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Short answer - Absolutely! If you have a business, you probably need video on your website. I know, that's a blanket statement coming from someone who advocates doing a market strategy to determine which avenue to spend your marketing/advertising dollars. However, with the right video company you can have a professional video on your website that will pay for itself in no time. Of course, I always believe that your company needs to be well defined with a core message and a unique value position, but once you have that in place, the right video is compelling. As I tell all my clients, nothing sells like the right picture. If you have a photograph on your site, I strongly urge you to make sure it's of professional quality. The same goes for video. I know I can set up my video camera and create a digital file to upload to my website. It might even look OK. But the professional look goes a long way in showing your potential customers how you care about the work that you do. Edward Tufte, the premier graphic design guru of our time, talks about data density - the most amount of data in the smallest amount of space in the clearest possible presentation. Video handles that extremely well... too well, sometimes. The nuances of body language can help or hinder any presentation. With the right coaching, a great videographer will be able to guide you in your video presentation so that your message comes across. Speaking of great videographers, I have worked with one such person. Catie Foertsch owns a video company in Westborough, Massachusetts, called Our Town Productions. She has extensive experience in the field on both sides of the camera. Many people who belong to the local chamber, the Corridor Nine Area Chamber of Commerce, will recognize her as their regular videographer at most of their events. I highly recommend her. I strongly urge you to look at professional video as an option for your website. A compelling video will help set you apart from your competition.
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I hope you and your web designer or web developer are talking about website traffic at the beginning of the website building process. Unless your website is just a hobby, you need to be concerned about getting visitors to your website. There are many strategies for getting traffic to your site. Believe me, I've tried many of the them. It comes down to this - time. Keyword research takes time and tweaking is a given once you're up and running. It's a moving target and you need to keep an eye on your target market. The most effective method I've found for driving website traffic to your website is Hubspot.com. Their web software for keyword research is thorough and it works. They also give you the training you need to make the best use of their software. Finally, their methodology is clearly written and gives you a step-by-step method of creating a successful website. And success, to me, equals qualified website traffic. Isn't that the bottom line?
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Tags: marketing, target market, website, messaging, branding, search engine savvy, core message, list of services, business, passion for business, market strategy, ancillary marketing, trade show, brochures, marketing path, marketing strategy
There are many components that make a good website. If you have ever heard me talk, you know that I rarely talk about design when the bigger issue is message and positioning. Without your message in place, the design is trial and error. Granted, if you have enough time and money to keep trying things on your website without the proper marketing, then go right ahead. I'm sure you will eventually reach your goal. But you have to ask yourself one question: What is the question to which my website is the answer? Can you honestly answer that? Essentially, all websites are meant to be answers to something. For example, someone types the following into Google: "Who is the best financial planner in the city of Westborough?" or "'financial planners' westborough top-rated 'better business bureau'" if you are a little more search engine savvy. Is this the question to which your website is the answer? How do you become the answer to that? It starts with a core message, a full definition of your company. What is your business all about? I don't mean a list of services either. This definition comes from the primordial ooze of the beginnings of your business, the passion that was there when you first started, the excitement of knowing, really knowing, that this was the right thing to do. Remember? Is that feeling still there or are you feeling just as stuck as someone who works for someone else in a dead-end job? Next we move to a market strategy. Where do you go from here? How does your website need to change in order to exhibit that core message on every page? Do you need ancillary methods? A trade show? Brochures? Magazine ads? Radio ads? A billboard? That kind of analysis is gold! Imagine being able to know which marketing path to take. Imagine the money (sometimes, vast sums of money) you could save with this kind of information. So ask yourself the Most Important Question and tell me what you've come up with. Be honest! This could be the most important question you've ever asked yourself.
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Your Website Visitors Demand Clarity
Did you ever knock on someone’s door and, when they answer it, say something that makes no sense at all like, “Hello, gas prices are up”? You’ve got the wrong message. The person at the door says goodbye, politely or otherwise. It’s an analogy that works for the Internet as well. Somebody gets to your website and you’ve got the wrong message. You sell widgets but your website starts with an animation page that glorifies your logo. Nobody cares about your logo. You then get to the home page that shows a picture of your brick-and-mortar store. Trust me, unless you are the reincarnation of Frank Lloyd Wright, nobody cares. You’ve got cute little animated widgets that dance across the page in a Javascript frenzy. Nobody cares.
To many, this would be obvious but what about something like a list of the different kinds of widgets you have? What message are you sending out by doing that?:
“We have widgets like everybody else.”
You need a Message approach to set yourself apart from all the other widget websites out there.
You have about six seconds to grab someone with your website message and convince them that this is where they should be. Let’s say your message is all about low cost widgets. Your message could be:
“The Lowest Prices on Widgets Ever Seen!”
Now that’s a message. If you are the Walmart of Widgets then that is the message you should get across and right away.
Too often, people get caught up in the “design” of a website. The design is secondary to the message. If you lose someone after six seconds, it doesn’t matter how good your design is. The design should follow the message. If the message is, “The Lowest Prices on Widgets Ever Seen!” then the design should reflect and support that.
Website visitors don’t care about what you do, they are interested in what’s in it for me. It is so easy to go to the next website and people will in a nanosecond. Take your ego out of the picture and imagine yourself a brand new visitor to your website and you are looking to buy widgets online. Does the home page lead you exactly to where you want to go? Does it present a strong case for you to stay? Maybe you aren’t looking for the lowest price widgets but for very expensive and high quality widgets. Did you get to a link that goes to an empty page or, worse yet, an “Under Construction” page. I shudder to think.
Every click matters. Every navigation is important. The visitor to your site can fall off at any point. When your message permeates every aspect of your site, your website will be like a clear beacon for those who want your product and people will stay. With other things in place, maybe they’ll even buy. More on that in a future article. Until then, I am...
...At Your Service
Paul Rodriguez
President, Natural Rhythm, Inc.
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