Web Development and Marketing – So Happy Together

Why a successful online presence starts with web development and web marketing working together.

 

For an online business to be truly successful, there should be a complimentary relationship between web development and online marketing. This is because web development and web marketing can influence each other greatly in either a positive way or in a negative way depending on your approach.

 

Let’s start here; you can have the best looking web site on the web, but if no one can find your web site then it’s all for not, right? On the other hand, you can have the most traffic on the web, but if it looks unprofessional and is difficult to use, your chances of getting a sale or a desired action from your users are slim to none, correct? The point being that an effective web presence requires a blend of form and function. Your web presence should portray your business accurately and in a professional manner, all while being very easy to use and accessible to all types of users. With all of that said, it also needs to be built to perform well in the search engines and be found by users searching for your products, services or information so people can benefit from how great and wonderful your site is.

 

So how do we ensure that your online presence is getting the best of both worlds? It’s fairly simple; make sure that when developing your web site or putting together your marketing strategy that you approach it so development and marketing are working together and in sync.

 

When you start to consider building a new online presence or modifying an existing one, think about how your desired functionality or layout will affect your ability to be found in the search engines and how it could effect the user experience. For example, flash and images and all that fancy design stuff are great for aesthetic appeal when done properly. When done improperly, these types of activities can potentially lead to important content on your site not being found in the search engines, not to mention excessive page weight (will effect the speed at which your site pages load for a user), and other usability issues. What happens if the person looking for your goods or services is visually impaired? Will they be able to still gain access to your content? What if a person trying to get information on your company is using a mobile device? Will your site load in a respectable amount of time and will the information display properly? These are just two of the many potential scenarios that need to be thought through when considering the development of a web site.

 

For some, web sites are viewed as just another place to display your information, but they can and should be so much more than that. Your web site is a business in itself: open 24/7/365 (for those of you with an unreliable host you may disagree with that statement!), and is often a potential client / customer / patients first impression of your business. Take pride in your web site and make sure you take the extra time to be certain your development team and marketing team are knowledgeable of activities outside of their specialty to ensure the best possible representation on the web! Too often we see businesses that have spent money to only have one piece of the puzzle solved. Having a web site done the right way may end up costing you more up front – like most things in life: you pay for what you get, but the savings in the long run and the return on your investment will be far greater if you have that perfect blend of form and function from the start.

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to read! I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and no one is short on things to be thankful for!

 

And speaking of thanks, we at Academy would like to thank Josh Best of TKG (The Karcher Group) for sharing these helpful tips with our readers!