Website Talk

And, surprise, none of them have anything to do with technology.

Awareness – you must be aware of the importance of your site to your business, of what constitutes an effective site, and be aware of current online marketing trends.

Commitment – you must commit to having a really good site, and to spending however much money you can to your online marketing efforts, and to making that money count.

Implementation – you must stop thinking and talking about it and actually do it.

Vigilance – you must not then do what most businesses have done in the past; build a website, then promptly forget all about it. You must have an active and ongoing marketing program, and monitor its effectiveness constantly.

Make sure the text in your website is written by a writer and edited by an editor.

Maybe that writer is you. Maybe not. But good writing, proper grammar and punctuation, and correct spelling are extremely important. “Writing for the web” has become a separate subject, and a number of books have been written about it, because many of the rules of writing for the printed page do not apply to writing content for a website. The number one difference is that people don’t like to read lots of words on computer screens, therefore the essence of “writing for the web” is brevity.

If you are personally charged with writing content for your website, and you know you’re not a good writer, then hire someone who is. Remember that there are people who are professionally trained as copywriters – if you’re serious about your site, hire one of them. And remember that graphic artists, web designers and programmers are seldom good writers (and before all my artist and programmer friends start throwing tomatoes at me, I will acknowledge that, yes, there are exceptions to this).

Seth Godin (perhaps the smartest marketing guy around) wrote: "I'm going to go out on a limb and beg you not to create a totally original (website) design. There are more than a billion pages on the web; surely there's one design that you can start with. Your car isn't unique, and your house might not be either."

I couldn't agree more. In the final analysis, the marketplace is MUCH more interested in content than design. Design must be good, but it doesn't need to be totally, utterly unique and one-of-a-kind. A high degree of uniqueness is a serious waste of money. No one will notice.

Focus on your message.