When executives hear words like web marketing, pay-per-click advertising, and search engine optimization, most of them will react in one of two ways:
- The optimists' heads will fill with thoughts of thousands of visitors flocking to their site and endless profits flowing in.
- The people that have done it wrong in the past will cringe as they recall empty promises from vendors claiming to have the fastest and cheapest path to the online pot-of-gold.
The good news is that it's 2007 and the pot of gold is still there, it just takes a lot of hard work to find.
Don't believe us? If you're still an optimist, pay that company the $30 to "put you in 1st position on Google," then come back later to read the rest of this case study. If you're pessimistic, you're on the right path to finding out how to do it right.
Successful marketers are finding ways to leverage the web to attract the right traffic to the right website, and turn visitors into customers.
Every shortcut that you take when attempting to craft a successful web site marketing strategy will cost you visits, conversions, or the ability to optimize the strategy over time. Shortcuts include things like, "we'll just point traffic at our site the way it is now, without effective calls-to-action or usability enhancements."
|
Lombardo Homes is among the companies that have traveled the long road, and currently enjoys the benefits of a successful web site marketing strategy. To get there, they worked with AWS to build a solid framework for the strategy that consists of:
|
|
The Web Site
- A solid web site with well-defined calls to action, and information that is organized and linked in a way that is easy to navigate.
The Metrics
- A mechanism to track both online web traffic, and offline requests and sales to measure the ongoing effectiveness of the strategy and optimize the initiative over time.
The Visitors
- A cost-effective strategy for attracting qualified traffic to the website and matching them with the information they're looking for.
|
It's not uncommon for a business to dive into web marketing, attracted by the high amount of web traffic that can be acquired, while ignoring the effectiveness of the company web site.
A solid web site incorporates well defined calls-to-action, and summary information about products along with deep information for those who need it. More importantly, the information is organized and linked in a way that's easy to navigate. The well-designed website is the cornerstone of a successful web site marketing strategy.
|
|
The LombardoHomes.com web site presents well-organized information that can be used by people approaching home buying from many different perspectives. Web site visitors can easily browse through homes and communities by price, location, or style of home.
A clean layout and simple navigation allows users to browse deep into the site to find detailed information after they've found a home that they're interested in. The design and layout of the site is attributed to the fact that a high percentage of visitors to the site view over 30 pages during their visit!
In order to create a successful web site marketing strategy, we must be able to measure what is happening both online and offline.
To track and measure leads, as well as offline activities, Awecomm's web developers have created the Leads Management System (LMS). This system allows Lombardo sales associates to track people that come into to the sales offices and manage the information that is associated with each lead. The system is also integrated into the LombardoHomes.com website, and tracks leads that come in via email.
|
|
A number of web statistics packages are integrated into the LombardoHomes.com site that provide marketers and SEOs with a large amount of usable information. The ability to put visitors into groups depending on certain attributes allows the web marketing specialists at Awecomm to see how website changes effect each group (e.g. visitors who view over 30 pages on the site, or request that a brochure be send to them in the mail). This level of detail allows for the optimization of the web site marketing strategy over time.
|
Driving quality traffic to a website using Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click advertising takes time, money, and hard work. If the web marketing framework has not been created to effectively track and convert visitors by the time the traffic begins to hit the site, all of the effort used to attract the traffic may be wasted.
Awecomm currently employs a mix of pay-per-click advertising and image advertising to drive traffic to the LombardoHomes.com website. By gathering data using web analytics that allows us to segment
|
|
visitors that came to the site from each different source of traffic, decisions can be made to both optimize the web marketing, and effectively allocate the marketing budget.
Creating a successful web site marketing strategy is not impossible, but it won't happen over night. By creating the foundation that includes a well-organized website, metrics to measure all aspects of the strategy, and leveraging sources of high-quality traffic, a strategy can be created that can continue to be optimized over time, and yield extremely high returns for your organization.
Ready to get started? Email us or call (877) AWE-7999 to talk about your web site marketing strategy.
|
