Online Marketing Education | Learn Marketing

Article Highlights

• Turn your website into a lead producer
• Essential tips for website design
• How to optimize your site

Small businesses tend to think websites are not a high priority when it comes to spending money. Nothing could be further from the truth! A professional website can be used as a 24-hour selling tool to convert prospects into customers...

• Cluttered homepages have visitors running for the “back” button faster than you can say “there goes that lead.”
• Your homepage should present clearly and simply, who your company is, what you provide/offer, how to contact you and a reason to visit your other pages for more information.

• It doesn’t matter how impressive your fancy Flash introduction is if nobody knows what you can do for them.
• People use the internet to get information. Unless you are a graphic designer displaying your portfolio, keep the designs to a minimum.
• Make sure every graphic supports your message. If it doesn’t — ditch it.

• If your “About Us” “Products/Services” or other pages are not clearly placed, people won’t bother finding them.
• As a general rule, go by the two-click rule. Prospects should be able to get to any page on your site in two clicks. This is ideal. If it takes more than four, nobody will bother.

• Choose simple, informative URLs for your site.
• You want your URLs to be easy to remember and contain keywords that are easily identified by search engines.

• The words on your site sell your company, not the modern design.
• Always list the BENEFITS of using your product or service. Don’t assume people already know — they don’t!

• Display a picture of you or your team somewhere on the site.
• Customers’ trust levels increase when you appear more “human.”

• Search Engine Optimization means making sure every word on your site helps people find you on search engines. For example, type in “postcard marketing” in Google and PostcardMania is in the search results.
• Remember, people searching for your product or service already want it… don’t neglect them!

• The coding and programming for your site are vitally important, though nobody can see it.
• Well-programmed sites can improve your search engine rankings and allow you to easily update your content.

• Placing a fill-in form on your site is an easy way to get a new lead’s contact info.
• People won’t give it away for free, so offer a free report or exclusive web coupon in exchange for at least their email and name (address and phone number are bonus!).

• Web Design and Marketing
• SEO
• Copywriting
• Programming

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Joy Gendusa
Joy Gendusa founded PostcardMania in 1998 with a phone, computer and no capital investment. Since then, she has grown the company into one of the nation's most effective direct mail marketing firms, specializing in postcard marketing for small to large-sized businesses. Over the years, she expanded to offer mailing list acquisition, website development, email marketing–all while continuing to educate clients with free marketing advice.

She has been named Tampa Bay CEO of the Year, Business Woman of the Year in Tampa Bay and has been featured on MSNBC's "Your Business." PostcardMania is an Inc. 500 and 5000 company and has won awards for creativity, best business practices and leadership. Find Joy on Google+

Visit PostcardMania.com

If you would like to interview Joy or book her as a speaker, please email joyspeak@postcardmania.com or call 800-628-1804 ext. 281.