Website Wall – I had an interesting conversation with a potential client recently. We were discussing his corporate website and how he hit a wall in terms of getting leads. He was well versed in SEO strategies, he had kept the website up to date and posted fresh content frequently on a Blog and he had dabbled in pay-per-click advertising. The interesting part of the conversation was when we started to discuss who his website user is. See, sometimes you can get so focused on getting your message out that you forget about who you are trying to communicate to.
The potentials’ industry is home health care so the person accessing the website for information would generally not be the person utilizing the actual services. I discussed how different generations utilize technology and access information differently. We talked about how Baby Boomers are far different from Millennials in how they search for content, what social media channels they use and how they use websites.
My advice was this – fix any issues that would limit the organic search optimization. Clean up the website and remove any errors in the code that would prevent your search engine listing from being recognized properly. Next, determine who the website user is and if needed modify the language and call to action on the website. Does the user prefer to read information on the website or speak to someone on the phone or via chat? Do they want to complete a contact form and provide their personal information? Do they want to read about the company or perhaps testimonials from other people that have utilized services?
Once the discovery is made and the proper steps have been taken to remedy any issues that’s when I suggested an exploration into lead generating channels such as pay-per-click advertising.
We could’ve dove right in and recommended an aggressive and costly plan to manage this potential clients’ online marketing efforts, but it wouldn’t have succeeded. Take a step back, review things from time to time. Make small adjustments in your efforts and in time you will see big results.