But a bad design WILL hurt your business and drive customers away. So don’t make the mistake of “skimping” in this area.

The Dangers of Bad Design

If a user can’t come to your site and easily find your good content, your site is useless. It could be populated with invaluable, brilliant, money-making content – but if the user can’t easily access it, it may as well not be there at all.

The same thing goes for products. Your product could be the answer to all of the world’s problems, but if your user can’t easily learn about your product, browse its permutations and take action, your site has failed and your user will walk away.

A bad design can actually hurt your reputation in the eyes of your customers. An overly-simplistic or unattractive design may convince your customers that you’re a guy operating out of his basement – not a real business. You may, in fact, BE a guy operating out of his basement, but you need a professional-looking site to establish yourself as an authority and a legitimate business to your clients. Otherwise, people may not take you seriously, or may even walk away from what you have to offer – even if it’s great – because they don’t trust or respect you as a business.

To solve all of these problems, you need a good design.

Basics of Good Design

Your website design should look reasonably attractive. It doesn’t have to be cutting edge, Flash-heavy or particularly fancy, but it should be simple, uncluttered and attractive. There shouldn’t be too much text on your home page – just enough to guide people where they want to go, and maybe highlight a few of the most important takeaways from your business or product.

Each page of your site should focus on a separate element of your business; a sample site map of pages might be:

• Home
• About
• Services/Products
• Contact

Obviously, the more you have to offer, the more pages your site will include, so you’ll need to be sensible about organizing information. Don’t overcrowd your pages with info, and make them easy to navigate.

Most entrepreneurs and small businesses have zero Web background or design experience. You may need to hire a Web design professional to create a site for you. Do it. Web designers range from inexpensive (and potentially crappy) to very expensive. Most people don’t need a really expensive solution, but a legitimate Web design business will charge more than you expect. That’s ok. Find a way to pay it. If you’re really budget crunched, you may find a Web designer via a service like Elance, or even on Craigslist – but make sure you look at samples of the designer’s work and talk with references.

Finally, there are plenty of great Web design sites out there. Spend some time reading up on the basics of good design. You don’t have to become a designer yourself, but it helps if you understand design well enough to talk intelligently with whomever you hire. Put together a sample site map, and have an idea of what content you want to include on each page. This will help your Web designer give you a good, detailed quote, and prevent you both from being unhappy by discovering a sudden price hike in the middle of the project.

Your site is your portal on the Web, and having a good, usable UI and design can make the difference between making a sale and losing it. Design may be even more important than content, because if your users can’t find and navigate your content, the design has failed and all the good content in the world can’t help that user consume what you’re offering. Make the investment and get a good website design. It can make the difference between success and failure for your business.

In the meantime, I read this article this morning that had some useful information about building and keeping audiences as a niche content site. I don’t necessarily agree with everything that Vikram Goyal, founder of CraftGossip.com, has to say – but he does make a lot of great points that I think should be useful for some of the clients I’ve consulted with in the past few months.

If you’re not sure how to build and keep audiences, this is a great place to start. We’ll look into the topic in more depth in the coming month, with some first-hand advice and useful exercises to help you craft a compelling marketing plan!

My client responded with something that made me very happy:

I think it’s a good idea – timely content for real time communication. We still want to be relevant on fb and twitter!

This is something that so many individuals and small businesses don’t understand – they focus on the be all and end all – SEO. But when you focus too much on SEO and promoting yourself, you sometimes sacrifice substance – and that is ultimately a losing proposition. Relevance is too important to overlook.

SEO Without Substance is Fail

SEO is a tool you can use to drive people to your site and help promote your business. But SEO without substance can only get you so far. If there’s nothing relevant for your user to consume when he or she gets to your site, they’ll click away somewhere else and you’ve lost that user. The same thing goes for your marketing campaigns; the most successful campaigns strike a balance between self-promotion and providing relevant, substantive content for your users. Focus on SEO and self-promotion to the exclusion of relevant content, and your users will abandon ship.

How to Strike a Balance

Ideally, your communications – be they on your site, on your blog, on Facebook or Twitter or via email – should consist of a balance between self-promotion and relevant, timely communication. It’s ok to promote yourself sometimes. Your users expect it. You’re a business and you have to make money.

