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Seven Habits of Highly Effective Web Strategies

 Download this white paper (.pdf format)

So you have a web site. Its well designed and easy to use....but if youre a web guy, a marketeer or a CEO, you may ask yourself (or your boss may ask you) How can I make my web strategy work harder? Well, weve decided to help, and seven is the magic number.

Heres Netfeeders top seven ways to improve your web sites karma.....

ONE: Publish a newsletter

How do you stay in touch with your leads? Are you able to make regular phone calls or personal contact? If not, a great way to nurture a lasting relationship is via a newsletter. Put a small subscribe here! icon on each page of your site and make it easy for people to sign up. Once signed, they are your friends (theyve optedin). And, if its relevant and well written, they will happily open your email and read your views. In fact, 75% of people say that email promotions influence their purchasing decisions.

TWO: Talk to your site visitors

Do you use instant messaging (IM)? If not, try it. Windows Messenger now comes bundled with the Windows OS. Look me up at roger.warner@netfeeder.net. Its highly addictive, and a highly costeffective way of communicating with people. Better still, you can integrate an IM application right onto your web site so that your visitors can engage in conversations with you at their leisure. These solutions are inexpensive, but they say a lot about you as an organisation. If youre happy to IM, then youre happy to talk (and listen).

THREE: Establish a partner link strategy and improve your search engine visibility

Talk to your partners, subcontractors, and any other people you do business with and have them place a link to your site on their site. Search engines love this, so it will help your Google ranking. It will also improve your general traffic levels by driving new people onto your site. Target your bigger partners so that you can inherit their web audience. Other simple ways of enhancing your search engine standing is to improve your page keyword strategy (ie, the words that Google looks for to identify you) and to clean up your page code (which makes your site more accessible to search engine spiders ­ the things that rank you).

In fact, improving your position in Googles search engine results pages has been shown to increase your site traffic by over 600% in a two month period.

FOUR: Use P.P.C advertising (Pay Per Click)

See Google and Overture for how this works. By bidding on key phrases, youll enjoy more exposure than Britney Spears on most of the top search engines.

FIVE: Participate in discussion boards

If you dont use them already then start using them now. Its an easy way to learn new things, and a very rewarding way of putting something back into a community. Whatever business youre in, there will be a discussion board to serve you. Use it to get (and give!) tips and advice. In time, people will trust and respect you and it will become a great way to advertise your products or services to likeminded people.

SIX: Write white papers

Like this one! They dont have to be long, but they should hold some value for your target audience. Distribute them along with your newsletter. Post them on your site. Make them desirable....put a subscription process behind them so that site visitors have to sign up to get their hands on them. This is a great way of building up your prospect database.

SEVEN: Become a blogger

Blogs are changing the way in which we communicate on the web. Over a quarter of all internet users now read them. Get on board. Theyre a cheap and efficient way for you to publish your talents and insights....ie, the things that your customers and prospects value most in you. Better still, blogs enable your audience to participate in your ideas. By enabling people to post comments, they can become a great sounding board for new innovations think of them as a product development tool, a virtual focus group. Give your blog a sincere voice and communicate openly.....and go with it it works!

Web strategies are not Fields of Dreams you can build it, but they may not come. You need to work on your web strategy to make it work harder for you.

....or, you could contact us!