Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

In doing some research this week on web sites, I found yet more “low, low priced” “Do it yourself” offerings. Now, I can certainly understand folks wanting to save a few dollars – and the “Wal-Marts of the Web” sure make it look easy. Of course, by the time you add up all the “options” of domain registration and transfers, email, hosting, storage, security, spam filters…AND factor in the time you spend learning how to use the software and then getting the site up….well, you’ve just blown a lot of time you could have spent actually making money. I should know – I’ve made this mistake with technology more than once and I’ve been developing technology products (and using them) for a lot of years. (”Oh, I can do this upgrade in five minutes!”…and five hours later, I’m muttering obscenities, pulling the Bombay Sapphire out of the freezer, and sorely tempted to just throw the dadblamed computer out the window.)

As in the real world, location is a key element in web site success – and that means the right URL for your target market with an attractive and functional web site. Couple of points to keep in mind if you’re thinking about building or renovating your site.

1. “Where IS that place?” As with bricks and mortar locations, people still have to find you before they can buy anything. If you’re selling tango lessons, for example, and your site content doesn’t have any keywords “above the fold” about that or where you’re located – or your URL is something like “Mary Schmidt” with no reference to tango – your potential customers will likely never find your site (Oh, and can they sign up for lessons once they get there? No? They have to call? “Uh, maybe later, or never” will likely be the visitor’s response). Note that one reason I’m “rebranding” my company and renovating my web site is that people do look for me by name. How does your target market look for you?

2. Curb Appeal. In looking at the “Wal-Mart” sites – way too many of them have black backgrounds and are cluttered with lots of “stuff” – fuzzy photos, lots of different fonts, underlined or colored text that isn’t a link, and links that never got completed so don’t go anywhere. And, then there are all those add-ons – ads for other sites that have nothing to do with the site I’m looking at (Singles ads on a high-tech start-up site? What???), visitor counters, etc. Where to look? Do I even want to? Sure, you want people to have the information they need, but more isn’t always better. And, would you want to check out a store painted entirely black (other than at Halloween?)

Web marketing is like any other type of marketing – it’s as much an art as a science – and “penny wise, pound foolish” is just as valid today as it was when Mr. Franklin first said it.