But reward your users for sitting through the self-promotion. Give them relevant content they can connect with sometimes – even it that content is completely void of self-promotion. This will keep them coming back in spite of the self-promotion. And if you do the self-promotion right, it can be perfectly-balanced blend of marketing and relevant content.

I personally use a ratio of specific types of content to keep the reader from growing bored with too much of one type of content, and that includes a small ratio of fresh, timely, relevant content that isn’t necessarily related, or may be only tangentially related, to the target site.

For example, the client in question above is a retail website that specializes in niche products for women. The article I posted today included a list of outside-the-box, romantic ideas to celebrate Valentine’s Day. The article was generic enough that it could apply to women or men; ladies who read it could use the suggestions to surprise their guys on Valentine’s Day, or they could give it to their guys and say “Do this for me!”

Nothing in the article directly promoted the site; none of their products were mentioned by name and it may not make them a single sale. But it does keep them relevant, fresh and timely on social media, where they post links to their content, and it’s a great resource that women can pass around amongst themselves. If every women who reads it passes it to five of her friends, with some note like “you and your boyfriend/girlfriend/fiance/husband/ should try this” – that has now spread awareness of the site exponentially. Some of those people are bound to be in the target demographic, and will hopefully come back when they need the products that this retailer sells.

Determining What’s Relevant

When determining relevance, you have to decide what would appeal to your target audience. Yes, you may occasionally want to produce content unrelated to your primary objective as long as it appeals to your target demographic. But you don’t want to produce completely unrelated content – then the relevance is lost because you in no way serve the target demographic.

One of my clients, for example, sells blog posts to mortgage websites. Most of the blog posts are completely unrelated to the mortgage industry, but are relevant to people who are looking to buy or sell homes. These articles may include things like tips for moving, advice for shopping for a home, techniques to winterize a home, how to spot energy-efficient housing – none of these are directly related to obtaining a mortgage, but they’re all relevant to people who may be buying or selling a home. And people who are shopping for a mortgage are typically buying or selling a home. So the information appeals to the target demographic, even if it doesn’t directly promote the business.

Conversely, you wouldn’t want to write an article about how to shop for a demolition contractor on a website for a flower shop. The content has absolutely zero relevance for the target site, and even if you attract visitors with the content, there will be nothing for them to do on the site. (Unless it serves as a reminder that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and it’s time for the person trying to hire a demolition contractor to send some flowers to his sweetie!)

Relevance is largely determined by the target audience. Think about the types of content that would interest your target audience, and give it to them. It’s even better when you can tie it back to your product or service.

Offer Timely, Personalized Communication

It’s a proven fact that psychologically, in most cases, consumers would rather do business with a person than a company. Personalize your company with timely, personal communication. Take time out around the holidays to write your clients a personalized “Happy Holidays” email or article. Offer a Valentine’s Day-related article, if your demographic supports it. Mention recent news articles in your area, and give your opinion.

It’s always a good idea to inject a little personality and timely content into your consumer communications. This demonstrates to your clients that there is at least one real person at the helm, and makes them want to do business with you – the person – even if they’re impartial to your business entity.

As a bonus, with timely communications, there’s always a chance they can be re-shared – which expands your reach. An article with personal commentary about an issue important in your local community is more likely to get re-shared around the community than some impersonal marketing material. This spreads awareness of your business, and gives you reach you literally can’t pay for.

Social Media Does Not Stand Alone

One thing that many businesses today don’t realize when they start a social media marketing campaign is that social media does not stand alone. You can use it to interact with your clients, but you still need other, content-based points of contact. Social media campaigns can be a great supplement for email marketing campaigns, routine blog posts, press releases and other content relative to your business. But using social media to the exclusion of these other marketing tools will cost you money and business. The right marketing plan features a combination of channels.

Good Content Makes Your Website More Visible

Good content makes your website more visible. You can Tweet about your content; you can link to it on Facebook and Google+. If it’s really good, other people will link to it and share it with their friends. That’s how things go viral. But all the social media efforts in the world are futile if you don’t have good content that people *want* to read and share.

Boost Your Search Engine Results

SEO is a constantly-evolving field. The SEO practices of a few years ago, such as keyword stuffing and link-farming, won’t get you anywhere today – and can even get your site blacklisted. Instead, search engines today are looking for content relative to your business that naturally ranks for certain keywords. Good content writers have been practicing organic SEO all along, and that’s now what search engines are looking for.

