Know the Difference: Bad Website or Bad Marketing?

So, you just launched a new website, but your Analytics dashboard says your visitation numbers are low. There is a common misconception that when you launch a website, people will suddenly start rushing to to it — we like to tell our clients, “if you build it, they won’t come.” Ensuring your site is functional and well-designed is half the battle, while implementing a marketing strategy so that customers will find it, is the other.

So, what half are you dealing with? Here are a few development, design and user experience issues you can check off your list to start:

Branded and designed well.
Everything from your logo, to your company slogan and overall messaging is encompassed in the term “branding.” It allows your visitors to, at a glance, determine if they are in the right place and sets you apart form your competitors. Nike is a great example — consumers see their symbolic “swoosh” and see the “just do it” and know who they’re dealing with.

To learn more about the importance of branding, check out this article we did with BrandBoss Creative.

User experience answers questions.
When your website has a good user experience, it meets the needs of both your customers and your company. Providing informative copy, useful imagery and design and functionality that guides a user to make a purchase or contact you for your services are all examples of good UX.

There are lots of feedback tools available out there if you are looking for someone test your site.

Accessible on mobile.
Was your website built using responsive design? While five years ago it may have still been a question, for years it has been essential to make sure your site adapts to various screen sizes, whether phone, tablet or desktop. Google will penalize you not only for having a site not designed for mobile, but also for one that performs slowly, affecting your search visibility.

Use this tool to determine how mobile-friendly your site is, and this one to test its performance.

If you are confident that you already provide your site visitors with the above, but are unhappy with the amount of traffic coming — or not coming — to your site, you may have yourself a digital marketing problem. Here are a few improvements you can make on your own:

Check your Domain Authority.
Domain Authority is your website’s search engine score out of 100 and a great way to gauge the success of your content marketing efforts. The higher your score, the more prominently you will be displayed in Google search results.

Check your Domain Authority with this tool.

Optimize your content.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the effort of driving traffic to your site from search engines, and since 64% of all web traffic comes from organic search, it is a subject you should become familiar with. To touch on the surface, optimizing your content involves keyword research to learn what prospective site visitors are teaching for, and applying those keywords throughout your site so that Google can understand when your site would be a great search result for someone who’s interested.

Content marketing.
Reach out to your customers by producing a weekly, or monthly blog on your site. Fresh content is always looked upon favorably by Google, and you can then use this blog content to send your customers a periodic newsletter. Mailing lists are a great way to keep in touch, build a personable relationship with your clients, and drive them to your site.

Conclusion.
It is just as important to build a website with good aesthetics and functionality as it is to implement a strong digital marketing plan to support it. With both halves of this coin in place, you should attract customers in no time. If you still have questions, or are in need of some fresh digital marketing ideas, don’t hesitate to give us a call! We have over 20 years of experience helping people do business online.