Why you can’t afford not to invest in your website when times are tough

Credit crunch … recession … not nice words! Unfortunately, though, this is our current business climate and many companies (large and small) are struggling. Instinctively, many are cutting back. Often one of the first areas to be slashed is marketing, including any plans to develop or upgrade a website. Perhaps, though, rather than asking “Do we really need that new website?” or “Can we leave the update for another time?” we should be asking ourselves whether we can afford not to do these things.

Research has shown that businesses that invest in marketing during a recession come out of it stronger. They win customers from competitors who stop marketing or go under. Then, when the good times return, their higher profile positions them beautifully to make the most of them.

So we accept that we need to keep investing in marketing our businesses. But budgets are tight and every pound we spend needs to work hard for us. This is where a website really comes into its own.

These days, the internet is often the first port of call for people looking for a product or service. A presence on the web has become the expected norm, much as an office or shop front used to be. Not having a website makes potential customers question whether you actually exist as a ‘proper’ business.

A website is possibly your most flexible communication tool. Once it’s there, you can change and update it at minimal cost. Spot a new market opportunity – change the site to reflect it. Want to publish news – add it to your website.

So, step one: you need to have a website.  -  Click here to get started

There are lots of businesses on the internet, even businesses quite like yours. If people haven’t heard about you before or aren’t sure exactly what they need, they will use search engines to see what is out there.

Step two: people need to be able to find your website. – Learn How

Now you’ve driven traffic to your site, does what people find there make them want to take the next step? Does the website give them confidence in you and your ability to give them something of value?

People judge by appearances. You and your business may be fabulous and highly professional. If your website looks amateurish, that’s how people will see you. If people feel that it isn’t targeted at them, they won’t think that what you offer is for them.

People are busy and a little bit lazy. If it takes too long to work out what you are offering them or to find what they want from your website, they’ll give up and go somewhere else. It’s even easier than walking from one shop to another – you just click on.

Which gives us step three: your website needs to be ‘fit for purpose’ – professional, credible, clear and compelling.

So, what can you do to make the most of your investment in a presence on the web?

Buy in expertise

If you want a professional job that looks professional, use an expert. They have the experience and skills to know what works and to give you something that works for you. Get the foundations right and you will be able to take it from there yourself. Poor decisions at the start can be more costly, in time and money, in the long run.

Improve your visual identity

Are you creating the right impression? Clip art logos, generic images, DIY materials produced in Publisher make your communication look amateurish and like everyone else’s. What does it say about your service?

Move with the times

A website is more flexible than a printed brochure. It’s easy to update it. It makes sense to update it. Highlight new products, services, special offers, articles, news etc. Use a website to test a new market. The web is a level playing field for small and large businesses – get into the game!

Shout it from the rooftops

Is your message about what you offer and how good it is immediately clear from your website? Will the customers you want know that they have arrived at the right place? It’s worth taking the time and perhaps getting some help to define your key messages and put them across in clear and accurate words.

Move it on up

How well does your website rank in the search engines? There are simple ways to optimise your site and push it up the rankings. It will be easier with a niche service in a local market. A search engine optimisation package may not be an expensive as you think.

Blog, Twitter and Digg

Blogging (Twittering and Digg) is not a replacement for a website or a search engine optimisation strategy, but it can be a valuable part of your web strategy. If you have a way with words, it can help you to engage with your customers and move your name up the search engines. Bear in mind, though, that a badly written blog or one that is not updated regularly can do more harm than good.

GET A WEB FITNESS TEST

Be honest with yourself. Does your site really cut the mustard? If you’re unsure about how effective your website is, get in touch with us for a ‘health check’.

Catfish Web Design have partnered with Zero-21 Communication to offer a quick assessment of your website’s fitness for the purpose you want it to perform – marketing your business. Free of charge we’ll give you brief feedback on key aspects of your site:

• Visual appearance – branding, look and feel
• Messages and words – what it says and how it says it
• Functionality – how well it works
• Search Engine Optimisation – how easy it is to find.

If you’d like more detailed recommendations, we will make a small charge – that can be discounted against any project you choose to undertake with us.

A good website is invaluable. Don’t put off creating your own site and don’t waste money on an ineffective one. The question should not be ‘can I afford to spend money on a website’ it must be ‘can I afford not to’.

The Buyback promotion

We are offering a huge promotion that will last till the end of the year.  That’s right for the rest of 2009 we essentially buying your business. 

There are many people that I talk to that tell me that they paid a lot of money for a website and never got the results that they were promised by the web design company.  Whether it is because of poor design, not finishing the project like they had stated, or it was simply not what they said it was going to be.  People are frustrated because they spend a lot of money on web design but never get what they paid for.  So now they are hesitant to spend more money on web design or any other design service for that matter.  That’s where the buyback promotion comes in.

How does the promotion work?

Let me give you an example so that you will better understand how the promotion works.  Let’s say that you paid $2500 for a custom made website and for some reason were very dissatisfied with the results OR  your project was never  completed. Bring your receipt for the web design service that you paid for by the other company and we’ll give you the amount that you paid for as a credit with OUR Company for our services. You only pay the difference between our cost and your credit.  You might be saying what’s the catch?  No Catch!

You could simply get a custom made high quality website for hundreds of dollars and finally get what you paid for.  Were simply giving you another shot to get that premium website that you’ve been waiting for.
This is an unheard of promotion and people might call us crazy but that’s what sets us apart from these other companies.  We not only want you business now, but we want your business long term and another advantage is that we are a FULL SERVICE design company. We want you to put us in charge of all your design needs. 

