Seven Essential Strategies for Enhancing Your Website

1. Catering to All Your Target Markets

Does your website cater to all potential customers of your various products and services? Is there content specifically designed for each of these groups? It's crucial to consider whether your online audience differs from your traditional market and how you can leverage this difference.

2. Engaging Your Visitors with Your Content

Your website should be crafted from your visitors' perspective, not yours. Does your homepage clearly identify why the visitor is there, what benefits they can gain, and why they should care? It should address their potential problems or concerns and how your products or services can provide solutions.

3. Substantiating Your Claims

If you assert that your products or services deliver results, does your website provide clear evidence to support this? Case studies, client lists, and testimonials from satisfied customers are far more valuable than promotional text. These third-party endorsements should be scattered throughout your site, not confined to a separate page that few visitors will access.

4. Establishing Yourself as an Authority

Publishing articles and white papers related to your area of expertise is an effective way to gain exposure. Even if your business involves selling widgets, you can provide valuable advice on how to maximize their use. Search engines will pick up articles on your site, and you can also offer them to publications that your target markets read, always linking back to your site.

5. Making a Clear Call to Action

Every page on your website should have a clear call to action. Too many web pages end weakly, leaving visitors unsure of what to do next. Each page should have a strategy - invite the visitor to interact with you or proceed to the next page, but make it easy and obvious.

6. Diversifying Your Promotional Strategy

Relying solely on free search engines for traffic is not advisable. Explore other promotional methods such as using your content and articles, advertising in e-zines, appending a signature file to your emails, regularly updating your database, and integrating your traditional marketing with your online activities.

7. Reviewing Your Traffic Analysis

Lastly, but most importantly, your website traffic reports can provide valuable insights into what's working and what's not. Without this data, you're essentially operating in the dark. For instance, you might discover that most of your visitors don't venture beyond your homepage.

While this list is not exhaustive, it provides a solid foundation for enhancing your website. Hopefully, your website will pass the test!

(c) Philippa Gamse, 2001. All rights reserved.