Make your Web site make you money

Bob DeStefano

In the old days, marketing used to be considered a way to reach out to new prospects who could become your potential customers.

But in today’s world, marketing is really about attracting the people who are already looking for the kinds of goods and services you provide.

This, in a nutshell, is what Bob DeStefano tells his clients – that you need to make sure that people who are interested in what you do can find your Web site, and once they do, to make sure they become a customer.

“Your Web site is your most powerful marketing tool,” DeStefano, President of the B-to-B consulting company SVM E-Business Solutions, told an audience at the Closets & Home Organization Conference & Expo, March 19 in Schaumburg, IL. “It is the most public face of your company.”

Here are five of DeStefano’s tips to make your company’s Web site make you money:

1. Remember who your audience is:
DeStefano says your Web site should be designed with your customers in mind.

“Too many companies take an ego-centric approach to creating their Web site,” DeStefano says. “In 15 to 20 seconds, can (a visitor) get a good idea of who you are and what you do?”

The first step, DeStefano says, is making sure that your home page isn’t taken up with one big image or promotional information about the history of your company. Instead, the homepage should answer the kinds of questions that prospective customers may have.

For a closet company, that could mean having links on your homepage to “master bedroom closets,” “kitchen pantries,” “garage organization” or “home office organization.” It could also mean offering information on things like “How to get more space in your garage” or “Top 5 tips to organizing your kitchen pantry.”

2. Be an educational resource:
DeStefano says only about 10 percent of customers who come to your Web site are ready to make a purchase when they visit. The rest are doing research about the topic and could become customers in the future.

That’s why DeStefano says it’s important to make your site an educational resource for people doing research. The more information you can give them about your topic, the more they will return to your site throughout their decision-making process and then hopefully will decide to purchase from you.

By frequently updating the educational content on your site, say by writing a new, 200-word “how-to” once a month, you can invite visitors to sign up for monthly e-mails. This means they can stay informed, and you can stay in contact with potential customers.

3. Provide a call-to-action:
Another important Internet marketing strategy, DeStefano said, is making sure that you have a prominent call-to-action on every page. “If you’re not doing that, you’re leaving money on the table,” he said.

DeStefano recommends that you should have a short e-mail sign-up form on every page and list an e-mail address where people can get in touch with you, as well as a phone number for them to call.

4. Track your success:
You can’t improve what you can’t measure. That’s why DeStefano says it’s important to analyze the traffic to your Web site so you know what to improve. He suggests creating an analytics account on Google to see which pages on your site are most popular and how people are finding your site.

He also suggests setting up a special phone number that you list on the Web site, so that whenever someone calls that number, you’ll know where that call came from. Another suggestion: Send your e-mail newsletters from a professional company, such as Constant Contact, which can provide reports about the number of people who click on links in your e-mails or unsubscribe.

5. Invest in Search Engine Marketing:
Of course, you can’t just measure people who already know about your site. You also have to attract new people, and one of the most effective ways of doing that, DeStefano says, is by using Search Engine Marketing.

DeStefano is a big believer in pay-per-click campaigns, which work like this:

You open a Google account and select certain keywords and keyword phrases that you want to bid on. When someone types your keyword into Google, your ad appears at the top or the right side of the page, where it says “Sponsored Links.” If someone clicks on your ad, you have to pay Google the amount that you bid. How high your ad appears on the side of the page is determined by how much you bid and also how relevant your keyword is to what the person typed into the search engine.

DeStefano believes search engine marketing is a great opportunity for small business owners, because you don’t have to spend very much to get very targeted users.

“Search engine marketing, in my opinion, is the most important marketing tool to come around in a long time,” he says.

To get more advice from DeStefano, visit his company at www.SVMsolutions.com.