The Alpha and Omega of Modern Marketing

Before launching any multi-channel marketing campaign or jumping headfirst into social media marketing, you need to begin with a great website. In many cases, your website will be the first contact your customers have with your brand and the last contact they have before making a purchase.

Your website is the first solid contact that people have when they become prospects for your product and service. Whether they find you through a search engine or see one of your display ads, as soon as they become seriously interested, they will find your website to learn more about you. If you are a web retailer, your website is also the final step in their purchase process. However, even brick and mortar retailers have customers who use the web to do price comparisons, find store locations and check on store hours before coming into the store.

First impressions are important on the web. Your site needs to appeal to the type of customers that buy your product. The graphics and messaging need to pull people in and get them excited about your product and service. The navigation system should be balanced to help people find the right product with the minimum number of clicks.

If you want people to come back to your page regularly, the content needs to be frequently updated. A blog that covers topics that interest your customers is one of the best ways to keep people engaged with your site. The blog should be updated at least one per week and should not be used as a sales platform for the company's products. When you create a new blog post, be sure to mention it and provide links on all of your social media feeds.

Accessibility is extremely important. As more of your audience are shopping using smartphones and tablets, sites that don’t have mobile versions will get left behind. Avoiding Flash plugins is essential since iPhone and iPad users are not able to view them.

The final step is to make your website easily sharable. In addition to the buttons that allow people to find your pages on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other sites, include buttons that allow people to share your content on their own feeds. And always make it very clear how people can subscribe to your content using an RSS reader or email.

Is your website all that it should be?