Web marketing ain't what it used to be.
Sophisticated tools allow you an intimate glimpse into the patterns visitors make on your site. Other tools make it easy to serve up alternate versions of portions of your site so you can evaluate the effectiveness of one type of content versus another, or to one type of visitor versus another, or to how one type of visitor responds to one type of content versus another type of content versus how another type of visitor...
Well, perhaps you get the point.
This stuff isn't rocket science, but it can certainly be daunting, even for mid-sized and larger businesses. That's why some marketing agencies offer services that can bring you up to speed and find the opportunities hidden in your site.
START WITH STRATEGY
Some agencies start with your business strategy. Web marketing is full of best practices and rules of thumb, but none of them can dictate an effective web presence for you like your business proposition and differentiation can.
DRIVE RELEVANT TRAFFIC
You have an online presence, whether you own it or not. The majority of your customers and prospective customers are online, and they're looking for you. They're willing to tell you a lot about what they want and how they want it, if you're willing to pay attention. Are your customers finding you, or are they finding your competitors?
Many marketing agencies offer services to help drive relevant, targeted, motivated traffic to your site: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Search Advertising, Search Engine Optimization (or, as we like to call it, Searcher Experience Optimization), and Social Media Marketing. Together, these services deliver ongoing ROI and an increasingly profitable visitor base for your site.
IMPROVE ENGAGEMENT ONSITE
From web design and development to usability reviews to user experience consultation across your marketing channels, this is where top marketing agencies really stand apart from the crowd. Most web designers overlook the fact that every web site draws a diverse group of visitors. (This is especially true for e-commerce and B2B sites.) Leading web marketing agencies can mine your site's analytics for hidden treasure-segments of users you may not have even realized you had, but who are highly motivated and mean big profit. These agencies can also help you spot trouble areas in your site where users are trying to tell you they're getting the wrong message.
MAKE YOUR SITE A BETTER SALESPERSON
Would you hire a salesperson who could consistently outperform his or her salary? Of course you would. Why would you hesitate?
Your web site can be your most effective salesperson, no matter what industry you're in. People believe their business is different from all the rest and that the web doesn't matter in their industry, but there are few examples where improving a web site using these methodologies didn't more than pay for the cost of doing so.
Not sure you trust these opinions about what will work for your business? You don't have to; let your customers do the talking. Internet marketing agencies using these concepts can test different versions of web pages and let user behavior be the judge of what works and what doesn't. The best part is: it's not a gamble. If you redesign your web site without testing it, you can never really know how effective it is, because anything can change from day to day or week to week and skew your results.
TOOLS TO HELP YOU MAKE YOUR CASE
Are you convinced that your company needs to invest in web strategy and/or web marketing services, but you need a little help convincing the decision makers? You can look for agencies specializing in user experience optimization or testing, web analytics, or learn about Omniture's Test & Target. The most experienced and sophisticated agencies are called Omniture Partners. You can search for those terms to learn more about your options as well. Something many people use to conduct the testing themselves is Google's free tool called Google Website Optimizer. It's not nearly as flexible or sophisticated as Test & Target, but it'll give you a great introduction into how you many need to think about testing versions of a page.
No matter what tool you use, the methodology and discipline you bring to any testing project makes the difference between good and excellence. Spend the time learning about these disciplines and in the end whether you undergo them yourself or hire out the work, you will find yourself in a much better position than most of your competition.
Sophisticated tools allow you an intimate glimpse into the patterns visitors make on your site. Other tools make it easy to serve up alternate versions of portions of your site so you can evaluate the effectiveness of one type of content versus another, or to one type of visitor versus another, or to how one type of visitor responds to one type of content versus another type of content versus how another type of visitor...
Well, perhaps you get the point.
This stuff isn't rocket science, but it can certainly be daunting, even for mid-sized and larger businesses. That's why some marketing agencies offer services that can bring you up to speed and find the opportunities hidden in your site.
START WITH STRATEGY
Some agencies start with your business strategy. Web marketing is full of best practices and rules of thumb, but none of them can dictate an effective web presence for you like your business proposition and differentiation can.
DRIVE RELEVANT TRAFFIC
You have an online presence, whether you own it or not. The majority of your customers and prospective customers are online, and they're looking for you. They're willing to tell you a lot about what they want and how they want it, if you're willing to pay attention. Are your customers finding you, or are they finding your competitors?
Many marketing agencies offer services to help drive relevant, targeted, motivated traffic to your site: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Search Advertising, Search Engine Optimization (or, as we like to call it, Searcher Experience Optimization), and Social Media Marketing. Together, these services deliver ongoing ROI and an increasingly profitable visitor base for your site.
IMPROVE ENGAGEMENT ONSITE
From web design and development to usability reviews to user experience consultation across your marketing channels, this is where top marketing agencies really stand apart from the crowd. Most web designers overlook the fact that every web site draws a diverse group of visitors. (This is especially true for e-commerce and B2B sites.) Leading web marketing agencies can mine your site's analytics for hidden treasure-segments of users you may not have even realized you had, but who are highly motivated and mean big profit. These agencies can also help you spot trouble areas in your site where users are trying to tell you they're getting the wrong message.
MAKE YOUR SITE A BETTER SALESPERSON
Would you hire a salesperson who could consistently outperform his or her salary? Of course you would. Why would you hesitate?
Your web site can be your most effective salesperson, no matter what industry you're in. People believe their business is different from all the rest and that the web doesn't matter in their industry, but there are few examples where improving a web site using these methodologies didn't more than pay for the cost of doing so.
Not sure you trust these opinions about what will work for your business? You don't have to; let your customers do the talking. Internet marketing agencies using these concepts can test different versions of web pages and let user behavior be the judge of what works and what doesn't. The best part is: it's not a gamble. If you redesign your web site without testing it, you can never really know how effective it is, because anything can change from day to day or week to week and skew your results.
TOOLS TO HELP YOU MAKE YOUR CASE
Are you convinced that your company needs to invest in web strategy and/or web marketing services, but you need a little help convincing the decision makers? You can look for agencies specializing in user experience optimization or testing, web analytics, or learn about Omniture's Test & Target. The most experienced and sophisticated agencies are called Omniture Partners. You can search for those terms to learn more about your options as well. Something many people use to conduct the testing themselves is Google's free tool called Google Website Optimizer. It's not nearly as flexible or sophisticated as Test & Target, but it'll give you a great introduction into how you many need to think about testing versions of a page.
No matter what tool you use, the methodology and discipline you bring to any testing project makes the difference between good and excellence. Spend the time learning about these disciplines and in the end whether you undergo them yourself or hire out the work, you will find yourself in a much better position than most of your competition.
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