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Web design and online marketing fails most of the time.

You know this because most of the traffic arriving at your web site will never contact you. The majority of those visitors will do a 'touch-and-go" and fly off to some other site. And in most cases, they'll never return.

Why?

This is the REAL question your web design
and online marketing needs to answer.

Maybe it's because you spent your time and money on your web design, but not on your online marketing?

Our sites, as visually attractive as they may be, put design as a secondary consideration over and above what needs to happen to make your web site work effectively and profitably.

It's all about generating and increasing measurable results - the kind you can deposit into your bank account.

Consider web sites that are designed as passive 'online brochures'. The effectiveness of the online brochure concept died a quiet death many years ago - almost as soon as it started. But this is what you get (if not ask for) from most web designers.

In reality, when you do this it's a glaring sign that you are taking the web for granted and making assumptions about things you know little if anything about. It indicates how you are severely under-estimating the value of what the web can do for your business.

And this is bad for your business - especially when your competition knows what you don't.

Many times a business won't get a true online marketing solution because they think it costs extra. In reality, it doesn't have to. It just requires a different strategy to work within a given budget.

You can't rely on a web designer to be a marketing expert, too. For most web designers, their idea of online marketing is a combination of various marketing tools without the know-how to make them work together. Those 'tools' don't by themselves get you clicks to your site and compel your visitors to take action.

It's not a fault of any designer, but more of a mistake of trying to cut corners and avoid costs. And you will ALWAYS lose when you don't put marketing before design. In fact, we'll venture to say that marketing will beat out design every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

That's because graphic design and web design in business functions as a subset of marketing - not the other way around. Design exists to support and serve to purpose of what you are trying to achieve.

Your best choice is to define your marketing solution FIRST and worry about how pretty it will be later. It is literally impossible and somewhat illogical to assume that whatever your site looks like initially, will be a perfect tool to achieve all your online marketing goals.

Web sites do not have to be ugly for you to follow this order of priority. If you are truly dedicated to getting the most results from your site (more profits, more visitors, higher conversion rates, more sign-ups, etc.), you'll accept the fact that no matter what your initial web site design looks like, it will need to change and adapt to what your visitors and target market(s) need and want it to be.

Your design should be driven by proper systematic testing of what works - not necessarily what you like personally (we'll cover this more later in this article).

Ideally you get all this as a total solution in the same package - and not have to add on the parts that actually make your site profitable later on.

This is how we prefer to provide our services, because we are marketers before we are designers. We are results-oriented before all else. When you are in business, priorities are priorities.

It's important to understand that 'getting by' online is just not good enough anymore - not if you're wanting anything substantially beneficial to happen for your business. The Internet is really just one big computer that only gives you back what you put into it.

And if you do something incorrectly, it comes back wrong (or not at all).

Cutting corners is an example of doing it incorrectly. And requesting a 'brochure site' from your web designer really nothing more than an excuse for not wanting to confront doing it right, or not knowing any better in the first place.

Putting up an online brochure is like creating a file on your computer. If no one opens the file, the file has no value. If there's nothing uniquely compelling about the file, no actions are taken because of it.

It just sits there taking up digital real estate.

Having a nice-looking web site online doesn't give you the credibility it once did. Nowadays you're expected to have a web site, just like you're expected to have a phone, a fax, and business cards.

An online brochure is similar to how a business owner believes he's in business because he can open a door to an office, turn on the lights, and receive faxes or make phone calls that he's in business. It all has little value and even less effectiveness until it's taken beyond the basics. Until something is actually done with it.

Your web site is your ultimate marketing tool. It's live. It's extremely flexible and updateable. And it's the absolute best way to continually improve your marketing results on a daily basis.

But only if you move beyond outdated thinking and stop taking it for granted.

Consider this: if your web designer really cared or actually knew how to make your site double or triple your marketing results, and they knew that a brochure site would not do that job, wouldn't they at least mention it to you?

Wouldn't they want to discuss how to get more from your web site for the same price they are charging your for a brochure site so you are at least aware of your choices and what you may be turning down?

Maybe and maybe not. In most cases you don't even get to turn down an alternative strategy. You're forced to take what they can give you - a partial solution - a design (or worse, a 'no solution'). So you can't depend on them to look out for your best interests if it's not part of their business model and their skill set.

Web designers like most any other business will sell you what they can provide. They can't sell you what they don't have and if they don't have a real, profit-producing solution for your business, you'll usually get a web site that looks nice, but does little else.

So it really comes down to what your expectations are and what you are willing to give up (and it can be huge!). That's because if you have a 'set-it-and-forget-it' attitude toward your site, with no automated systems built in to constantly correct it's marketing effectiveness, your site works more in your competition's favor - not yours.

Visitors bounce off you and going looking for them.

