Who's the Boss:
Is your web site working for you, or are you working for your website?

Many website owners say that they use their web sites as brochures. They are not convinced that investing in their web site to make it generate traffic on its own is going to be worthwhile. These business people will give out their website address only after they've been in contact with potential customers. If they don't find the potential customers and give out the address, the web site won't get any visitors. Of course there are exceptions, but most of the time they are so few that they make little impact on your bottom line. So what's really happening here is they are working for their web site, supplying it with visitors, as opposed to their web site working for them, supplying them with potential customers.

If you are going to use your web site only as a brochure - as opposed to offering an online store or a way for customers to contact you - then consider this. With a brochure, you will pay someone to design it. Then you will pay someone to print it. After you spend a few hundred, if not thousand, dollars on designing and printing costs, all these beautiful brochures will be put in a box and taken to your office. At this point you have a choice. You can keep your brochures in a box in one of your office corners and give them out only when people walk through your door. Of course, if no one walks through your door, you won't give out any brochures. Or you can mail your brochures, go to local businesses and leave a bunch of brochures there, offer them to people you might meet on the way, take them with you to networking events - you get the idea. Most likely, you will do at least something to distribute these brochures outside your office.

So if you are going to distribute your brochures, shouldn't you 'distribute' your web site as well?

'Distributing' the web site is getting it rank well in search engines, so that customers can find it when they search for the products or services that you offer. One way to do this is through a process called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Studies show that more and more consumers are turning to the Internet to research their purchasing decisions. But you probably don't even need statistics to tell you that because chances are, that's what you do too. For example, what would you do if you were trying to plan a vacation? How would you research where to stay, how to get there, what to see and do while you are there? You might talk to your travel agent, or ask your friends and family for recommendations, but chances are the Internet will play a role in your research at some point. And this is true for most people.

So if there are millions of people in the world, making millions of searches on the Internet every day, shouldn't you be where the action is? Even if your business only services a specific geographic area, and you are only exposed to hunderds or thousands of people as opposed to millions, for many businesses it still pays to have their web site rank well in search engines.

And what's even better is that when someone does a search on the Internet, chances are this person has a specific purpose - to buy. To buy something that you might be selling. It's not a random person walking through your door just to look around, but a person who is interested in your products or services. Ideal potential customer, wouldn't you say?

And yet most people don't do anything to make their web sites attract new customers on their own. Essentially, paying someone to design your web site, then paying someone to host it and maybe even maintain it, but doing absolutely nothing to prepare the web site for good search engine ranking is the same as designing and printing your brochures and then letting them sit in a box in the corner of your office without distrbuting them anywhere else. People need to see your web site. If they like what they see on your web site, they will be more likely to call you and learn more about your products or services, ultimately making the decision to buy.

Invest in your web site. Use it to attract new customers and reach people you wouldn't be able to reach otherwise. Don't just let it sit 'on its behind', waiting for you to send visitors to it one by one, essentially draining your resources. Stop working for your web site. Get your web site ready for good search engine ranking. Get your web site working for you.

For more information on getting your web site to rank well in search engines, internet marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), as well as other marketing services such as graphic design and corporate identity packages, please contact us at our office in Greater Vancouver:

Tel: 604-629-7499
E-mail: info [at] rontcommunications [dot] com

Thank you and we look forward to working with you!