Web sites that click
Written by Shirley Lichti for The Record, May 5, 1999

The question for companies is no longer “Should we have a web site?” According to a recent Business Week magazine story, 40 per cent of small businesses already have one. The question they ask now is “How can we make our web site more effective as a marketing tool?”

Too many companies got on to the World Wide Web bandwagon thinking that a web site would be the magic solution to their marketing challenges.

And while it used to be fairly easy to put up a web site and have instant traffic, the reality today is that you can't expect customers to flock to it. There is so much competition on the Internet that you really have to work hard to get your name out there.

As with any well thought out marketing campaign, you need to define your target market, then properly position and promote your web site to reach the right audience.

One company who learned this lesson was software developer Synectics Business Solutions Inc., based in Markdale, Ontario. It offers BackJack, a complete Internet backup service for Macintosh users.

Synectics originally defined its target market as people who wanted to learn more about their computers. To reach this audience, they took out banner ads on web sites that people visited for this purpose.

Over time the company realized that its real target market was small business owners who were too busy to learn about their computers and wanted this part of their lives simplified.

So Synectics set out to make this group aware of BackJack.

“We got a rude awakening when we first started promoting the service," explained Chris Brown, company president. "Since the back-up is online and all customers must have online access to use it, we thought all our marketing could be online as well.”

It didn’t take Brown long to realize Synectics had to change its strategy. Today he says it is offline marketing (traditional advertising) that drives people to the Synectics site.

Since the web site is the storefront for customers, marketing efforts must focus on directing customers to click on to the site.

Once they are there, further marketing strategies kick in. Visitors to www.backjack.com are offered a free trial of the service. Those who try it are invited to take part in a telephone survey (there is a free gift as an incentive) so the company can understand why and how people use or don’t use BackJack.

Synectics participated in MacWorld Expo in San Francisco last January. They followed up with a postcard campaign contacting leads generated at the trade show.

Needless to say these efforts brought traffic to the web site. But just counting visitors doesn’t tell Synectics how the site is used, what information is being accessed most frequently, how much time people spend on each page, or which pages are accessed most. So Synectics tracks this information using web traffic analysis software.

Based on the results of this anlaysis, they were able to determine that after the home page, the second page most first-time visitors to the site clicked on was one that provided pricing information.

Synectics identified this as a problem. In effect, visitors were looking at prices before they had an understanding of what the service was all about or the benefits of using it. As a result, the site is now being changed to ensure it continues to be an effective marketing tool.

Tips for Marketing your Web Site

There are many things you can do to ensure your web site is working hard for your company. Below are some tips on driving traffic to your site. Many thanks to Golden Triangle Online, Lengies & Associates, and The Galileo Group (all of Kitchener) for their contributions to this list.

• Never underestimate the power of traditional advertising to promote your web site.

• Put your domain name on all marketing materials including business cards, brochures, ads. The Galileo Group, for example, lists its website address in the white pages of the phone book.

• Get reciprocal links with other web sites. While this may send some traffic away from your site, links can be a good way to access a broader target market.

• Register your site with the top six search engines: Infoseek, AltaVista, Yahoo, Hotbot, Excite, and Webcrawler. Over 50 per cent of hits to client web sites designed by The Galileo Group come by way of Yahoo.

• Come up with a good title for your home page to actively promote your site.

• Use meta tags, which are invisible to the eye but not to web crawlers, and key words to attract visitors to your site. [For more information on implementing these last three tips, I suggest you pick up a copy of Internet Marketing Secrets by Mark Lengies (www.lengies.com) It is a refreshingly straightforward approach to promoting your web site and generating traffic.]

• Using good title pages, meta tags, and keywords are only window dressing. You still have to offer content to ensure your site will move up higher in search engine rankings. Give people a reason to visit your site. Articles you have written or consumer tips you can provide help accomplish this and may contain search words people are looking for.

• Use web traffic analysis tools. Golden Triangle Online uses WebTrends to track statistics for its clients. Visitors to the WebTrends site - found at www.webtrends.com - can try a 14-day free trial of its Log Analyzer software.
  

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