How often should you update your website content?

How often should you update your website to generate maximum results (by which I mean maximum customer enquiries)?

• Should you regularly update your content to keep it “fresh” and encourage repeat visits?
• Is a “Latest News” page a good idea?
• What will happen if you never update your content?

Web marketing wisdom, circa 1998: Keep your content fresh, fresh, fresh

Back in the day many dotcom companies burned through cash like crazy when they advertised (typically offline) to drive visitors to their website. This tended to generate a short-lived “sugar rush” of visitors who never came back or bought anything.

So the thinking was, “you need to keep content fresh to keep visitors interested and coming back for more”.

While for certain types of websites this is absolutely true (e.g. a news portal such as Japan Today), many people still think that fresh content is essential for ongoing website success. That ain’t necessarily so…

The moving parade

Most of the lead generation websites we build for clients are specifically for the purposes of new client acquisition.

Mrs Prospect has a need for your services… She searches online… Your website is ranked at or near the top of the search engines… Mrs Prospect has a look around your website and decides that your service is the answer to her need or problem… She contacts you via email or phone to enquire about your services.

(Sometimes the process contain some extra steps, but this is the general idea).

The point is, once a prospect has found your website and become a client, there may not be any pressing need to keep your content “fresh” in order to drive repeat visits - your website has already done it’s primary job.

Don’t misunderstand - you DO need a strategy to encourage repeat visits

I’m sure you’ve heard it said that it takes 7 visits to your website before a prospect will enquire (or something like that. Somehow the number 7 always seems to be in there ;)).

And that’s sometimes true. As a general rule, the more complex or expensive your service, the more visits are required before an enquiry is made.

The best way to drive these initial “pre-conversion” repeat visits is to incorporate a “lead capture” mechanism into your site. This might be as simple as a newsletter signup form, or it could be an invitation to download more comprehensive materials (e.g. a free report or eGuide).

This allows you to educate prospects about the value that you offer as well as stay in touch. Your followup contacts will keep prospects coming back to your site to dip back into your content.

We use this strategy extensively, both on our own website and on client websites.

On this website for Pink Inspections, (who provide pre-purchase pest reports and building reports in Sydney), you’ll see that there is no newsletter or free report. It’s just straight direct response.

That’s because the service isn’t too complex or expensive (under $300 in most situations).

However on this site for Pink’s Pest and Termite Control division, there is a lead capture form. That’s because termite control is much more complex and also much more expensive than the inspection service (termites are apparently crafty little devils, and termite treatment can cost in the region of $3 - 5K) .

So whether or not you use a lead capture mechanism as a means to keep prospects interested and returning to your site will depend on how tough it is to convert a website visitor into an enquirer.

But what about Content - isn’t He King?

Just to add another layer of confusion, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t add new content to your site or perform updates. Just that it isn’t a necessary condition of a successful website.

New content - especially articles and other informational content - can be a great asset to your site. Even better, if your website is tightly focussed around a certain topic, or you’re seen as an “authority” in your area of expertise, then an “Articles” section can indeed attract visits from potential clients.

That’s a fantastic position to be in, but it does require work. You need to write the articles (or have someone write them for you) and update them on a regular basis. And there’s no guaranteed payoff.

What about Latest News?

Quite a few business owners with whom I speak seem to like the idea of having a “Latest News” section on their website as a means to drive repeat visits. I normally advise against this because…

1. Unless you’re a true authority, most “Latest News” tends not to be terribly newsworthy to your prospects.
2. “Latest News” requires regular updating. Most often these updates aren’t made. How often have you seen a “Latest News” page that hasn’t been updated for a coupla years?

Moral of the story? Plan in advance

I guess the moral of the story is to plan in advance. If your long-term website strategy demands weekly article updates, then you need to arrange the resources in advance to make sure it happens.

If you don’t feel you can commit to regular updates, then perhaps the “low maintenance” option is better. Don’t worry, the moving parade is waiting for your help.

Thanks for reading.

Will Swayne Lead Generation Guy

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Why websites make great lead generation tools for “offline” businesses

If you’re involved in a service business or in professional practice, then finding new clients is probably a constant struggle. Many business owners tell me that they’re frustrated by their efforts to attract new clients because…

• Finding potential clients is like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s either too costly or too time consuming to establish interest with people who might be interested in your services
• The more you try to “sell” to clients, the more resistance you seem to face
• The amount of time and effort it takes to attract new clients eats into your ability to perform revenue-generating work.

Can you identify with any of these frustrations? I know I could before I worked out the secret of having clients come to me, rather than me having to chase them.

A big part of the puzzle is getting the attention of people who are actively looking for, or have a predisposition for, the services you provide. If you can do that, most of the “grunt work” of prospecting is reduced or eliminated altogether.

That’s where the Internet comes in. The Internet now functions like a giant Yellow Pages for people who are considering a purchase or looking for information.

So, all you need to do is have a response-oriented website that is visible in search engines in order to convert this interest into qualified leads.

But most businesses aren’t taking advantage of this opportunity right now because:

1. Their websites aren’t visible for relevant search phrases in search engines
2. If their website is visible in search engines, the content doesn’t compel visitors to take action and enquire

When online lead generation works like gangbusters.

