A sports game is a lot like a website. Before Nathan Taitt, CEO of Blueprint, began discussing with Dana Barrett on her weekly radio show, the topic was sports. So let’s make the connection between sports and technology and yes, there are a lot of similarities!
Just like a game of football, a website needs multiple components to create a successful site. In football, the more accurate your team plays, the more fans want to come see you play, and the more money you end up making. See, there are similarities!
Nathan Taitt, CEO @BlueprintWebMedia + AJ Robinson, Pres. of Central Atlanta Progress @downtownatlanta w/ @DanaHBarrett pic.twitter.com/XPJX9QmSwd
โ biz 1190 | Atlanta (@biz1190) March 26, 2015
What goes into a successful website?
What all does it take to run a successful website? So many people have personal blogs and websites promoting their own brands or ideas and so do those multi-million dollar companies. Success on the web is really a crucial part of companyโs business strategy. The internet is where we go to buy things, get reviews, search for services, and ultimately, itโs where we decide if weโre going to accept or decline someoneโs โpitchโ for their product or service.
Itโs about getting noticed on the World Wide Web, thatโs why we focus on SEO techniques so our pages are the ones people see first or most often. Web presence doesnโt only focus on your website, it includes your Facebook, Twitter, blog posts, and even sites like YouTube and LinkedIn.
โThere is a uniqueness to each channel, but there also needs to be a unity among then,โ said Taitt. He spoke to radio listeners last week about how important web presence is to a businesses success and it really is!
When we talk about successful websites, we think about three things. The aesthetics of your page, conversions and traffic all play a huge part in keeping your online presence competitive.
The first thing we notice about a website is how it looks. Itโs a visual representation of what time, effort and money a company puts into their online product. When you look at spelling, and designs, it can really show your company is on the cutting-edge of the technology world and it can mean the difference between a product or service sold and a lost opportunity.
The other two website elements that business owners may forget that have a lasting impression on the online aspect of their business is Conversions and Traffic. Let’s talk about each:
Conversions
Whatโs actually the purpose of your website? Is it to sell a product or service or give advice and opinions on general lifestyle topics? Or is it simply to just provide information to drive web viewers to a physical store?
Taitt described a scenario where restaurants use their websites to relay a few crucial pieces of information like location, contact info and even a menu description but most of that info was buried deep in the webpage where customers would have to search. Itโs the quickest way for potential customers to exit out of your site and move on to something thatโs much easier to navigate with information placed where itโs more easily found.
You want to provide the information for the person whoโs hungry, and make it easy for them to find it.
Again, itโs not only focusing on your site but bringing in other elements that can help add depth to it. For restaurants, incorporating Twitter and Facebook feeds into their sites can allow them to stay interactive with their customers, potentially bringing them into the restaurant accomplishing the restaurants goal of conversion.
Be innovative and find other ways to tackle conversion. You can make different goals like growing your Facebook or Twitter following by pretty much doing what you did to get your customers in your restaurant. Once theyโre in, invite them to follow your establishment on Twitter or Facebook. Offer them an incentive like specials only posted on those social media sites. Once youโve gotten their โlikeโ, youโve really grasped the concept of conversion.
Traffic
The more people see your website link, the more traffic you draw to your site. It comes down to making sure youโre giving search engines what they need to put your site in the grasp of your web viewers. At Blueprint, thereโs a huge emphasis on visibility and itโs driven through SEO.
Itโs about quality, content and creativity and the more that those three are combined in your website, the higher the chance youโll get noticed. When writing blogs or website pages, the emphasis is on optimizing the content on the post or page. You donโt want duplicate content floating around because search engines see that as spam or unwanted material, therefore your website sinks lower in search results.
The more accurate and credible your information on your blog and webpage is, the more searchable youโll be. In the tech world, a business should always strive to be a top search on a search results page. Itโs what link web viewers see first, and most likely itโs what theyโll click first.
But it goes even deeper than just duplicate content or the credibility of information on your page, SEO experts use keywords, key phrases, and tags which allows web viewers an easier way to find information thatโs relevant to their search.
All of this combined can drive a companies website into the clouds of productivity and profitability. To sore high, youโll have to really understand that a successful website is about quality, consistency and understanding your audience. Once their needs are assumed and met, youโll begin to see your web presence triumph!