In this age of digital marketing, it's all too easy to spend your time chasing the latest social media fad or hot tip. Even the most seasoned internet marketers occasionally lose sight of the basics from time to time – foundations upon which the internet marketing industry was built, and without which wouldn't exist.

In the first part of this article, we looked at some basics such as your web address, meta tags (the part of your web page that search engines use in their results) and getting your message right. In part two we'll continue to look at some of the key concepts behind a successful web strategy.

Ensuring an Excellent User Experience
Once you have won your well earned web traffic, the next part of the process is to lead them to the sale – rather than to a frustrating experience which will very quickly get them looking elsewhere. The following four points will help.

1. The Customer Experience
Preparing your website to offer a successful customer experience is absolutely key to your bottom line. When organising your content and preparing for the next big promotion, consider the following key questions:

• Does your site architecture lead your visitors to the sale?
• Are your calls to action clear, obvious and scattered throughout your sales process?
• Is your sales copy honed, including headlines, sub headings and short, succinct copy?
• Is there an opportunity to persuade customers to take the next step by a good use of pictures and even video?
• Can you offer a guarantee to help alleviate your customer's concerns that may hinder the sale?

Once ready, test your online sales cycle thoroughly, run through the entire process from start to finish checking the transaction procedure alongside any automated emails. Check all contact and outbound links – you might just be glad you did.

2. Keep It Current
A widely acknowledged best practice SEO technique is to update your site regularly with fresh, relevant content. This will feed the search engine 'bots' with fresh material and will help to get your site indexed over that of a static competitor.

Keep the mix of material relevant to your target audience and don't be afraid to mix it up – home-grown articles, resource links and media content will all help to pique the interest of both search engines and visitors alike.

3. The Follow-Through
The 'follow-through' (as we'll call it here) acts as a bridge between you, your customer and any future business they may send your way. However you decide to proceed (newsletter, ezine, email sequence etc.), you should do so immediately.

Establishing a relationship through meaningful, targeted content will turn a potential single purchase buyer into a meaningful long-term customer – actively engaged for when you're ready to launch your next killer offer.

4. Statistics
The thought of delving into website performance statistics is enough to reduce even the hardiest of internet entrepreneurs into a quivering wreck. Yet it's not as difficult as most believe it to be. A number of tools enable site owners to check some key traffic pointers or, for the more analytical approach, provide a myriad of data into every conceivable corner of your website.

Either way, if your website isn't working for you, it could provide some very useful insights into where problems may lie and more importantly, enable you to 'tweak and test' in order to resolve the issue.

If you would like to review the effectiveness of your website, please contact us