A website strategy is how you plan on approaching your website to achieve your desired aim (or objectives.) If you want to reach an audience by dramatically increasing your online presence, you first need to define the strategy in which to do so. All websites have goals and objectives that justify why they were created in the first place. Do you need to generate leads from your website? Is it mostly an informative website? Or are you selling goods/services through your site as an e-commerce website? Essentially you’d develop a strategy for achieving your desired outcome, without a clear strategy, it’s possible you don’t even know what you’re trying to accomplish. Here are 8 website strategies that will help you narrow in on a better website experience; both for you to achieve and for your customers to enjoy.
It will be difficult to develop a website strategy if you don’t first identify the goals of your website. If you don’t have a clear idea of what you want your website to do, how can you set it up to drive action? Goals are the foundation that informs a solid website strategy. Whether you need it to be your marketing tool, or you are selling your entire catalog on it, what goals you and your team define are the key to making all the other necessary steps worthwhile.
This is one of the more difficult tasks to accomplish, picking who you want to talk to on your website. You and your team need to decide who the main audience will be driven to your website and consume the content. Then your website should be designed and written to speak to that specific audience. Avoid writing your site with generic copy or content that speaks to all audiences at the same time. Hone in on your ideal customer and create content that resonates with them and feels like it is crafted for them.
Once your goals and audience are set, it’s time to begin the research phase of keywords being used to target them. Notice how website strategy is used throughout this article? By using certain keywords in your content, you can increase your search engine rankings when people search for that keyword(s). We couldn’t even begin to touch on search engine optimization in-depth as needed in this article, but it’s important to start with customer search habits to get the essentials. And remember, keywords often change from time to time, so it’s smart to check out keyword rankings on a regular basis.
Now that you know what keywords your customers are searching for, you can start planning and writing content. If not familiar, SEO is the process of increasing your website’s visibility in search engines and it consists of a number of steps: Technical SEO – Making sure that your website is free of crawl errors and other issues that might keep search engines from indexing your website properly. When you’re planning out content for your website, aim to use your keyword about once every 120 words. If you create a website strategy that involves using keywords more than that, you may end up being penalized by Google and other sites for keyword stuffing.
Overall website traffic from mobile devices now represents 52% of all web traffic. With such an increase in users browsing on mobile devices and tablets, it’s critical to make sure that your website is designed to be responsive and properly responds to different browser sizes and types. Luckily, both WordPress builders (the good ones) and e-commerce builders like Shopify offer templates to start from that have responsiveness built in, so take advantage of them. Of course, you’ll want to customize those templates so you do not look like everyone else, so ensure the website still functions well on mobile first.
In a good website strategy, start thinking that each page is a “landing page” (see the Fuel Media TV site for an example). In other words, you want each page to have the ability to stand alone if needed with the proper targeted messaging. Your website can load fast, look beautiful and present perfectly clear navigation paths, but any page with cloudy messaging is destined to send mixed messages to your users and achieve less-than-optimal results. You should be able to create a content map that connects the most appropriate calls-to-action for different sections of your site, and you can test and optimize the best user experience and conversion rates for your business on specific pages over time.
Before launching your great website, there are a few backend things that need attention. Some common things that come up are: Integrations between tools Support for e-commerce Interactive functionality (e.g. clickable maps, self-configuration tools) Forms and contact collection Subscription and email follow-up Video hosting platforms and tools Database functionality You may need the help of someone a bit more technical to recognize all of these items or identify areas of your strategy that would require them.
So now you have a website strategy and a website full of great content, so what do you do with it? It’s time for a content marketing strategy; which is the method by which you promote a website online, thus essentially promoting the content of your website. The main purpose of content marketing is to help you create the right type of content that will attract users to your website and keep them engaged, purchasing, or consuming content. Using your Social Networks, utilizing paid Google or Facebook Ads and even a great email newsletter are all great ways to market your content and gain the most out of your new site.
Analyze, optimize, fine-tune and repeat. Looking at data and understanding how your website is performing is key to success no matter how long you have had your website live. You don’t have to be a data analyst or expert, but you do need to monitor things like monthly website visitors, monthly unique visitors, bounce rate, and where visitors are driving from. The easiest way to achieve this is Google Analytics, a free website analytics service that provides insights into how users find and use your website. The most common goals of a website marketing campaign are to: Get traffic to your site Increase conversion and these goals should be tracked in Google Analytics and analyzed so that you can make the right decisions.
Of course, there is a lot more we could discuss on the topics of UX & Design, platform comparisons, and how SEO can be an article on its own, but these are the basis of a great website strategy and execution plan at a high level. Interested in learning more about how we can help transform your website strategy and presence online? Drop us a line and let’s make something great together!