Adding content on a regular basis boosts your search engine rankings. It expands the potential keyword basis that users can use to find your site. And good, high-quality content will get linked to by people who want to share it – increasing your site’s authority and boosting your search engine results. Good content is the new SEO hotness.

Consider Your Content an Investment

I see more and more businesses looking to churn out cheap content for something like $1 to $3 per 500-word article. For that price, what you’re most likely to get is something cut-and-pasted from somewhere else. You might get articles spun using article spinning software, but they won’t read naturally and probably won’t offer anything to readers. I have two words for businesses looking to go the cheap route: don’t bother. You won’t boost your site ranking or attract users with crappy content, and you can get your site blacklisted from Google for duplicating content.

Instead, think of your content as an investment. If you spend more money up front for high-quality, original content – you’ll organically boost your search engine results, give users a reason to stick around your site and share your content, and establish your authority in your field. This is an argument I’ve been making in favor of high-quality content for years; but the search ranking algorithms are finally catching up with me.

Think of the money you spend on good content as an investment for your business – and watch the dividends pile up as you expand your customer base and increase your sales.

1. Email

Email marketing has been around for a long time, and many businesses now eschew it as old news. It may not be new or exciting, but it remains one of the most effective forms of contact. Effective email campaigns to opt-in email addresses continue to produce higher conversation rates than any other marketing technique. All you need to do is give people a good reason to opt-in, create effective messages that target your audience and send them out at the appropriate intervals.

2. Social Media

Social media was the new hotness a year or two ago, but now it’s become an accepted part of many businesses’ online presence. If you’re a major player, it’s surprising to find that you don’t have a Twitter account or Facebook page, and more and more businesses are now adding Google+ and LinkedIn, too. Effectively utilizing social media can be a great tool for drastically expanding your scope. But social media requires a lot of up-front time investment, and the return on the investment for most businesses is not proportional to the resources that go into this marketing avenue. This is one of those things that you should maintain because clients expect you to, but in general you’ll find more bang for your marketing buck elsewhere.

3. Article Marketing

Article marketing involves submitting articles relative to your field of expertise to article directory websites. Popular article marketing sites include eZine Articles, Hub Pages, Squidoo – more than a hundred article directories exist, some of which have a unique style and flare, and others are little more than link-building directories. Article marketing can provide you with inbound links and improve your SEO. However, avoid spamming article marketing sites, as Google frowns upon duplicate content. If your article shows up in a hundred different places, your article marketing efforts can actually hurt your website’s reputation.

4. Press Release Marketing

Press release marketing functions much like article marketing. You can submit your press release to one of many press release directory services, or submit it directly to various news services. In an ideal world, a major news service will take your press release and run with it, providing you exposure to thousands of new viewers. But doing press release marketing right takes an experienced professional; too many press releases read like an ad for the company, and don’t get picked up by news services.

5. Landing Pages

A landing page, or lead capture page, is designed to get your audience to take some action; typically to sign up for an email campaign or create an account. A landing page should always have a clear call to action, and many businesses customize a landing page for a specific traffic source – making it easy to see which traffic source results in the largest number of people responding to your call to action, and also making the landing page more effective because it’s tailored to a specific source and audience.

6. SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of taking a website and optimizing it to rank highly in specifically-tailored search results. SEO may include internal HTML and code tweaks, content changes designed to target specific keywords, and website structure changes. Effective SEO boosts the page rank of your site for certain keywords, and makes it easier for your customers to find you in a Web search.

7. Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a type of internet marketing designed to increase traffic as a result of paid search engine placement. SEM techniques may include contextual advertising, paid placement and paid inclusion. SEM for a niche site may be relatively inexpensive and effective, but it’s difficult to compete in SEM for popular, high-demand keywords.

8. Inbound Linking

Inbound linking is an online marketing technique that has a couple of benefits; effective inbound linking can increase your page rank, and it also makes it easier for your customers to find you. Inbound linking can be achieved in a variety of ways; through posting responses in forums related to your product or service; through paid inbound linking services and through things like guest blogging and other exchange-type interactions. It’s important to keep in mind that if you pay for an inbound linking service, the wrong link-building program can hurt your page results, and even get you banned from Google; we’ll explore this further when we talk about Black Hat marketing techniques a bit later.

