I like to think that my business approach is 1 part of experience, 1 part of research and 2 parts of common sense. I know my work; that's my experience. I have learned as much as I can to balance my efforts between tried and true and innovative ways of business planning and marketing. But for me, the most important, and often lacking in my opinion, is part of the common sense of running any business, especially online.
I do not mean that I am an expert at SEO or SEM or any of those summary ideas. In fact, I'm not even sure who it is. In my opinion, the rules in those ideas seem to change every day if not more often. However, like many online entrepreneurs, I try and pick up as much as I can from all sources in trying to market and run my business.
In working for both my business and my client, I have found that I can often focus more on the technical aspects of my website and business. We are always full of tips, tricks and strategies for getting more traffic and finding new leads. Please do not think that I am underestimating any of these or demeaning those who give advice. On the contrary, I think it is necessary to take as much information as possible in deciding your strategies. The problem, in my eyes, lies in getting too deep into these “new” ideas and losing sight of or questioning your natural sense of how things are done.
I do not recommend any new hot marketing methods, and I do not guarantee any way to make thousands of dollars a week! I simply suggest that before, during and after implementing any new strategies, always review your website and all your resources from your customer perspective. Even better, get someone else to look.
Be sure to design your site and write your copy in a way that is accessible to both spectrum concepts: techies and technical challenges alike. In the whole world, every visitor to your site can have computer and internet knowledge. Unfortunately, we all know that it is not a perfect world. You should make your site as user-friendly as possible.
I spent a lot of time designing my website. I put a lot of thought into what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it and how I wanted it to work. Those are all important things to consider and steps not to be skipped. However, as soon as I launched the site I found out what I could improve.
The first thing I did when I uploaded the site was to inform all my friends and family. I knew in two days that I had to make things easier! I never thought I would grow up online and things I take for granted such as being able to navigate a site with a site map or navigation bar are not a second thing for everyone. I got the best response from my 91-year-old grandfather who really wanted to see the whole site and knew what it was all about. She tries hard to keep up with technology, but using the internet is not her cup of tea.
After talking with him and a few other relatives, I sat down and checked my position. I went through and made two ways to reach each page. I tried to make things as simple as possible. I did not change the copy because I made a point of writing a copy that invited potential customers from any domain. I used my keywords as I felt free to do without sounding like a broken record.
Albert Einstein once said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not too easy." In our game of improving the quality of our search engine and generating traffic, I think it is important to remember those words. Many people can use your site and hear your message; you will have more customers!
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