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Does your website not live up to its fullest potential? Does it not deliver the leads or sales that you originally hoped for? Does it give an inaccurate representation of poor professionalism? Is it such a pain to update that you have almost given up on it?

As a web design and internet marketing firm we come across complaints like these every day, and with good reason. Gone are the days when having a successful web presence simply meant throwing up a simple page with your name, address, and phone number. The internet is becoming more competitive every day and it is important to triumph over your competitors in the online realm of cut throat marketing. Here are a few key tips to get you headed in the right direction to have a profitable website:

Would you buy a pair of shoes in a run-down, dirt floor, straw hut?
Although this is an extreme example hopefully you got the idea. If your website does not convey that your company is professional, respected, trusting, and better than your competition then most likely your website visitors will not want to purchase your products/services or give you their contact information. Yes, this does cost some time and money, but it is well worth the investment. Too many websites give the impression that the real business behind the website is smaller and inadequate compared to reality. How many employees do you think MWI has? 1? 20? 50? If you thought of a higher number then our website has done its job. Get your website up to date and professional. You can do this yourself, have internal employees work on it, or higher a web design firm to take the load off your shoulders; just make sure you make a goal to get it finished.

Make your website a marketing machine!
Having a website that markets your website 24/7 is one of the great benefits of the internet. People are searching for products and services at all times on the internet. Setup your website so it is constantly seeking out new potential clients for you. There are many ways to start online marketing campaigns. You can invest in SEO (search engine optimization, services); this is the process of getting your website to come up in natural search result pages of search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. You can start a SEM (search engine marketing) campaign, sometimes called PPC (pay-per-click). SEM is when you pay search engines like Google or Yahoo to display advertisements in search results in designated “sponsor” areas. With SEM you pay-per-click; i.e. every website visitor you receive from the service you pay the search engine, usually ranging from $.50-$2.50 per visitor. You can start a company blog, write about current hot topics in your industry. You could try website banner advertising; displaying banner ads on other websites. For some having a newsletter is an effective marketing tool. There are many other options out there for marketing your website on the internet, you can find a more comprehensive list on our website.

Don’t let your current website visitors run away!
Your website probably already gets some traffic from different sources. They could come from search engine optimization, links from other sites, offline advertising methods, or many other sources. However in the end it does not matter where they come from or how many website visitors you have every day, if they all leave what is the point? Is it better to have a website that has 30,000 visitors a day with 10 buying a product or 100 visitors a day with 50 who buy your product? Website conversion is a key element to a successful and profitable website. You need to start by analyzing where website visitors are going on your website, what they are doing, what page they are leaving from, and why they are leaving. Installing web analytical software can jumpstart you in the right direction to improve your ROI for your website. There are many free web analytical programs you can install on your website; if you want to know a few resources let us know. After you have analyzed the activities of your website visitors then start making some changes by providing the information they are looking for, making it easy to find what they are looking for, and having an option to take an action (buy product, give you their contact information, etc.) on every page of your website.

We hope this information has helped you realize your goals and the actions you need to take to make your website shine! If you need any suggestions, advice, or guidance on how to make your website turn into your best and most profitable employee we are here to help. We offer free analysis and advice if you simply let us know what your goals are.

Eric Morgan is an internet marketing manager at MWI Web Design.

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To avoid missing out on substantial new business through your website, make sure it’s:

1. Easily found & accessible
If your target market doesn’t know about your site’s existence, or simply can’t find it, what’s the point in investing in it in the first place? It’s vital you have a programme of web promotion and search engine marketing. Take measures also to ensure that your website is cross-browser compatible and that it meets statutory requirements for accessibility.

2. User-friendly & visually appealing
People’s attention spans are short. Even if your website is easy to find, if it’s even slightly frustrating to use, your users will abandon your site and take their business elsewhere. You can however prevent most abandonment through usability testing and making the resulting improvements to your site. In order to pull in new business, it’s also important to evaluate your web users’ ‘browsing statistics‘ on an on-going basis to make sure that you’re delivering exactly what your users expect.

