A Company Website For YOUR Target Market
In March of 2012, there were some 644,000,000 websites on the internet. To date, there are now over a billion websites, and rapidly counting.
If you’re a business owner who wants to get your company website and marketing materials noticed on the web, this number sounds daunting, to say the least. This isn’t like a real-world, brick and mortar storefront, where you enjoy the benefits of location, and only so much room for competition in your area – this is an endless arena of ever-increasing competition, all crowded into the screens of each and every user (and potential customer) on the internet.
So how do put your company website at the forefront of viewers’ attention, and at the top of search lists so that internet users around the globe will find YOUR website instead of a billion others? For the majority of company websites, the answer is: you don’t.
Build a Company Website with Your Customer in Mind
Marketing and search engine optimization is an ongoing, full time endeavor, and unless you have a marketing budget to rival that of mega-empire operations such as Amazon, Microsoft or Verizon, you can’t really expect to steal away all the traffic from these companies for yourself. But unless you’re trying to put these large companies out of business with your own products or services, the simple truth is that you really don’t need a billion customers keep your business afloat. (We’re not thinking small, but realistically… is your company even equipped to handle that much business?)
Assuming the answer to the above question is no, this doesn’t mean your company website can’t compete on the web and thrive financially; by narrowing your marketing focus to include only your most qualified potential customers, you’ll be able to draw a more than sizeable share of visitors to your website.
The real issue here is what you do with those visitors once you attract them, however many that may be. As hard as it can be to draw visitors to your company website, it’s more important than ever that once they find you, they notice you — and buy from you.
Here are a few important keys to presenting a company website that accommodates your best potential customers:
Don’t build for the masses – this may sound counter-intuitive, but of all the internet users out there, a good portion of them may not even have need for your product or services. In a real-world store, the latter equates to ‘browsers’ who simply take up space in your store mulling around, but never actually buying anything. Granted, there’s plenty of space on the internet, but going with the idea that a single company website cannot possibly attract every single one of billions of internet users, it doesn’t make much sense to focus your marketing energies on those who simply browse but never buy; you want to instead draw your ideal target market, and sell to your most qualified visitors. Speak only to them, not to EVERYone in general.
Don’t throw in the kitchen sink – The temptation when creating your company website is to fill your front page with every possible bit of information you can cram into it. After all, visitors are valuable, and you’d hate to lose a single one because you didn’t include that one magnetic tidbit they might be seeking. The problem with this concept is that while striving to satisfy everyone at once, you’ll likely be turning away the bulk of your qualified visitors by overwhelming them.
Consumers are wholly oversaturated with marketing materials and mile-long emails; if they want to read a novel they can easily download a book online. Face the fact that they’re not visiting your company website for the pleasure of reading an extended advertisement – they want to know what product you offer or what services you perform. Keep in mind who your target market is, then give them short, scan-able bursts of valuable information; save the details for secondary pages – qualified visitors will take the time to click through if they want to know more.
Focus on them, not you – Again, your visitors have come to your site to find your product or services; so unless you’re a celebrity or iconic figure of some sort, they’re really not interested in learning all about YOU specifically. Sure, you want to tell them about your offerings, but what they want to know is what your offerings do for them.
For instance, instead of telling them that your rice cooker is “the best gadget of all time, uses the latest technology and high-quality components, and is created by someone who has lots of experience in making rice”, you’ll instead shift the focus to what it does for them, such as… “this gadget saves you time, makes your food healthier, doesn’t take up much space and doesn’t cost a fortune.” The bottom line is: they don’t care how great you or your gadget may be; they want to know how it will make their life great in some way – period.
These are just a few helpful hints of guidance to help business owners get the most bang for their buck for their company website marketing efforts, whatever the budget involved. We’ll return in the future for additional ways to make your company websites a success on the web. In the meantime, if it all feels a little too overwhelming to deal with, keep in mind that hiring a professional company website design firm will ensure that these details are handled in the most effective ways possible for your business.
PearTree: The Company Website Design Experts
At PearTree Design, we possess the expertise and ability to create eye-catching, customer-attracting company websites for every type of business. With our talented team of website design experts, developers and animators, there is no project or web design we can’t handle.
If you haven’t yet established a company website for your business, or simply need to update an outdated website design, take a moment to request a quote for company website services from our team of expert designers.