Is Your Website Working?

There was a video doing the rounds on FaceBook recently which appeared to be promoting a book / DVD by a chap that was offering to help improve your web marketing. Obviously, the video was a snippet of his thoughts, observations and ideas about what constitutes the current gold standard of web design and general internet presence culminating in the "want to know more - then buy my book" catch. The video also had a catchy title, something along the lines of "Is you Web Developer ruining Your Business?".This alarming query was based around the possibility that web developers somehow are only interested in filling your pages with flash objects, useless bells & whistles and fancy internet busting functionality of other kinds and pay no heed to user experience, audience engagement, communication, calls to action, social signals, responsive design and SEO --- argh? as if!

OK 'Mr buy my Book or else' did make a lot of good points and most of them could have been conceived as a central tenet of our creed at RSM. So what are the key factors that need to be considered for your bang-up-to-date 21st Century web presence?

1) Audience. You must think about audience engagement, real engagement. It is no longer good enough to have a website that is nothing more than a flat bill poster for your business . The best web sites will give the audience something useful, this could be useful information or provide helpful offers in return for some form of action such as social shares or mailing list subscriptions. Think in terms of demonstrating and reinforcing your expertise on-line by making your on-line presence a lot more didactic or educational. Give some of your expertise away by creating 'how to' or 'did you know' style content, create as much shareable stuff as you can.

2) Video! Video is definitely king now. In fact, we would recommend that everyone who wishes to market a service or business on-line needs to have video. Video is great because it is one of the most 'tractive' mediums on the web. People will gravitate to video content and share it quite readily, it should be an easy way to access the information we are looking for. But, it also makes you look extremely professional, honest and helps once again to build that all important authentic relationship with your audience by actually showing what it is that you do in the most truthful way. something only video can do in fact.

3) Simple is The New Complex. We are not just saying this because we do like to keep things simple at RSM but because we all know how much more effective and enjoyable a website is when all the information we need is easy to find and unencumbered by cheesy unnecessary stuff. Simple or 'clean' web design has been a hot topic for some years now and it definitely makes you look a lot more professional on-line.

4) Social. We all know how prolific social media is now and it goes without saying that a fully integrated social media presence is very important. Google will enhance the ranking of websites on the basis of their social signals activity. In other words, the more popular you are in social media (and for a particular interest or concern) then the more 'authority' your website will have for that particular concern. Providing that it is properly integrated with your social networks especially G+. This used to be part of a ranking metric known as 'author rank'.

5) Responsive Design. This should really be item number 1! Responsive means that your website functions in such a way that it will adapt to a variety of devices and screens of any size such that it is easy to use, navigate and read on those devices. Responsive design is a very big subject which we will go into in more detail in another post. Suffice to say - not responsive = game over!

6) Permission Marketing and Email Campaigns. Yes indeed email marketing is still going strong and it is a very potent method for getting your message to precisely the right people at the right time. However, it does require a little expertise and care. We will go into this subject in more detail later. Permission marketing relates to email campaigns in so far as this is simply a term used to describe an activity such as messaging those who have volunteered their contact details for more info etc. This is why it is always a good idea to include an email list subscription feature on your website - if work with databases.

7) SEO is Not Dead! SEO is in fact just as vital as ever though the strategy has changed a lot in the course of the last three years. It is still vital to consider all of the on-page SEO parameters for your website including keyword density, links, structure, tags, image names, spiderability, sitemaps and whole host of other things. Off site SEO is still vital too as back link quality continues to be the number one ranking metric for any website.So there you go, this is our own take on that facebook video - which curiously enough no longer seems to be findable.

If you would like help with any of the items or issues cited in this post then please get in touch with us at RSM and we will be happy to help.

Thanks to Ollie - our web developer for this article.