Each company wants their brand to be well-known, unique, and spoken on the lips of consumers everywhere. This is what marketing is for. If you have a site, you want the same thing. You want your site out to as many people as possible to increase traffic and revenue. That is why many marketing firms also specialize in web marketing.
Building a website is only the first step to getting your brand out to the millions of people who surf the internet each day. If you have taken that step, then it is time to determine how you will market the site and if you will do it yourself. Here are a few ways to determine if you should attempt to market your site yourself or seek outside assistance.
Time and Patience:
Like building a website, marketing your site takes time and patience. If you find you get frustrated easily, impatient to see results, or just don’t have the time to dedicate to marketing your site, then perhaps outsourcing your site’s brand marketing is a better option. If you find yourself frustrated more than enjoying the long hours of researching and tweaking it takes to get your site out to more people, then it may be time to seek out other options.
Technical Knowledge:
Though marketing isn’t as technical as tearing down and putting together a laptop, there is a certain amount of technical knowledge involved in marketing your website. The more you understand about how a website is indexed, the metrics used by search engines, page ranking, keywords, and tags, the more successful your site will be. If you are the type of person who can’t program a VCR, then perhaps outsourcing your websites marketing is the better choice to make.
Many web marketing firms have proven solutions for marketing a website. This could include SEO services, content optimizations, and keyword generation. This will allow your site to have all the dots and dashes in the right place for search engines to find your site when users run a search. This is what marketing is all about, being in the top search results.
Quality vs. Cost:
There is no doubt that it is cheaper to do everything yourself. This also includes doing your own marketing and SEO. However, if you are looking for quality and are willing to pay for it, outsourcing is the right choice. Marketing firms hire professionals that are in the business of marketing. These professionals will offer quality services to make your site a success. If you want your site to look, feel, and operate professionally in order to get your brand out there, take a look at outsourcing your marketing.
There are many things we can do as owners of a site. However, there are also many things we cannot. A site needs more than just images and words in order to be successful. Proper marketing is a must have for any company site on the internet. Without the right strategies, metrics and knowledge, your website can be lost on the internet with the millions of others.
Martin Hines is a Seattle Web Developer and blogger, offering his expertise to those in the web design community.