn out. You stopped me just in time.
Posted by: Jonathan | January 22, 2010 at 01:19 PM
Internet marketing have several benefits in internet business because it help you find your target niche market in order to get successful online.
Posted by: freelance translation jobs | July 21, 2011 at 05:10 AM