9. Affiliate, Reseller and Associate Programs

These programs are designed to incentivize the promotion of your site or services. Reseller programs make it easy for people to sell your products for you in return for a cut, while affiliate and associate programs incentivize people to drive traffic to your site. These programs are underutilized in online marketing, and have substantial benefits to the right business models.

10. Contests and Giveaways

Contests and giveaways are a great way to spread the word about your company and drastically increase your potential audience in a short time. Targeted contests and giveaways, such as gift cards for your business or products that you sell, can generate a smaller pool of well-qualified leads, while more generalized contests and giveaways, like iPad giveaways, can help you expand your reach but fewer of the leads will be qualified.

11. Blogging

Blogging is a great way to build an online presence, establish authority and credibility, and expand your SEO. But blogging tends to yield slow results, and it can take months of steady blogging before you gain traction. Generally, scheduled, routine blogging forms the backbone for SEO; it’s an integral part of a marketing plan but doesn’t necessarily yield high conversion from the blog itself. Unusual or highly controversial blog posts, however, have the opportunity to be picked up and shared on sites like reddit that can get your content in front of thousands, tens of thousands or even millions of viewers.

12. Video Marketing

Video marketing, when done well, can be extremely effective. Video is the most socially-shared content on the Web, and video marketing can dramatically increase your reach and audience. If a video goes viral, you could be looking at hundreds of thousands or even millions of hits in a matter of days. Poor video marketing, though, doesn’t contribute to your reach, and can actually hurt your business.

13. Podcasting

Podcasting is another avenue you can use to reach out to your potential audience. Like blogging, podcasting provides you an opportunity to establish authority and credibility, and can help draw potential audience members. But podcasting represents a significant time investment, and should only be undertaken under certain business models and with very clearly defined goals and scope.

Ultimately, these tools can help any business reach a wider audience, and should form the core of your marketing platform. The right combination of tools in the right proportions varies depending on your business, but an experienced marketing professional can help you explore which tools are right for you.

Home Page

Every website needs a great home page. Your home page should quickly and easily convey to your clients what your company does or offers. It also helps if your home page gives them an idea of what your website provides; be it just info, or a chance to purchase products or services. If you have a sales-oriented business, your home page should contain one or more calls to action. A way to capture customer data is also a great feature on a home page. Many businesses now prominently feature links to their social media presence on their home pages, too.

About Page

The About page should tell your clients about your company. When was it founded, how many employees, your company mission, any special credentials you boast – give your clients an opportunity to get to know you. This is also a great page to differentiate yourself from your competitors by highlighting relevant education areas, experiences or other unique factors that demonstrate to your customers why they should choose you.

Contact Page

A contact page providing all the methods to contact your company is vital to a good website. Provide phone number, fax number, email addresses, physical addresses – whatever contact information you want your customers to have. If you’ve got a store or physical location, make sure to list the address, and driving instructions or a link to Google Maps can be a nice touch. List hours of operation, any special contact information your customers should have to reach a particular department, etc. – and possibly a form for contacting you via the site.

Make it as easy and painless as possible for your customers to reach you, or else you WILL lose sales. Making this information easy to access also demonstrates a willingness to interface with your clients, making you seem more reputable and open to contact with your customers.

Products or Services Pages

If your business offers products or services, your website should contain pages talking about these services. Website design is extremely diverse, so there are a number of ways to handle your product or service descriptions. If you offer multiple products or services, and you want your website to help sell, describe each of them fully. If you just want your website to serve as a Web presence, it’s ok to simply list products and services and hope for customer contact – but generally, the more information a customer has, the better.

Design for Readability and Ease of Navigation

Readability and ease of navigation are VITAL factors when you’re designing a website. Some companies favor unique designs that the client will find eye-catching or memorable, but the craziest designs are often difficult to navigate or hard to read. Make sure the relevant content is in an easy-to-read font and color on an easy-to-read background. You WANT your customers to get information from your page. You WANT them to stick around and read it. You won’t get that if customers can’t read your page in the first place, or if they can’t figure out where to click to get where they want to go.

There’s a lot more to say about what goes into a good website design – both in terms of content and the design itself. But it’s easier to discuss on a one-on-one basis, so feel free to contact me if you have questions or want a review of your site!

Next week, I’m going to share with you one of my client intake marketing worksheets, so you can start to think about your marketing plan. This worksheet includes some questions you’ll need to answer before you hire a professional to help you, or if you intend to do the marketing yourself.