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Increase your sales by building a robust website and enhancing your search engine optimization and search engine marketing.
Each day, more than 625 million searches are conducted online. Think about it; prospective customers are searching everyday for products to fuel and energize their employee workforce, including your snacks, beverages, fresh food and office coffee service. They're using search engines to find exactly what they're looking for, typing in keywords or phrases such as "vending and Boston" or "office coffee and Dallas."
Is the name of your company popping up on the first page of results from these targeted searches? Are you equipped with a well-designed website to answer the user's questions and empower them to take the next step to contact you? If the answer is "no" or "I don't know," you need to reevaluate your website and online marketing strategy.
The Internet replaces phone directory
Your website is your online sales pitch for Internet users. Now more than ever, customers are Internet users and a first stop for a consumer in need of a product or service is an Internet search engine, not the phone book.
As is the case with all marketing communication tools, websites should be oriented first and foremost to serve the needs and interests of their intended users — your current customers and your potential customers.
In this competitive environment for winning new vending and OCS business, your website needs to stand out from the crowd. Your site needs to be sophisticated and professional, reflecting your business and attracting potential customers.
In my experience, your Web presence is your home base. It's linked to all other communication channels and is a critical component of your marketing and communications strategy. How a site is designed, developed, written and managed can have a big impact on how easy your company lands first among search engine results and how easy it is to succeed through online advertising. You are directing visitors to your website as the follow-up to off-line promotions, and it must effectively handle visitors coming there from other traditional marketing sources such as your business cards, truck signage, cold calling and brochures.
We follow a four-step process of Web design and promotion to ensure that site content is targeted, effective and optimized. I call these four stages: define, design, build and grow.
Step 1: the "Define" phase
In the "define" phase of Web development, we start with researching your local vending and OCS market. First, we must understand your website's objective. Most likely, you want your website to do the following:
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Generate more sales leads.
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Communicate to prospective customers that your company is professional and service-oriented.
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Streamline the customer ordering process by creating an online catalog and ordering system for all of your OCS products.
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Modernize and simplify the preparation of new business proposals for prospective OCS customers.
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Facilitate and manage e-commerce retail sales for all of your OCS products.
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Create a convenient alternative to the telephone for processing customer service and equipment service inquiries.
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Promote your company's new healthy vending initiatives.
At the end of this research process, we craft the vision and framework in the form of a "project charter." The project charter complements your strategic marketing plan and guides the project.
It includes the following:
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Global architecture — a framework for all of the website's pages.
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Page-level architecture — an outline of each unique page type.
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Content matrix — a spreadsheet outlining the content needs and purpose of every page on the site.
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Technology specifications — a discussion of recommended technology platforms, content management system and hosting environment.
Your domain name: what it includes
During the "define" stage, it is important to discuss the marketing impact of a great domain name. What makes a great domain name? First, it should have a good extension, such as .com. Second, your domain name should be short. Third, it should be easy to spell. Fourth, it should be descriptive. Fifth, your domain name should have some keywords that are used as search terms.
The .com domain is always used by top companies and popular websites. If you're surfing the Web looking for a company, and you know its name, nine out of 10 times you'll try .com. securing a short, snappy .net domain name is almost as good as a .com, but don't bother with anything that's too long or complex.
The Web user's perception defines your reality. And the reality is that from an Internet visitor's perception, your company is only as good as your website. Does your website reflect your company's mission and values? The more professional your website, the more professional your company will appear in the eyes of your prospective customers.
Website design considerations
As you approach website design, ask yourself the following questions:
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Can my users get to their desired information in two clicks or less?
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Are my visuals distracting, or are they useful?
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What technologies are appropriate and not overkill?
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Do my users know where they are within my website at all times?
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Can users get back to the home page with one click?
This list is simple, but many websites continue to violate these basic rules and often frustrate users in the process. Remember, at the first sign of frustration, the user will click away. And your competitor's website is just one more click. Removing these barriers above will aid in keeping users at your site and retaining their attention.
The website as part of marketing
For visual design, it is critical to coordinate efforts with other existing marketing tactics and elements. For branding, tone and "look and feel" consistency, your website must mirror your company logo, business cards, letterhead, brochures, truck signage and uniforms.
