If you want a website today that gets real results for your business, you need to look beyond pretty html graphics and self-centered babbling about your company.  You need to look at the following:

• Set it up to make it easy to add content regularly, especially blogs, social media, etc. For today’s world, this means a CMS (Content Management System).  There are many choices here depending on size, need for customization and integration, etc.  However, the prices for CMS sites are lower than ever now and by implementing one, you can easily log into your site and add content daily – critical.
• Get a good designer involved.  Does not have to be expensive, but someone who understands how to make your site stand above the norm, set you up with the right palettes, fonts and layout and can add a little flash or moving parts on your site for interest.  Static, badly designed sites only say that you don’t care about your company.
• Start by involving an SEO specialist right from the beginning. Prices for SEO have come way down and most SEO consultants would rather start at the very beginning and let you amortize the SEO cost over a year, than get pulled in downstream and have to redo the site for optimum traffic.  Typically SEO guys will help you get your H1, H2, H3 and H4 tags right, your keywords selected, your megatags and keyword density set up and a backlinking strategy in place.  These are just the basics.
• Social media guys should come not too long after the SEO guys.  They too are offering great prices and amortizing their costs over longer periods. I like bringing them in at the very beginning and having them brainstorm with the SEO guy even if I don’t start them on the project till later. Getting facebook and twitter set up early pay big dividends in addition to talking about blogging services and getting an early benchmark on the site using a reputation management tool for later comparison.
• Content, content, content.  This is where most fail. It starts with having the right positioning, followed by the right messaging strategy and platform, followed by the right content on the site.  There are few people in any company that like to write and even fewer that want to take the time to do it. Deciding early on a content development roadmap is key and who will do the writing.  Some customers just need help getting a plan in place, others need help doing the writing.
• Topics for the advanced – In addition, more advanced websites put in place traffic and lead scoring systems, integration with CRM and strategies to capture traffic with forms and offers.

Websites can make companies a lot of money but it doesn’t come without addressing the issues above.  Let us know if we can help.