Lead generation efforts on the Internet can be much many times more effective and profitable than offline marketing methods when your customer base is thinly dispersed across the geographical area that you service. Let me give you an example…

We recently designed a website and online marketing campaign for Brisbane personal trainer Athletic Edge.

Using traditional marketing, it’s expensive to reach the relatively small slice of the population who want and can afford a personal trainer. But on the Internet, prospects do the work for you. They’re searching on targeted terms such as “personal trainer Brisbane” all the time.

(The trick is to make sure your website is appears in the search results, and to convert that traffic into enquirers - but more about that some other time.)

Within two weeks of going live, Athletic Edge received 6 qualified enquiries via their website for a marketing cost of a few dollars apiece. Let’s say that half of those enquirers become clients. In a year that equates to around 75 new clients - more than enough to fill a practice.

And the best part is, the whole process is largely automated. Unlike traditional prospecting, this is set-and-forget marketing that allows you to concentrate on doing the work rather than busting your gut getting the work.

So if you’re currently not utilizing your website to it’s full potential as a marketing tool, I urge you to consider it - it really works.

In future posts I’ll talk about the nuts-and-bolts of how to make your website work as a marketing tool, but if you have any questions in the meantime, please feel free to contact me over at Marketing Results.

All the best,

Will Swayne

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Laser-Focus Your Marketing

I’m in the middle of reading Focus, another fabuluous marketing book by Al Ries. Focusing a business is something that many business owners find hard to do.

There seems to be a great desire amoung business owners to constantly expand their offerings to cater for an even broader customer base. I see it very often when consulting with clients.

For example, a finance broker might say,

“Well, I really want to use my website to attract business customers, but I can also do home and car loans as well. I wouldn’t like to turn those people away, so let’s put up some pages about that too.”

That normally turns out to be a big mistake. It’s a so much more powerful and appealling proposition to tell your business customers, “We are the business finance specialists”, and demonstrate your expertise and credentials in your marketing message and materials.

This focused approach might mean that you sacrifice a few home loan customers while you double or triple your client base in the business area. It’s definitely worth it.

But I also understand why business owners want to unfocus. Heck, I’ve been guilty of it myself. Our core offering is a turnkey sales lead generation system called the Client Attraction System.

Yet we still offer other services such as regular marketing consulting and advertising copywriting. Sure, we can deliver on those services too, but I’ve come round to thinking that they unfocus our offerings and dilute our percieved expertise in the lead generation area.

So you might see a few changes on our website over the next coupla weeks - it’s time to focus.

Will Swayne www.Marketing-Results.com.au

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Blogging as a Business Marketing Tool

One of the most reliable and successful marketing approaches you can implement is building a list of targeted prospects.

And at the moment, Internet-based marketing combined with email list management software such as Aweber offers you a simple yet highly effective way to build a list of prospects who become your loyal clients.

So what the Dickens does all this have to do with blogging?

Just like a prospect list, a business blog allows you to build a relationship with more potential customers more cost-effectively than any other medium. Here’s why I say that…

Search engines love blog content.

Getting high search engine rankings for a standard business website is doable, but it’s not always easy (in a later post I’ll talk about why that’s so). But blog content seems to have an almost mystical ability to rank highly in search engines quickly and comparatively easily. This is essentially free targetted traffic.

Case in point: The original version of this blog started around July 2004, but you know how it is - I didn’t really have a plan about what I wanted the blog to do, and before long I stopped posting.

There must have been a gap at least 6 months with no new posts at all, yet major search engines still rank this blog #1 in Australia for the keyword phrase “Marketing Blog”. OK, that’s a pretty specialised keyword phrase, but it seems that search engines are a lot more forgiving when it comes to ranking blogs compared with regular static websites.

In short, blogs allow you to post relevant content online faster and easier than any other technology. In the US especially, non-Internet marketers have picked up on the power of blogs and are starting to do something about it, but we’re still a way behind here in Australia.

One final point - time is of the essence. If you move now, you can dominate your niche online and build a community of loyal readers . Wait, and the blogging sea will be filled with all your competitors fighting it out for a piece of the action.

Will Swayne Marketing Results

P.S. For advice on how to use blogging as a strategic marketing tool, contact me over at www.Marketing-Results.com.au

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Rebirth of a Blog

It’s been a while since I’ve made a blog entry - like about 6 months.

We started this blog about 18 months ago but it’s funny how mission-critical stuff seems to get in the way. Now I’ve come to my senses and realised that this is an important way to communicate with the business owners and independent professionals that make up our client base.

And it’s funny how things come full circle. About a year ago my colleague Ed Chalmers introduced our mutual friend Yaro Starak to blogging. Well, he took the ball and ran with it, going on to create the very successful Entrepreneur’s Journey blog, which has been going from strength to strength thanks to Yaro’s consistent efforts.

Now today Yaro came in and replaced our old Moveable Type blog with this snazzy Wordpress blog.

Over the coming months I’ll be writing about my areas of expertise / interest, including:

1. Sales lead generation
2. Results-driven marketing
3. Successful integration of online and offline marketing methods
4. Business effectiveness
5. Work-life balance

…and other assorted topics as they come to mind.

I hope you find the content interesting, and I welcome your comments.

Will Swayne www.Marketing-Results.com.au

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