And the longer you cling to that concept as being acceptable, the longer you'll be leaving more of your profits on the table for them to pick up.

But it gets worse...

...especially when you gage the profit potential of your web design and online marketing based on how little you know. That's because all that money you're giving your competitors by falling asleep online doesn't just go into their bank account...they put it to work against you.

Your smarter competitors will take what should have been YOUR profits and use that money to get more of your best customers, clients, and patients. And they'll keep at it until you wake up and do something about it or until you go out of business altogether.

In reality, you lose that money not just once, but at least 4 times -

1) In the initial purchase you didn't get from one client.
2) That client's repeat business.
3) That client's referral business.
4) And the new business you'll never get when your competition does this to you over and over and over again.

Here are 3 basic rules to follow to get your online presence back on track with a site that actually pays for itself in a very, VERY big way:

1) Don't settle for web design that isn't first blueprinted and then guided by a precise marketing strategy.

What you want your site to do and how you'll get it to do that has priority over your site's look and feel.

That's because a business web site doesn't exist to entertain visitors or make them feel warm and fuzzy. It's purpose is more about controlling and guiding your visitors along the path or paths you want them to follow that lead to eventual sales.

Image and branding are not 'actionable' marketing activities on the part of your site visitors. They are not the end-all, hard-driving, decision-making factors for the prospects of most small to medium-sized businesses.

Actions create measurable reactions which in turn create results that can be improved upon. Image and brand-building go nowhere near this concept and that's why you should think twice and think twice again before you pay for image-building and branding as a standalone marketing strategy or activity.

Your image and branding should be built into your results-producing marketing activities. Image-building and branding should and can occur more quickly as a natural by-product of having more effective market strategies and tactics - including the processes that compel your site visitors to buy from you.

It shouldn't cost you more for the improved results of a combined effect.

Anything less than what we've looked at so far is just an excuse for not knowing how to do this. You can get help with it, but It's not ok to say, "Well, we don't need an effective web site...", or "It's ok if we don't make our site perfect...", or "Our site doesn't need to make us money...".

That's a cop-out that only hurts your business and digs you deeper into a hole. It's akin to putting your head in the sand and hoping your problems go away.

It's not about whether your site is perfect or not , but you DO need it to be more effective and you SHOULD want it to make you money - more than whatever it's currently producing.

If you aren't in business to make more money, you're not in business. And if you make excuses for why you don't want to invest in an effective, profitable site, you're not serious about your success.

Your real competition knows this. They wake up every day with you in their sights. These are individuals and companies that are right now searching for businesses who don't 'get it'.

They are literally looking for businesses who don't have a clue or don't care about leveraging their marketing assets for more results.

They're looking for businesses that have grown local markets to the point of being ripe for the picking.

They're looking for businesses that will allow them to swoop down and do it all better, faster, more effectively, more seriously and with more conviction. And they will become the new owners of those markets in short order.

These smarter businesses aren't looking for a difficult fight. But as they gain more momentum they'll start going after the markets that are tougher to crack.

For now they're searching for marketing pacifists.

They're searching for online brochure sites that say,

"Yoohoo! We're over here! That's right. We're just doing and saying pretty much what everyone else in our business category says and does. It's so much more simple that way.

We don't differentiate, but prefer to blend in. It's easier to copy than to lead and thinking makes our heads hurt.

We'd rather 'look good' than worry about marketing. You'll buy that won't you? Forget substance. Pay for how attractive we are. Judge us by our beauty.

We take our success for granted and we're proud of it! By the way, you're not going to punch our lights out, are you?"

More and more businesses with casual attitudes about their web site will become road pizza on the Internet highway.

If playing in the street is a no-no,
playing with your marketing on that highway.
is a sure death blow.

Marketing is what convinces your prospects to choose you as their ultimate solution over all the other choices they have. And if your site doesn't just hook them once, but also continue to hook them over and over throughout every visit, building their interest and guiding them gradiently and sequentially, the majority of your visitors will leave and never return.

Even worse, you'll never realize it (much less know why) - especially if you expect a 'design-only' site to be effective at conversions.

This is why so many business web sites eat through their traffic and then wonder why their site just sits online gathering digital dust.

Whew! That's a lot to cover for basic rule #1.

Item number 2 is much more simple, but it may hurt a little more, too.

2) Leave your personal preferences, favorite colors and design opinions at home - at least until after you've done what comes first.

Your web site is not about your ego or what you like. It's not even about what your designer thinks or likes either. Your site is all about converting your traffic into dollars, so it follows that your site needs to focus on your visitors and what compels them to take action.

First, erase the idea that you have to have an online store to make money online. This is misleading, incorrect and just plain wrong. Go ahead and nullify the source of that misinformation right now.

The true data is that you can monetize ANY business online - if you know how. And that's part of what we help our clients understand and achieve.

