Most people in the business world don’t have a clue that their home page of their website is not really their home page at all. The home page of a website is Google.
Let me explain that statement and expand on the Google Home page premise for your website. The majority of people that find your business online for the first time probably are looking in one of two ways. One way is they find your business online through an online directory with a small snippet of information about your website, or they go to Google Search and type a keyword search term that hopefully your business is showing up for that particular term for which the keyword is related to your company’s products sold or the services provided by your company. The person first reads an online snippet of information on the Google Search results page, and this effectively, or for many businesses the case may be — ineffectively tells about a particular business page or website. Businesses sometimes spend thousands of dollars with graphic designers to design a beautiful website, and think wow that looks great! But as is the case the majority of the time, very little thought went into the sales and marketing presentation from the Google Search home page perspective. Words are key for search branding, and not necessarily the words displayed in a graphic image format, but the actual body text written in the web site.
How boring the graphic designers say. “You mean I can’t have the pretty font, that sweeps up on the tips of the letters? You mean I have to worry about people resizing the body text in the browser? You mean I can’t build an all Flash website and force people to read the text in small print? But I’m a graphic artist, and this is how it looks the best. I can’t let people mess with perfection!,” exclaimed the graphic designer.
Well folks, let me tell you the truth. You can spend thousands of dollars on a B2B or B2C website design and get very few buyers or consumers, let alone Web site visitors, because you broke the number one cardinal rule for website design online. You did not make the decision to go with a search engine friendly website design. Anyone in business that takes this extreme view of thinking that the graphic design for a website is the most important aspect for a website, is cutting their business throat from a search perspective. There needs to be a balance between graphic design and search engine friendliness.
While the search perspective is certainly key for the sales and marketing aspect of the business’s success, there is another very important brand image implication that must be taken into account too. In fact, the brand image may be one of the most important aspects to long term online and offline success for your business. Brand awareness is the process of when people start recognizing your business as you. This can be both good or bad, depending on your brand image; but having the brand association of customers and potential customers recognizing your products or services as provided by your business, are keys to implementing long term sales and marketing strategies for sustainable business growth.
The process of building up a quality brand image online begins with the website structure and the words used throughout. This means not only the words of the text seen, but also the words in the Titles and Description tags of your website HTML coding. The foundation of the website doesn’t stop there. The pictures you use, how you name them, and even the Alt tags (Picture Description Tags) are keys to your brand image online. Many of the tags are seen only by the search engine robots. These robots record the underlying information and assign a value to each particular foundation item. Note: These items are only a small fraction of what needs to be taken into account when designing the website and expanding upon what has already been established, in the case of an older website.
Good Internet Marketing Means Not Walking Away From Your Website Design
Don’t think that you can put a website together and then walk away from it after you are finished with the design. First off, a website is never finished. You might think it is, but believe me when I tell you that it should always be in a state of improvement. It’s not like you have a Pablo Picasso masterpiece hung up in a art museum and all you need to do is sign your name at the bottom, and say, “I have a masterpiece, now come and see it for yourself.” No no, that is the wrong marketing attitude. Online marketing and the website itself is all about the art of revision. Revision of both the writing and the foundation of the website needs to be an ongoing work of art. Everything from the brand images displayed to the words used behind the front page scenes needs to be taken into account for properly developing the total online brand image.
When a business understands the interaction between marketing, advertising, and branding online, and develops their website taking into account all aspects; then your business will start to see much more success and sales online.
Are you curious about how your business looks online? Act now, and get a free online branding report today.
Contact Professional Web Services today. Start gaining new customers with Internet marketing services that will get your B2B or B2C business found online in the search engine results pages.
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