A prospective client called in yesterday and said we just finished our web site and now we are looking for a marketing firm to drive in new business via search engine traffic and media buys.
After asking for the domain name, I took a long pause and a deep breath... and said "You have a beautiful web site that showcases your product as a high end prestige brand but it is not built for online marketing success."
"What do you mean?" I noted that it appeared that while the site had all the spit and polish a famous established brand and yours is new to the US market, it was not built to take advantage of the of what search engines use to index web sites. And when I asked about how they planned out the conversion path and why it took 6 steps just to get to determine the price, there was no clear answer.
While we were able to come up with some opportunities for this prospect, one issue that concerned me was that they had built an entire web site and never thought about the marketing nor how people can easily purchase their high end products.
So when should you concern yourself with online marketing?
My Answer: Before you build define your online demand, topical issues concerning your content, development of conversion paths, utilization of current resources that you already use, product feeds, brand building and many other new and emerging areas. How can one plan for after launch success if the proper planning is not completed.
I can tell you I hated telling our prospect that they didn't get what the paid for and that the web site had many weakness that actually could and will hinder their success.
So if you are considering building or re-designing your web site due your due diligence first and then apply that knowledge to have your site built in a way to take advantage of as many online opportunities as possible.
Simply put the marketing of your web site begins with knowing that you need a web site.
Tags: web site development, design, ecommerce, marketing, seo, sem, web site conversion