This blog post was inspired by 2 things near and dear to my heart; Canadian Indie Rock and startup marketing, specifically the website.
One of the first Canadian indie songs that I remember while growing up was from the band The Northern Pikes. Their big song was “She ain’t pretty she just looks that way”. The song was about people that may be beautiful on the outside, but not inside. I feel that a lot of companies develop a pretty website, but not a functional website. This has increased in frequency over the last couple months.
Organizations are wasting money, losing a big opportunity to get found, and not being able to generate sustainable inbound leads. A great website is the key to a successful marketing strategy. Here are some of the items you should be thinking about when evaluating your website.
1. Is a Blog Set Up?
Content marketing has many benefits for growing business. It can help reinforce the organization as a subject matter expert and boost the website’s search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines love new content and regular blogging can help with this. The blog does need to be set-up properly with categories, tags, and meta descriptions.
2. Can You Update the Content Yourself?
Being able to change content yourself is one of the most important features of your website. This means that you not only have the ability to do it, but that it is easy to do. This is why we recommend WordPress to customers as their website content management system. Being able to update or tweak content is important, but adding content does not stop there. Being able to add landing pages for marketing campaigns is another example of why you should be able to update your website content yourself.
3. What Tools Are Set Up?
Every website should be set-up with Google Analytics to help monitor and evaluate your website strategy for tangible results. One of the harder topics for startups is to understand is search engine optimization (SEO), however there are tools available to that take the guess work out of it such as the Yoast plugin if your website was developed in WordPress.
4. Can Forms Be Added?
Capturing information about the people and organizations that visit and use your site is a fundamental step in lead generation. Forms are an excellent tool to help with this. Forms can be used for white paper downloads, email newsletter sign-ups, and contact us forms.
5. Does It Have Social Media Integration?
Social media can help generate new opportunities, as well as staying top of mind with prospects already in your funnel. Website integration with platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn makes sharing your website content easier on social media. A website should allow social media sharing from pages or blogs with one click of a button.
It is too late to ask these questions or reevaluate your website, even if your new website is newly-developed. If you haven’t asked these questions, then you will be missing a big opportunity for your website. Another great opportunity you may not want to miss out is the monthly VA Partners Newsletter.
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