From a design perspective, keeping it simple is the foundation to a successful website. Here are some simple tips:
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Create a site with an aesthetically pleasing appearance that is also easy to navigate.
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Build a menu structure that is consistent with industry standards.
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Keep as much information "above the fold" (above the cutoff point at the bottom of a computer monitor) as possible.
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Don't use horizontal scroll bars; it's a barrier to the user's ability to navigate the site.
Separate yourself from the competition through effective writing. Communicate with them in the same manner they communicate with themselves and other corporations.
Write content that is "webified." People don't read website content like they do off-line media. Here are some more simple tips:
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Keep your paragraphs short; no more than three sentences.
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Include white space on all your content pages.
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Incorporate links in your pages. Don't try to give your whole marketing pitch on one single page of your site. Encourage prospective customers to pick up the telephone, e-mail or fill out an inquiry profile.
Pay careful attention to page "load times." How long does it take your website to load on a 56 KBPS modem? If the site doesn't load quickly, your prospective customer will disappear and find your competitor.
On the other hand, if you're targeting broadband customers who are reaching your site via DSL or T1 lines, then you can build a site that incorporates multimedia-ready content that may include such advanced features as flash animation, streaming audio and video.
Page design should be consistent
The design of each website page should convey a distinct impression of coherent organization and consistent visual cues. In fact, each page of the website should cue users to the site's identity and page purpose.
In the "build" phase, we recommend you start by converting the designs into functional pages. Templates are developed and implemented within the content management system. Then final content is inserted into the content management system.
In this phase, please keep in mind the following:
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The site should be built on the latest technologies and standards.
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The site should be optimized for accessibility, usability and search engine performance.
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You should utilize a system that will be able to see who is coming to your site and how often.
Step 3: 'Grow' phase
In the "grow" phase, focus on driving traffic to the site, reporting site statistics and optimizing site performance. When reviewing monthly visitor data, it is critical to analyze areas for enhancements or improvements to the site.
To ensure your website is search engine optimized, it is critical to separate the content layer from the presentation layer. Using this approach will notify search engines exactly what information should be "indexed" and inform them to skip over information that is irrelevant.
Tagging is also important. Each page on the site has a structure that search engines look for in deciding how to rank content. Part of that formula includes adding tags to the content.
In our experience, the use of Web standards in site development makes good search engine optimization (SEO) possible. The way a site is designed and developed, and the way content is written, presented and coded, significantly impacts a search engine's ability to find a site and rank the content appropriately.
Good writing will also extend SEO practices. A writer has to find the sweet spot between what resonates with readers and what obtains relevant search engine results.
Web writers know how to write first for the users, while also maintaining relevance with search engines and utilizing the popular keywords users search for on sites like Google and Yahoo.
Online editorial outreach
Driving organic search performance (or non-paid search) also means getting other sites to link to yours. One of the best ways to get sites to link to you is to offer them content that is valuable to their audiences. We call this approach online editorial outreach (OEO).
Conducting OEO can be a highly effective way to reach audiences at Web destinations they already respect and trust, thus increasing the likelihood of message recognition and retention. Done right, an OEO program also can get other sites (and blogs) to link back to your site. In addition to the benefits of awareness, this is a very effective way to increase organic search results.
Search engine marketing
Search engine marketing (SEM) is an important and effective tool to drive traffic to your website. It complements your marketing strategy and is useful for reaching key prospects who are actively engaged in researching vending and OCS operators online.
An SEM ad campaign includes paid placement in the sponsored links sections of the major search engine sites (such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN), as well as all of their partner sites that syndicate the sponsored listings. The price for listings is determined via an auction format for each specific keyword or phrase.
We begin by testing a set of keywords and phrases with corresponding ad copy, and then optimizing as the campaign continues by testing other words, phrases and copy.
Your campaign should be optimized to determine which keywords and copy drive traffic and the lowest rate per click. Also, track whether the clicks are converting into customers through online sign-ups or telephone inquiries.
For example, your ads can appear on Google, alongside or above the results on Google search results pages for Google Web Search, Google Groups and the Google Directory.
Additionally, your ads could appear on all search and content sites in the Google Network related to your business, which would ensure that the ads reach the target audience online. |