Realize that graphics, aesthetically interesting as they may be, are not the cake - they are the icing. And you can't serve up a plate of icing to your site visitors and expect them to wolf it down. You need the foundation of at least having cake first.

HINT: Putting more than just a foundation of cake is the key to blowing it all wide open.

Many won't eat the icing anyway - they're looking past it, they're digging through it looking for 'substance'.

That's right, your site visitors are getting smarter every day and are only wowed by your beautiful design momentarily. They get over that quickly because they're really looking for solutions.

They've been burned too often to be stupid so never forget the purpose graphics serve and their priority in your marketing activities - they are secondary or supplementary whether any of us like it or not...

Here's why...

Like branding and image-building, graphics are 'interpretative'. Hundreds of people can look at the same exact site, resulting in hundreds of similar or dissimilar impressions and interpretations.

This is why so many sites convert traffic in single digit numbers, if at all. They make the assumption that their site design is interpreted the same by all visitors, which is an impossibility.

You can't force-feed your web site visitors into believing you by having attractive graphics. And you can't do it by saying the same things as your competition and the rest of your industry.

For this reason you MUST use more effective ways of compelling your visitors to act - ways that are much less open to visitor interpretation.

You need to eliminate as much as possible too many interpretations, opinions and preferences and let your visitors show you the exact methods they want used on them.

You want your visitors to tell you exactly how to sell to them.

NOTE: This goes beyond just surveying for their feedback because there are also a variety of ways to use and interpret your survey data. Most marketplaces are ever-changing so you need a system that constantly adapts to those changes on a monthly, weekly and daily basis.

That's it for rule number 2. Here's the third and final rule you need to apply...

3) There's only one ultimate way to get your web site visitors to take the actions you desire...

Your site needs to be designed with a foundational mindset of constant improvement based on what your various conversion rates indicate. It's not about guessing about at what works and it's not about what you 'think' is happening when your visitors arrive.

Your various conversions tell you EXACTLY if your site is effective or not. Your conversions either produce more leads, more sales and more profits, or they don't.

And no matter what they produce - even if they seem to be successful - you've got to keep asking one question...

How high is high? That's because the most serious businesses are constantly improving their site, no matter how successful it is. These are the businesses we mentioned earlier that are hunting down the weaker ones.

The smart, hungry ones put it on automatic and avoid the day-to-day drudgery. They don't get caught up in the grind tweaking their site every five minutes.

As you consider perpetually improving your results, don't confuse making small incremental improvements with total makeovers.

These are two totally different areas of change. Remember that the more different elements you test at one time, the less you know what it was that caused the improvement - if there was one.

That is, unless you know how to extract the results of doing multiple overlapping site tests.

HINT: The secret to quickly testing a wide variety of different elements all at the same time is built into the systems we create for our clients who want automated improvement capabilities included as an integral aspect of their sites.

It's literally impossible to create ANY web site and have it be perfect from day one - especially with all the various viewpoints that usually go into the creation process.

So knowing this is basically a guarantee of improving your results, wouldn't you want to continue to make your site more effective?

Even if it were somehow possible to 'nail it' the first time out (which is highly unlikely), the nature of the web is perpetual change...constant flux. It's always resetting and adjusting itself, growing and expanding, learning and adapting.

For this reason (and many more) you need a built-in, automated system that allows your site to 'check the pulse' of your visitors as they come through your digital doorways and adjust your site accordingly.

You need a system that automatically tests variations of pages, offers, text, pictures, etc., so you can easily make improvements in your site effectiveness on the fly.

You need a system that follows each visitor's path, tests 5, 6, 7, maybe even 10 variables on each page - in real time - and tells you which variations and combinations are producing the highest conversions.

You need a system that can do all this without missing a beat - even if your site is getting massive floods of traffic.

It's a step-by-step process using defined standards and criteria that accurately pinpoints the best solutions to achieve maximum conversion and profits in minimum time.

And it works like a dream!

Our clients who understand the value of having a business web site that corrects and improves marketing effectiveness every single day, all day long, get this precise solution when they hire us to build their site.

It's the foundation of what we do over and above your average web site design and it comes as part of the package.

It's all about getting more marketing results for your business.

It's all about having the vision of what your site can do and be, and having the burning desire to make the most return on every penny you'll be spending anyway.

Face it...you're in business to multiply money...

For each dollar you put into your business, you want to pull out 3 or 5 or 10 or more.

And you want to do this consistently and perpetually. This is what we can help you achieve at a higher level than anything else you've done online.

If you want the most from everything you do to grow your business, contact us to arrange your fast and free, no obligation site analysis and get our recommendations on how your web site can finally start building your bottom line in dramatic fashion.

And if you're like us and email is too slow, pick up the phone now and call us at (818) 225-7979, extension 1#.

We may or may not be the right solution for your business, but neither of us will know for sure until we talk.