New Year's Resolution: Have a Better Website!
Strategic Online Marketing Advice from http://bit.ly/6j5Gib

Start the New Year Right for Your Website!

Is your website just a pretty face or is it pumping iron?

* A strategically designed website can ultimately make hard-hitting contributions to your company’s growth.

* Your website should be converting traffic into mailing lists, qualified leads, donations, and other valuable assets.

* A Web 2.0 strategy can increase traffic to your site and develop new consumer relationships.

* Functionality is key in maximizing your website’s effectiveness.

So your website looks great-it’s well-designed, easy to read, and has eye-catching graphics and pictures. But is it working as hard as it can to help your organization?

With some strategic planning, your website not only can draw new customers, it can ultimately make hard-hitting contributions to your organization’s growth. If your site has been sitting around just looking pretty, consider these ways you can get it to start flexing muscle:

* First, is your site search engine-optimized to attract the most and best traffic? By performing search engine optimization (SEO), you can use strategic keywords, site design, and HTML coding to improve your site’s rankings in online searches. Generally, websites that rank highest (the ones that appear earliest in search results) receive the most visits.

* Once you’ve increased your traffic, is your website converting it into valuable marketing assets? Generating website traffic without parlaying it into mailing lists, leads, and donations is like having a highway billboard-you get visibility and brand awareness, but no tangible assets once the billboard comes down. By adding online information forms and incentive offers, you can actively convert your site traffic into names and contact information, create goodwill by providing beneficial information or resources, and begin developing relationships. Over time, your website visitors may produce online fundraising dollars and become regular givers or even major benefactors. Check out these websites that are effectively transforming traffic into assets:

o Jewish Voice Ministries International
o Mainstay Ministries
o Gregory Dickow Ministries

* A strategic eWelcome series introducing people to your ministry is a great tool for traffic conversion. Here’s how it works:

o Step one is to ask for basic information (first name and email address) in exchange for downloadable incentives such as resources, ideas, or news. This basic contact information immediately enables you to communicate through email.

o Step two is the thank you page, where in exchange for complete contact information (full name, snail mail address, phone number) you can offer free welcome gifts by mail.

o Step three is to send an email each week for four to six weeks, introducing the various aspects of your ministry or organization. These communications are strictly informational, without requesting donations, and will help develop relationships by providing valued information.

o Finally, these names are added to your regular email list and can begin receiving appeals for money.

Pathmaker Marketing has found that for every 100 email addresses collected, 65 convert into full names and mailing addresses for receiving welcome kits. And once you have this information, you can also begin traditional direct marketing fundraising efforts.

* Do you have an interactive Web 2.0 strategy? Web 2.0 refers to a way of using the Internet to build community through interactive tools such as blogs, surveys, and forums. By helping people develop greater ownership in your organization, you can increase site traffic, convert visitors into engaged participants, build your email lists, and ultimately boost online fundraising. Some ideas for increasing your online customer interaction:

o Allow visitors to add content to your site. Pathmaker Marketing has worked with Gregory Dickow Ministries to install a Prayer Wall on their website. Visitors can post prayer requests or praise reports, and share in and pray for others’ requests and praises. The Prayer Wall has become a meeting place for like-minded people to actively become a part of the ministry.

o Become a fixture in social networks. Creating a Facebook or MySpace page that links to your site can quickly increase your list of “friends”-a growing pool of potential supporters, particularly among younger audiences. LinkedIn and other professional networking sites can increase your outreach to the working population. Twitter is a networking site that allows you to stay in touch by posting quick updates on your organization’s latest news. Use these services to build your participant lists and manage your search engine listings.
o Start a blog and show up more. Blogging is a tool that can boost your search engine rankings, bringing more people to your website. Pathmaker has installed a blogging tool on client sites that is search engine optimized. You just create a short blog entry containing strategic keywords (defined by you), and it’s automatically posted to other blogs with those keywords. By sharing your thoughts in a single blog, you create multiple blogs that exponentially expand your online reach.

Okay, you’ve convinced us. But where do we start? How do we do this?

This is where Pathmaker Marketing can help. As you can see, functionality is key in ensuring your website is pumping maximum iron and helping build your business. Let Pathmaker perform a functional evaluation of your site and provide a proposal on how we can help you make the most of its utility. When your web marketing is in the hands of professionals, you don’t have to worry-we take care of everything. We provide the expertise to make your website a heavyweight: increasing visitor interaction through Web 2.0 and overall strategies, traffic conversion, site optimization, coordinating your web and email strategies, and much more.

When you sign up for your free functional website evaluation, we’ll give you two valuable Whitepapers loaded with insights on the subjects: Web Design and Web Communication. In addition, we will provide by phone a free Golden Nugget analysis of your current website from a functional marketing perspective.

Schedule a Private Consultation with Pathmaker at http://pathmakermarketing.com/webanalysisc203.php