Website Marketing Must-Have’s
There are some things that every website has to have in order to for your customers to find you. I’m going to talk about the bare bone basics, and later on we’ll expand on this list. But for now, here are the minimums that *I* personally think every website needs. (Your mileage, or some other internet guru you’re reading, may differ.) Oh, one more thing, the “Must Have’s” I’m going to discuss are must haves for marketing your website and making it a place your customers are going to want to revisit. There are other types of “Must Have’s” such as backups, security, etc, but those are topics for another day, or quite possibly another blog. ☺
1. A Domain Name – Okay, you can’t even HAVE a website until you pick a domain name, so this one is kind of a given. But, there’s a few things to think about when picking a domain name. Ideally, your domain name should be the name of your business, or as close as you can get it. If you sell gift baskets and the name of your business is “Shelley’s Gift Baskets” see if you can get www.shelleysgiftbaskets.com. If that domain name is taken, then you have to get creative. Maybe www.giftbasketsbyshelley.com or even www.shelleysgiftbasketsyourcity.com. What I wouldn’t suggest though, is that you get something like www.bigbeautifulgiftbaskets.com or something that doesn’t in some way point back to the name of your business. You’ve probably spent a lot of money already on signage and print advertising with your business name on it. This is called “branding” and as you already know, it’s important. Your website name is another piece of your businesses branding puzzle. One more thing, I highly recommend you only get a .com extension because .com extensions are seen as more trustworthy by most internet surfers. For more about domain names click here.
2. Terms of Service and other Disclosure pages. Google and the FTC kind of insist you have these pages. If you don’t, the word on the cyber street is that you won’t get good ranking. The FTC changed a lot of policies in regards to websites a couple of years ago. It basically comes down to this: you need to tell people if you are making money from any product or service you endorse and you also need to tell them that you will, or won’t, keep your email private. For more information, see the FTC’s website at www.ftc.gov (Because I’m not a lawyer and I don’t want to seem like I’m giving legal advice because then my lawyer would be mad at me!).
3. “About” Page. Believe it or not, the About page will be one of the first pages looked at on any website. A lot of people consider the “Contact Us” page and the “About” page as the same page. I don’t. Personally, I think you should spend as much time on your About page as you do figuring out what you want your header to look like. Why? Well, because it is generally the first page people click to, I think it’s your first chance to make a great impression. This is where you get to tell YOUR story and make your visitor to you website welcomed. To me, this page is a prime piece of cyber real estate that is all too often overlooked.
4. Make sure your customers can find you: List your business in the search engines. Yes, you can do that! Now, this isn’t an icon or anything you put on your site, making sure your business shows up on maps actually happens “off the page”. Google, Bing and Yahoo all have a procedure you can go through to make sure your business shows up in their business listings. If you’re not sure if you business is listed go to the major search engines (Google/Bing/Yahoo) and search for yourself, or go to www.getlisted.org.
5. Social Media Links. Facebook/Linkedin/Twitter and many more are all what many in the internet marketing/blogging space call “outposts” for your company. Having a presence on these social media sites not only helps your customer find you, these sites also provide a link back to your site that helps Google figure out who you are. For more information about Links, see #13 below.
6. Social Media Links specific to your industry. Believe it or not, there are social media sites out there that are created specifically for a certain type of business. For example, another website that I run is called My Daily Cup of Tea and there is a site called Steepster that is essentially Facebook for tea lovers, so I’m a member and I participate. If your industry has a social media site, you need to be there.
7. Keywords. Okay, this is a MUCH bigger topic than a paragraph in a top ten list, but I’m going to touch on it briefly. Keywords are those words and/or phrases people would use when searching in Google/Bing/Yahoo to find your business. For example, if you sold gift baskets and you lived in Kansas City, then one of your keyword phrases would be “gift baskets Kansas City”. Knowing your keywords is very important to driving traffic to your website. We’re going to get to why in the next few points.
8. Search Engine Optimization and SEO Plugins. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a big freaking word that just means making sure Google/Bing/Yahoo can find your site when someone types search terms (keywords!) into the search bar. There are many ways to make sure your site has good SEO. If you use WordPress for your website, and I suggest you at least use it for your blog, then you can use a plugin called, aptly, SEO Plugin. Think of plugins (and widgets) like attachments on your vacuum cleaner. Plugins can let you do a lot more with your website, in this case, the SEO Plugin can make it easy for you to set up meta tags to help the search engines find your site.
9. A Blog. Do you need one? In my opinion – YES, you do! Google and all the search engines need to be told what your site is about so that when someone searches on your keywords then the little spider robot can have an “Aha!” moment and run and get your website for them. A blog keeps the spider coming back to your site to get new information, thus telling the spider that you are an authority about whatever your business is and your website is a place where a searcher can find up to date relevant information. Blogs, as long as they are updated regularly, can help keep the search engines see you as an authority in your business.
10. Posts and Pages. If you have a website with one or two pages that you never update, you’re not going to get a lot of love from Google or any of the other search engines. Search Engines are like the Blob – they constantly need to be fed new data to keep them happy. As I say above in #9 the Blog, adding posts and pages to your website, that is, adding CONTENT, keeps the search engines happy. And happy search engines will send you lots of customers!
11. Unique Content. Not all content is created equal. Google and all the other search engines, likes fresh new content that they can’t find anywhere else on the web. Let’s say that you own a franchise and they send you sample blog posts to put up on your website. In my opinion, you need to rewrite these posts in your own words so that they are different from what every other franchisee will be posting on their website. Why? Because Google likes UNIQUE content. You’ll get a lot more Google love – read page and search ranking – if you publish tons of unique content to your site.
12. WordPress. Just a quick word about WordPress. WordPress is technically what’s called a content management database. But, for me, it’s also the best and quickest way to get a website up and working, or it’s a great tool to use to add a blog to an existing website written in some other code like Dreamweaver, for instance. WordPress has a simple backend dashboard that’s easy to learn and there are tons of theme templates available to customize the look and feel of your website. For more information check out www.wordpress.com.
13. Links. First of all, what is a “link”. A link is where one website posts another websites URL, or address to their website. So, if I mention your website in a blog post and I add some code to make the name of you website clickable so that if the reader does click your websites name they are then take to you website (Like www.yourwebsitename.com) that is a link. There are two kinds of links you need for your website. IN-bound links, which are links from other websites to yours, and OUT-bound links, which are links from your website to other websites. Google loooooves for websites to have links. Inbound, outbound, doesn’t matter. Links help Google figure out what your website is about, and that gives them better search and makes them happy.
So that’s it, 13 Website Marketing Must Haves. You may have noticed that each point is a clickable link that will take you to another page here on the website. Did you think that was by accident? Oh no! ☺ Inter-linking blog posts is what I like to refer to as Inter-Linking Love, and is another kind of link that helps Google give you good search. Making everyone happy!
I hope you find this list helpful. I’ve only scratched the surface with each of these points. The internet and website marketing is a complex animal that can’t really be explained in one post, but I hope I’ve given you at least a thumbnail sketch so that you have a brief introduction. As always, feel free to leave any questions in the comments!
