Your Website Budget is Missing Something Important

“It’s Live!” You just launched your website and now is the time to send an email out announcing your new website. The replies start pouring in telling you how great it looks and that it’s so easy to use compared to the previous website. At the end of the day you leave the office proud of yourself and excited to come in tomorrow to read more replies about your new website. But when you come into the office the next day there is nothing. The buzz is gone and it turns out to just be another day. But what’s worse is that website hasn’t moved the needle. It’s not driving any new activity nor is it driving new revenue. You just spent your entire annual website budget on a redesign and maybe some SEO (search engine optimization). What’s changed in your business? Nothing, except you have a new, pretty website.

Hopefully the story above doesn’t sound like you because when your website project began and well before any web design work was done you put your focus on clear business objectives you want your website to produce such as:

1. Increase Quality Lead Generation
2. Improve Customer Loyalty
3. Sign Up for a Demo

By starting with the business objectives you want to accomplish you are then able to define the necessary tasks that need to be done to your website to reach that objective. For example, if your objective is to increase the volume of quality leads through your website then you need to tailor your website content and user experience to accommodate those needs and interests. When you have determined what constitutes as a quality lead or targeted lead you can tailor existing content and calls to action for each target specifically. Because your goal is getting more quality leads then your budget should be adjusted to allow for writing content for your target audience.

Too many web projects go straight into design without any attention to the business objectives or the content needed to drive calls-to-actions. Content is the king of your website as this is what will drive leads from search engines and its how your audience will interact with your website.

Here are a few immediate tasks you can do now to ensure you’re putting your focus and budget in the right area of your website:

1. List your target market.
2. List the call-to-actions you want each target market to do on your website. (e.g.sign up for demo, fill out form, download whitepaper)
3. List the content titles/ideas that will drive that individual to perform that call-to-action.
4. Write. If you need help kick starting your writing then follow these tips.