Website redesign and internet marketing

I was referred to a prospective client that had their website redesigned a few months ago.  They spent over $20,000 for a site doesn’t bring any sales or leads to the business.  I call this type of website a brochure site: It provides nothing to visitors nothing does not convert traffic into sales, and is also poor at bringing traffic. After spending all that money into their website, the company had no budget left to market it !

A corporate website is about supporting the business.  The beauty of the Internet is there is no guessing.  You can measure pretty much anything.  What are you trying to accomplish?  Increase traffic? Generate leads?  Increase sales? 

Web design is a commodity today.  The cost of design should represent about 25% of your total spend.  Design costs are competitive today, so spending more than you have to should be the last thing you do.  There are excellent open source Content Management Systems (CMS) that give you the power to manage your own content. 

The value in web design is working with companies that can properly market what you do.  To properly market the site, you should be spending 10-12x what you should spend in design.  So, it is possible to get a Web 2.0 website at an affordable cost.  If you are a small company that is spending $3,000-$6,000 on a basic website, you should plan over 24 months to spend an additional $30,000-$80,000 on marketing.  The dollars spent on marketing brings the traffic to the site.  Simple rule, more traffic through the front door means more business.

Internet marketing is extremely good at measuring and controlling your investment, and a lot of techniques can be implanted to raise your returns. If your marketing strategy is solid, you can quickly turn the initial investment into revenues.

Ask yourself a few questions before spending $20K on a website (or, for that matter, before making any investment online):

1. What is the goal? Do we need to generate direct sales, bring the leads onboard or create awareness about something?
2. What are the targets? How quickly do we need results? What is realistic?
3. Where is the traffic, how much does it cost, AND how much is it worth? Will we use social media, PPC (Pay per click) or PPV (Pay per view)? WHY ?

Think about the goals, the market and where you fit in it.  Think about what you want to accomplish and spend your money according to the results you want to achieve.  A pretty website just does not generate the type of results you should and can get using the Internet.