A web site needs to be seen to be useful.  GVA and you our client need to develop a clear marketing strategy when planning your site which will fall under the following marketing strategies.

Preparation

Identify your audience and their needs. A web site should be customer focuses and allow easy access to the information that they seek. You should also consider what messages you wish to convey to your visitors and any unique selling points for your services or products. This is the stage to decide on your domain name, making sure that it is relevant to your business and easily memorable. Go for .co.uk in the first instance and avoid .org and .net addresses.

Online

In order to be successful in search engines the text of a web site needs to be carefully written. This process is referred to as ‘optimisation’ of the site. Search engines use software called ‘robots’ that trawl the Internet looking at sites and ranking each one that they investigate. In order to be found in a search engine, a web site needs to be submitted. It can take months for it to appear in the searches although you can speed the process by paying a fee. Beware of software or companies that offer to submit your web site to thousands of search engines, most of these engines are rarely used – it is much better to submit to a few of the major players. It is important to obtain reciprocal links to your site from other related web sites since this can help boost your site’s ranking. Other forms of online advertising include pay-per-click and banner advertising. Google’s Adwords scheme is a good example of the former and can prove effective.

Design

Important keywords need to be placed within the text and graphics on the page and incorporated into the title and description.  If there are too few occurrences of keywords and phrases, search engines will give a lower ranking. If they are sprinkled too liberally the search engines see this as ‘keyword stuffing’ and will also give a lower ranking. Either way your site loses out. The wording needs to be written with both the human visitors and search engine robots in mind.

Offline

Offline advertising should also be employed in order to get your site noticed. These are the traditional methods of newspapers, radio, TV, leaflets, car stickers and so on. Your web site address should be on all of your company vehicles and stationery as well.

GVA Online Web Design is committed to assist you in marketing your website. We will always advise and act in the best interest of our clients online and offline promotions to drive traffic to your website.