3. Useful, engaging & up-to-date
Content must meet your visitors’ expectations by being genuinely captivating and useful. What seems interesting to you is not necessarily what your customers want to hear. Invest in professional search engine optimised copy and plan your site’s content with direct input from your target market. Monitoring your website statistics will enable you to gauge which pages are pulling in traffic, and a programme of ongoing web maintenance will ensure that (i) your content is fresh enough to encourage visitors back again and again, and (ii) a good search engine ranking is maintained.

David Crowther is the director of NerveCentral, whose mission is simple: to maximise its clients business and profit through the web. We have provided web solutions for many organisations and small companies, including well-known corporates such as Thomson Travel Group, Q8, Edding, GlaxoSmithKline, Galderma, and Hertz. Download our concise but (very) useful guide 5 (Often Missed) Usability Tips for your Website to Increase Profit now!

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Regardless of how well established an online company is, I guarantee they will still frequently deploy these startegies.

Why?

Because they work!

There is a simple and obvious rule that applies to all websites, “The more people that visit your site, the more money you make.” Whether that be via product sales, services, advertising etc.

Here are my top 3 tips, you will note that they are all completely free.

1) Linking: Search engines and directories.

The most obvious and generally the first thing any website owner should do is proceed to get their URL on to the top search engines, Yahoo and Google. The majority will leave it at that.

Furthermore you should be submitting to directories, the biggest being dmoz.org; however a quick search and their will be plenty more to choose from - some of which will surprise you by their popularity as you may not have heard of many of them.

You will find some sites that offer multiple submissions for you. One good example being addme.com.

Also, try and get some bloggers on side. There are a few blogs that get ridiculous amounts of traffic so linking with said blogs could be and invaluable source of traffic.

2) E-mailing: Marketing to sales.

Once you are established you will have an e-mailing list and you can send thousands of e-mails in a few seconds. Unfortunately if you’re reading this, then you are a bit off yet.

Use search engines and business directories to get a list of e-mails relevant to your business. A lot of websites now have a contact form as opposed to direct e-mail addresses, this is fine, just take a note of their URL.

Collecting the addresses is very boring and monotonous but a worthy cause.

Once you have a large list of e-mails (1000+) you can now start contacting potential clients. Before sending out the e-mails re-visit each site, you can tailor your sales pitch according to the site design and content.

Making it personal and individual reduces the chance of it being deemed as spam and immediately deleted.

If you receive negative replies assume this as an opportunity to close a sale, “Why should I advertise at your site?” - you tell them why and you tell them good.

Ultimately if you make no sales you will have at least had 1,000 new visitors to your site.

3) PR: It’s like a free full page advert!

You’d be amazed at what’s considered journalism these days. Don’t worry if you don’t know where to start, just get on your favorite search engine and input “Free PR Tips”. You will quickly understand what you need to do.

Just remember to make the headline as eye catching as possible, the whole balance on having your article published is whether or not the editor reads past the headliner.

Newspapers are always struggling for stories so make yours stand out from the crowd.

Remember to hit all the online news sites as well, however if you get a national newspaper to publish your story you will find the story will be on their site too. National papers of course get plenty of traffic to their site so you will have also created a golden link.

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Bonus Tip: Search for “Free Marketing Tips” on the major search engines. The majority of results will require you to subscribe to their newsletters, do so and you will receive plenty of excellent marketing tips in your e-mail.

Beware though these guys aren’t stupid, but neither or you. All these free tips they are giving you is eventually going to lead to them putting the sell hard on you. When this happens just subscribe to the next guys/gals newsletter.

With all these free tips you will eventually be able to compile a “killer Marketing Strategies” ebook yourself. And of course sell it for $99 per pop - that’s half the regular price!

Hope any of this helps.

Cheers.

Colm O’Dwyer is a 21-year old inventor/entrepreneur from Glasgow, UK. You can visit http://www.colmodwyer.co.uk for more information.

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