Jay LeonardThere are four key elements to every successful website: creative design, innovative technology, branded content and an online marketing action plan:
1. Creative Design. People are visual by nature so we know that creative design elements affect the way visitors identify with a particular brand and create an emotional connection to it. A professional designer can help you select colors, font styles, design layouts and images to make the biggest impact for your business.
2. Innovative Technology. Technology is the engine that powers your brand. It is what makes customers want to buy from you. Good technology simplifies or improves customer’s lives in some way, whether it is the ease of shopping online, managing an account from their smart phone, being entertained on a plane trip or accessing important information on the go. Typically, the better, more advanced technology means it is simpler to use and results in higher customer satisfaction.
3. Branded Content. Content is what engages your website visitors and just like creative design, it affects the personal connection people feel about your brand. Invite customers in, be a trusted resource in your industry and share the story of your business by using professionally written content. And, although you may know more about your product or service than anyone on the planet, it doesn’t make you an expert in writing branded content so you should leave that to the professionals.
4. Online Marketing Action Plan. SEO is what makes it possible for search engine platforms such as Google, Yahoo and Bing to find the content your users are looking for about your services and is the key to any online marketing action plan. It does not stand alone. An effective online marketing action plan should also include content optimization and distribution, backlinking, bookmarking, indexing, blogging, social media marketing, public relations and marketing automation. Together, these marketing action plan components keep your website relevant to the search engine rankings and make it accessible to your potential customers.
Hiring a professional takes some time but the benefits of finding someone who can take your messaging and branding to the next level is priceless. The value in having a professional team to create original content, creative web designs, innovative technology and an online marketing plan that maximizes your competitive edge in the marketplace may be the difference your customer is looking for.
As always, good luck creating your new website. It should be one of the most exciting and creative processes you go through as a business professional.
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This article was written for Business 2 Community by Jay Leonard.
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I would partially disagree with the point about having innovative technology. In fact, it is not really a disagreement as much as a modification. While innovative tech can be awesome when it works right, it is more likely that it will be buggy and make you lose customers. If there is already technology that does what you need, don’t reinvent the wheel. Use the technology that has matured and had all problems worked out.