Hurrah! I have my new Web site up! I am excited to unveil it to you and want to share my thinking in setting it up.
Like many businesspeople, I was clueless when I created my first Web site. What should I include? What was important to my customers? What did they want to know? Not certain of the answers to any of those questions, I put up a site that explained what I had to offer. I was never certain that it was what my customers wanted to know.
A couple of years ago, I read a very interesting piece by Hubspot that the top three reasons a customer comes to your Web site ought to be easily accessible on your home page. Each of these link to a landing page on that topic so that your customers can readily find what he wants without frustration.
The idea made sense to me. What were the top three reasons someone comes to my site? I wondered. After much thought, I decided the reasons were that the person was starting a business and wanted to learn about marketing, frustrated with marketing, or growing a business and wanted to market that growth profitably. I determined to make those the first three items on my home page.
I grappled with the content of the landing pages for each. I didn’t want to send visitors to various parts of the site to try to find answers to these situations. I wanted to give them usable content on the landing page and point them to additional information after that. I thought of creating a special piece for each page with a small amount of information, enough to pique their interest. I wanted to offer that piece prominently on the page.
As I worked on those pieces, they became much bigger than my original intent. They developed into workbooks that had a great deal of helpful content in them. Originally, I had thought of giving them away as freebies, but, when I finished them, I changed my thinking. I feel that too much is given away both online and on site by businesses to attract customers. Freebies are fine, but they must fit into a plan. Since my plan already had my weekly Insight and now a pod cast, I had freebies covered.
Thus, I refined the workbooks and added an audio component to create a workshop on each of the topics. I used a number in the titles because numbers get attention and employed an unusual one to stir interest further. The titles of the three workshops are 11 Actions to Grow Your Business with Marketing, 11 Changes to End Your Frustration with Marketing, and 11 Steps to Market Your New Business.
I attached a price to each of these because their content is worth it. I want to train my customers that what I offer is valuable. Giving too many freebies teaches customers the opposite. I arrived at a price for each that is fair to my customers and my business.
Another important aspect to me was to have the site friendly for any device, especially mobile, since increasingly sites are being accessed across a broad range of devices. The first screen on mobile addresses the three main reasons a person may visit my site. The second screen has a video, which I will be changing regularly, Profitable Marketing Weekly, my weekly audio publication, my pod cast, my Insight, and the weekly trivia question. The third screen features my books in audio and print, and my signature E-sessions. The fourth introduces my new Profitable Marketing Secrets audio packages. On a desktop or a wider screen the first and second screens appear side-by-side and the second and third screens are next to each other.
I’m very pleased with the results. I wanted the site to have a clean look, make it easy for the visitor to find information, and prompt the visitor before leaving the site to subscribe, buy, or contact me. I think the site does that. Check it out at psmc.com. Forward a link about it to anyone you think might be interested, too.
Thanks for reading my Insights and checking out my new site!
This week's marketing trivia challenge is What do you feel is most important in a Web site? E-mail me your answer.
Like many businesspeople, I was clueless when I created my first Web site. What should I include? What was important to my customers? What did they want to know? Not certain of the answers to any of those questions, I put up a site that explained what I had to offer. I was never certain that it was what my customers wanted to know.
A couple of years ago, I read a very interesting piece by Hubspot that the top three reasons a customer comes to your Web site ought to be easily accessible on your home page. Each of these link to a landing page on that topic so that your customers can readily find what he wants without frustration.
The idea made sense to me. What were the top three reasons someone comes to my site? I wondered. After much thought, I decided the reasons were that the person was starting a business and wanted to learn about marketing, frustrated with marketing, or growing a business and wanted to market that growth profitably. I determined to make those the first three items on my home page.
I grappled with the content of the landing pages for each. I didn’t want to send visitors to various parts of the site to try to find answers to these situations. I wanted to give them usable content on the landing page and point them to additional information after that. I thought of creating a special piece for each page with a small amount of information, enough to pique their interest. I wanted to offer that piece prominently on the page.
As I worked on those pieces, they became much bigger than my original intent. They developed into workbooks that had a great deal of helpful content in them. Originally, I had thought of giving them away as freebies, but, when I finished them, I changed my thinking. I feel that too much is given away both online and on site by businesses to attract customers. Freebies are fine, but they must fit into a plan. Since my plan already had my weekly Insight and now a pod cast, I had freebies covered.
Thus, I refined the workbooks and added an audio component to create a workshop on each of the topics. I used a number in the titles because numbers get attention and employed an unusual one to stir interest further. The titles of the three workshops are 11 Actions to Grow Your Business with Marketing, 11 Changes to End Your Frustration with Marketing, and 11 Steps to Market Your New Business.
I attached a price to each of these because their content is worth it. I want to train my customers that what I offer is valuable. Giving too many freebies teaches customers the opposite. I arrived at a price for each that is fair to my customers and my business.
Another important aspect to me was to have the site friendly for any device, especially mobile, since increasingly sites are being accessed across a broad range of devices. The first screen on mobile addresses the three main reasons a person may visit my site. The second screen has a video, which I will be changing regularly, Profitable Marketing Weekly, my weekly audio publication, my pod cast, my Insight, and the weekly trivia question. The third screen features my books in audio and print, and my signature E-sessions. The fourth introduces my new Profitable Marketing Secrets audio packages. On a desktop or a wider screen the first and second screens appear side-by-side and the second and third screens are next to each other.
I’m very pleased with the results. I wanted the site to have a clean look, make it easy for the visitor to find information, and prompt the visitor before leaving the site to subscribe, buy, or contact me. I think the site does that. Check it out at psmc.com. Forward a link about it to anyone you think might be interested, too.
Thanks for reading my Insights and checking out my new site!
This week's marketing trivia challenge is What do you feel is most important in a Web site? E-mail me your answer.
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