You, you, you…

Guess what folks – it ain’t about YOU.

A recent webinar by HubSpot reminded me of an often overlooked, yet extremely key point when it comes to web design and website copy: IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU.

You being the company, being the person writing the checks to your web designer, SEO firm and SEO copywriter.

It’s about YOUR CUSTOMER.

If you’re designing a website to be pretty, flashy, cool…because you have a new corporate look and feel…because you feel “it’s time.”  You’re redesigning for all of the wrong reasons.

Seth Godin was right when he said there’s nothing that hasn’t been done before and why are you trying to reinvent the wheel? Why not take something that works and use THAT to drive business?

If there’s anything I can impress upon you with this week’s blog it’s that when you consider strategies:

1. On which to spend your marketing budget
2. That will produce marked ROI
3. To increase brand visibility
4. To raise brand awareness
5. That justify the reason you’re spending money on your company at all…

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) coupled with a functional, easy-to-navigate website should be at the top of the list.

When visitors come to your website, a clever intro will catch their attention once, but do they really want to see it again? Likely not.

However, if a visitor comes to your site, finds exactly what they’re looking for, and is faced with a call-to-action to poop or get off the proverbial pot…they’re probably going to come back. Why?

You took the thought process out of the sales process by giving them exactly what they asked for.

Brilliance. Pure marketing brilliance, I say.

Think I’m wrong?

Contemplate for a moment the last website you went to that:

• ticked you off because you couldn’t find what it is you wanted, or
• let you find what you wanted and didn’t make it clear how to act on that want.

It’s not cruel to take the thought process out of the sales process. It is, however, cruel to torture your potential customers.

By working with both your SEO and web design professionals, you can create a website that not only guides your prospective customers/patients/penguins to exactly what they’re looking for, but encourages them to contact your business to complete the sales process.
Crazy thoughts, I know, but here’s a few bullets to sum it all up in a nutshell:

• Pretty websites don’t sell products: smart companies sell products with smart sales processes
• SEO coupled with smart, functional web design keeps development budgets down, website visitors happy and dollars where you want them: in corporate pockets
• Nothing is new, everything’s been done before. It’s all in how you choose to make it work for your business.

Hug your web designer and SEO professionals today. We’re not talking foolish — we really do want you to be repeat visitors on OUR websites. Just like you want customers to be repeat visitors on YOURS.

Email questions to erika [at] redheadwriting.com

Follow me on Twitter

Stumble with me on StumbleUpon

Visit RedheadWriting online

View free SEO tips from one of the top bloggers in this arena, complete with video.