Make it Sticky

Sticky used to be a very trendy word in web marketing and I see no reason why it should have gone away.

Sites need to embrace this. Sticky is:

• What makes the site attractive to visitors
• Making the site a delight to use
• What keeps visitors returning
• Using social media to enhance your online presence
• Gets visitors telling their friends about it (viral)

As ever this doesn't necessarily involve great expense but a clarity of purpose and creative thinking.

Audience Research?

Visitor research and focus groups tend to just point to the last cool thing they saw. I know news channels seem unable to report on a story without adding the view of some person from Frinton, or a text or email. Maybe an unscientific poll. But does this really add value?

The web is an ever emerging arena, monitor visitor statistics (and sales!). Understand what's working for you and the issues your visitors are interested in.

Get out there and do it. Have a Facebook account, get on Twitter, blog, have a personal website. Make a video, upload it. Master the black arts! I'm a volunteer canoe coach, I can show folks how to do paddle strokes, that's the easy bit. However it's only by going off themselves and paddling, that they will really learn. It's the same with technology.

It's up to us to come up with new, innovative and creative sales/lead generating and attention grabbing ideas. If you just look at your competition, your site will look like your competition. Look at the best in class, look for innovation and learn and adapt.

Don't rely on a text from that person in Frinton!

Who Are You Talking To?

Very often there are sites where this fundamental question has not been asked, or the answer ignored. One site can address several areas, that's fine. It may often be that you're addressing students for careers, this might be small type and very funky. When the core message might be addressing the "C" class (CEO's, CFO's etc) requiring a larger font and more traditional format. It's OK to have separate styles, that said, you do need to be consistent within the separate areas.

We build our brand online by knowing who we are talking to and getting them to interact with us. We might just want them to read our pages or watch the video, it's not all about buying off the page. By having a clear vision of the challenge we are better able to secure the desired result.

So the key points are:

• Understand your audience


• Adjust to their demographics


• What else are they reading / looking at?


• Adapt your style and message accordingly


• How will you call them to action?

Technology Should Be An Enabler, Not An Inhibitor

In this 21st century I'm constantly amazed at how few folks adhere to this. There are some simple tenets to adhere to:

• Make your site easy to use


• Make it intuitive


• Make the navigation logical


• Have calls to action and /or a feedback channel


• Make sure it's up to date


• Ensure it's legal


• Ensure it downloads like a rocket


• Ensure it works on your target markets' browsers

Simple!

Statistics Really WWWorking?

I'm very often asked to review websites. I'm asked for lists of best practice sites and pages in a particular sector. Bad examples are requested too. Hence a really bad page might get a lot of traffic. How we love to laugh at losers! Bad pages can go viral and be shared by email, blogs, twitter etc. Huge traffic can be generated and this can actually cause reputational damage.
Your organisation might get some adverse (media) comment, again this will be a traffic driver. Yes, they say there's no such thing as bad publicity but your website better be up to the extra scrutiny. Please don't expect the extra traffic to lead to extra sales.
So unless you are selling items off the page, or have a definite call to action (believe those numbers!) don't slavishly believe stats. There are many cases when they could be wrong.
Plus, for example, a corporate website might have a page about a service that is pertinent to just a few. Five views from potential buyers will surely be more valuable than fifty from students on a more generic and easily found page. Your stats won't show that.
You need to apply common sense.