I worked with a sales rep who told prospects if they would take the time to listen to his presentation and were not interested in what his company was offering, he would give them $20.00 for their time and never bother them again. A high commission from every sale and a solid four out of ten closing rate made it profitable for him to spend the $120.00 out of pocket expense for the seven people that didn’t buy. Since the biggest barrier to a sale was largely in the ability to get uninterrupted time in front of a prospect, it’s safe to say his $20.00 marketing ploy was a good investment.

Before you spend a penny exposing people to your website, make sure it’s a good investment.

Think of your web site as a sales presentation and Google’s AdWords (or any other paide SEM or SEO tactic) as the vehicle that drives qualified prospects to that presentation. If your AdWords campaign is effective, it will work like the $20.00 offered by my coworker. The success of that monthly investment hinges on the effectiveness of your web site. If your web site does the job of closing the sale, capturing the lead or whatever it is that’s worth paying for traffic, you can expect a profitable return. If not, the money you spent out will be gone forever.

The cost of even a modest AdWords camapaign can add up over time. And chances are those visitors won’t take the time to come back a second time. Why not invest your search engine marketing budget into developing a site that aids in the conversion of prospects into customers? Once the site is optimized around your goals the money you spend to dive qualified traffic to your site will generate a profitable return.

One of the biggest benefits of online marketing is that it allows for far greater accountability. Unlike other forms of marketing, the internet provides easy ways to instantly measure how much value your marketing activities create. The answers to the true value of your web site in it’s current form can be a bitter pill to swallow. Which is why most companies -after spending so much time and energy developing their web sites- don’t want to know.

Any advertiser worth a dime will tell you: the more you advertise a bad product, the less it sells. The same is true when it comes to marketing your web site. The more people who visit a bad web site, the more likely they are to click the back seconds after they hit the landing page. Major search egines like Google actually tracks how long a visitor stays on a site before the back button is clicked. The more “click backs” your site has, the lower the site will place in Google’s search rankings.

Here are some things to keep in mind to develop an effective site:

• Make sure your web site has measurable conversion goals. With all the amazing (and often free) analytics tools available to monitor people who visit your site, there is no excuse not to.

• Put the needs of your users first. Too many websites read like an “About Us” page. Most people don’t care how long you’ve been in business, how much experience your staff has between them or how much you love your products or industry. The only thing visitors to your site care about is what’s in it for them. Your site should focus on the value of your offering. Such as: convenience, security, status, etc. In other words your site should clearly state the direct benefits of doing business with you.

• Know your audience. Good web sites put the needs of their market first. You can’t put your prospects first if you don’t know who your prospect is. Your markets age, gender, economic status, occupation, etc. are important things to consider when communicating with them on and off line. These demographics will do more than just help you to write effective copy, they will tell you how to construct your site so this group of people can easily and effectively navigate it.

• Your site must have clear navigation, consistent branding and a strong call to action. If visitors to your site have to think about where they are, what to do next or simply cannot find the information they expected to find, your site will fail to convert. Make sure you have a clear hierarchy of information and easy navigation. If your site’s conversion goal is for visitors to contact you, sign up for something or buy a product or service, make sure it’s obvious how to do so and consider prominently placing that information on every page of your site.

I don’t know how many presentations my coworker in sales had to give or how much training it took before he was able to close a solid four out of every ten people. Fortunately, the internet provides ways to test and refine your web site so that it converts visitors without spending a dime. Plus the web is offers near instant results and can be far less nerve racking than attempting to the same thing in person.When you combine the right tools and techniques with a little knowledge about your market, the long term profitability of your web site can be astronomical.

My friend certainly would not have given out a penny if he did’t know exactly how much he would get back in advance.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 10:41 pm and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.