3 primary elements to a successful service industry website.
Posted by Derrick on 12th March 2008
1. Good Website Design & Content
This includes an eye pleasing design with strong content that properly explains what you offer, who you offer it to and where you offer it. “Content is king” and should actually be your primary focus when creating a website. A lot of people can design a nice looking website, but how many can create eloquent content with strong calls to action?
There are too many facets to creating good content to get into in this post. Call us and we can talk more about how we ensure your website has good content.
2. Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
PPC is another way of saying search engine advertising. More people are using Google, Yahoo and MSN to look for local service providers. PPC allows you to pay to place an advertisement in front of people looking for your services. You only pay if they click on your ad. This is much like buying a Yellow Page book ad if they let you pay only when someone called you. #1 above is an absolutely mandatory part of a good PPC advertising campaign. Your PPC ad will bring them to your website where you hope they are filled with confidence and a desire to contact you.
3. Internet Marketing
This is often misunderstood. To summarize… the more important search engines think your website is, the better search engine ranking they give you. How do you make your website look important? Two things help. Going back to #1, you need good content. Search engines see your “good content” and give you “votes” for being an “expert” in your field.
The second part is creating inbound links. Other websites linking to your website are counted as “votes” by search engines. The more “votes” you have, the better chance you have of appearing on page one of search engines when they look for your services. I’m talking about the free natural listings (organic) that appear in search engines.
Inbound links can come in all shapes and sizes. Associations that you are members of may link to your website. Other websites like blogs, partner sites, industry directories, general directories and others may also link to you. The “votes” you receive from each inbound link are weighted by two things: 1) By the relevency of the website linking to you… meaning, are they in your same industry? 2) total votes that website has… or, how important the search engine thinks the other website linking to you is.
Now you know what it takes to succeed with your website. You might build a good looking website, but without #2 and #3, how is anyone going to find it? Roughly, its like buying a yellow page ad in a book that doesn’t categorize by industry. Someone looking for your service will never find you… they’ll probably just randomly flip through until they luck upon an appropriate ad. Advertising with PPC and Internet Marketing gaurantee someone looking for your service will find you.
Give us a call if you want any more detail or have questions. 800-258-7752 We’d be happy to explain how this information applies to your business.
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