• What Will It Take For You To Succeed On The Web?  •
• Almost Every Client I’ve Worked With Had The Wrong Expectations •

Today I want to write about the “best of intentions” when it comes to having a website to promote your services or products. By this I mean do you have high hopes that once you have a well-designed, pleasing to the eye website, and you’ve placed some decent content on it, that you can sort of kick back and wait for visitors to start flocking to your website’s door?

Probably so. From my professional perspective and experience, I have found this mindset to be more the norm, than the exception.

I hate to say it, but the “build a website and they will come” attitude is quite prevalent. As a matter of fact I have to keep reminding myself that very intelligent business men and women, who can do a great job out in the real world selling their services and products, usually haven’t a clue as to what makes a money making website tick!

I guess I still kind of take it for granted that since there is so much information on the internet nowadays about how to have a “successful website” … well I figure people just Google and educate themselves on what they need to do to make their websites WORK for them.

This assumption is wrong! And I am not putting down my clients in regard to this matter. After all, I haven’t a clue about what it takes to be a successful realtor; or how to be a successful producer of a holistic healing exposition. So why would most people who have a website really know what it will take to make it a lean, mean marketing machine?

And quite honestly, my client’s “best of intentions” attitude really works in my favor. It means that they need my website optimization firm’s help even more than for SEO attention. They need our marketing success strategies, too

For a full listing of all the professional services my partner and I offer, please visit SEO-Innovation.com

What Does It Take to Have A Successful Website?

In my professional capacity, I really and truly try to arm every client with the core internet marketing knowledge they need along with solid basic SEO knowledge. Each client will have a slightly different blend of tactics and techniques that will get them to their end result. But for each website owner that end result is the same … the need to attract targeted visitors to their site, and to make sales of one sort of another.

To this end, these are the basic concepts I discuss with them:

1. That building a website is only one small aspect of a successful web presence.
2. That to be successful, they need a website marketing plan.
3. That they must be prepared to invest time and/or money in SEO implementation and techniques.
4. That the more actively involved they are in the website marketing process, the greater the results they will achieve.
5. That they must keep their site up-to-date (i.e. content is added on a regular basis; links are up-to-date, etc.).
6. They ought to think about starting a blog (only if they can handle the demands of adding lots of quality content in addition to their website).
7. They should participate in forums that are relevant to their niche.
8. They need to seek links from suppliers, and other related sites to their niche that will bring value of one sort or another to their visitors.
9. They need to always keep an eye on the competition.
10. They’ve got to remain flexible and keep adjusting to trends in their industry.
11. They should keep an eye open for new marketing angles.
12. And the list goes on …

Patience Is A Virtue

As my dear Grandma Sadie used to say “Patience is a virtue”. A successful website normally takes a bit of time to evolve! A swarm of visitor traffic isn’t going to come running through the gates the moment the site is launched. However hard work and persistence combined with ethical and expert SEO advice and marketing assistance will usually pay off.

The bottom line is this … if you see yourself as a web owner with the “best of intentions” but with a site that is underperforming, the reason is normally laying right under your nose. Lack of search engine optimization, usually combined with one or more technical issues adversely affecting your site are working together to put the kibosh on high rankings and of course, more visitors and more sales.

In addition, are you putting into practice any or all of the above to-dos I’ve mentioned?

• Give ‘Em More Than They Hoped For •
• You’ve Got To Outshine Your Competition •

No matter what service or products you offer via your website, remember to ALWAYS overdeliver in every area. This certainly includes the quality of the content (information) you provide; the ease of ordering your products; ease of navigation throughout your site; even your visitor being able to find your “Contact Me” information quickly.

You’ve got your competition nipping at your heels! So, your goal is to to make sure your website is much more than a site that provides “basic” information and allows an order to be placed.

Exceed your customers expectations! Provide them with quality content that gives them MORE information than they would have expected. I don’t know about you, but I appreciate having everything I’d like to know about a proudct or service clearly spelled out for me, without having to search through FAQ’s, or worse … not finding the information I need to know and having to call or email the company.

You should have a handle on what “overdelivering” means in your unique niche. If you don’t … please go and check out what the competition offers on their web pages. You ought to get a good idea of what you’ll need to provide on your site to be better than the others.

Always do your best to make your site be more than a few “quality” notches above your competition.

You’re competing for shoppers that will stay with you beyond that first sale! Don’t you want them to become long-term customers? If so, then the overdeliver philosophy will serve you well!

As is so often said (because it’s the truth) … it’s all about meeting your website visitor’s and/or shopper’s needs, wants and desires. So, the more you can offer as far as quality content (information) the more likely they will be to purchase from you.