How do I apply?

Simply email us at buyback@wired2design.com or call us at 214-938-4294 and simply tell us your story and provide us with your receipt and we’ll get started today.  Consider this your web design bailout plan.

Visit http://www.wired2design.com/buyback-promotion.php to learn more!

Take advantage of this unheard of promotion and redeem your website today!

When comparing social media traffic to other forms of traffic, such as search engine, the numbers typically are going to look rather bleak. While you’ll hopefully see a spike in number of visitors and pageviews, that will often be accompanied by higher bounce rates, lower pageviews per visitor, and a lower average time on the site. With stats like this many bloggers wonder if social media traffic is even worth the time and effort.

Despite the tendency of many social media visitors to quickly exit your site and move on to the next one, there are still some very convincing reasons why you should care about social media and why it is worth your time.

1. It’s Free
Unless you’re paying for a consultant or a link bait specialist (both can be good options), marketing your website with social media is free. It will cost you some time, but that pales in comparison to the value of the traffic that you can get in return. There are countless ways to market a website or blog. Just about all of them involve spending money (which isn’t a bad thing), and of the ones that don’t involve money, the vast majority of them are a complete waste of time. I’ve never tried any other type of free marketing that brought even 1% of the results I’ve gotten with social media at my primary blog. Most bloggers are on a tight, or non-existent, budget when it comes to marketing. If this is the case, social media is for you.

2. Quick Results
Building a successful website takes a considerable amount of time and effort. Search engine rankings, for instance, can take years to build in a competitive niche. On the other hand, with social media you can develop content and be seen by thousands of visitors within the same day. For this reason, social media is a great option for getting a new website or blog noticed right away .

3. It’s Flexible
There are so many different social media websites that just about every imaginable niche is covered in one way or another. There are social news sites, bookmarking sites, and general networking sites. Whatever your needs and your audience, there should be an option to use social media for your benefit.

Also, you’re not stuck to using the same social media sites over and over. If you’re not getting results in one place there’s usually other options that you can try out.

4. It Gets Easier with Time
If you’re new to blogging and social media and you feel like everyone else is getting traffic but you, understand that it takes some time and effort, but it will get easier. Once you have established a bit of a reader base and you’ve hopefully attracted some social media users to your blog, it will be much easier for you to get votes and ultimately get more exposure. The more you use social media the more you will understand about how it works and how users will respond.

5. It Will Lead to Other Valuable Sources of Traffic
Although visitors from social media sites may be less responsive than other types of visitors, success with social media will likely increase the number of inbound links you receive. Links will boost your search engine rankings and they’ll also drive click-through traffic your way. Both are generally high quality traffic sources.

6. Building Links with Social Media is Safer than Buying Links
If you plan to cut out the need for social media by purchasing links from other sites, you’re running the risk of being penalized or banned by Google. For some, this is a risk worth taking, but in most cases I would strongly discourage taking this chance. Personally, I focus on building links for my primary blog through the combination of content and social media.

7. Social Media Users are Predictable
The whole concept or link bait or Digg bait wouldn’t even be possible if social media users were unpredictable. But the truth is you can usually have a good idea of what is likely to draw a response and what is not. This will come with time, and of course there is no 100% guarantee. However, once you know a social media audience pretty well, you can cater content to their preferences with a pretty high success rate. What you learn about social media can easily be duplicated to your other blogs or to serving clients.

8. It Doesn’t Require as Much Time as You Might Think
Personally, I use social media every day, but on a very limited basis. If you think that you have to spend all day on Digg or Stumbling pages to get some results of your own, you may be surprised. With the right approach you can get fantastic results with just a few hours per week on social media sites. To be a top Digg user you’ll need more time than that, but being a top Digg user isn’t necessary to draw social media traffic.

9. Branding Through Social Media is Possible
One of the great benefits to the exposure that you can get through social media is the result it has on the branding of your blog. Branding is key to building a success blog in the long-term, and social media is an excellent, free option for helping visitors to see your blog in a particular light. (For more, see my post at ProBlogger A Blogger’s Guide to Branding with Social Media.)

10. Links Can Help Your Search Engine Rankings Rise Quickly
Earlier I mentioned to social media can provide instant results. Well, in addition to sending loads of traffic directly, the links that result from social media success can get your new posts ranking very well with search engines almost immediately. It’s not uncommon for me to see a very respectable number of visitors from Google searches to a brand new post that just drew a lot of links through social media. While it will take a while to build search engine rankings as a whole, it is possible to create specific posts to rank well right away.

11. It Allows You to Leverage Your Existing Traffic
Do you already have a solid blog with a steady flow of traffic? If so, chances are you could leverage that traffic to draw even more visitors with social media. You may want to use voting buttons on your posts or ask some of your readers and friends to give you a vote occasionally.

12. Some Visitors Will Be Targeted
The biggest knock on social media traffic is that it’s not targeted, and that is typically true. However, visitors from niche social media sites can be very highly targeted, and on top of that, a portion of visitors from general news sites will be targeted as well. For example, if you get 25,000 visitors from a post on the Digg front page, maybe only 5,000 of them will have much of an interest in your site. Still, that’s a quick 5,000 visitors that you wouldn’t have had without social media. Just because a smaller percentage of the visitors will stick doesn’t mean that they are irrelevant.

13. The Future of the Internet is Social
Social media and social networking aren’t going away any time soon. The major players and the types of social sites may change of the course of time, but this is a trend that online marketers need to adjust to. Without finding ways to build a website or blog through social media you could be left behind by your competitors.