And send it to prospective clients when they ask about “Why can’t I find my site in Google” after only a week of the site launch, or for that matter, at any time they ask it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Why Plan?

Optimization is great. Search engines are great. Networking is great.
But for the most return today, you must do more than just have a website
and optimize it. You can no longer just throw up a site, submit to
Google, and sit back while the clients come. For maximum success, you
must plan effectively - what to do, how to talk most effectively to
*your* markets, what complementary marketing you will integrate with
your website efforts, and so on.

You can refine and strengthen your overall marketing plan, and then
define how best to construct and use your website within that. Just a
few of the points you need to think about are:

- Who are you selling to?

- Do they already use a product or service like yours? How do you know?

- If so, how are you going to win them over?

- If not, how can you persuade them that what you offer is something of
vital importance to them?

- What is the most information they want? E.g. it’s NOT the ‘History of
the Company’ that we so often see leading off a website menu!

- What tone of language will they most respond to? Corporate? Folks next
door? Scientific expertise?

- A website can be just a brochure — useful for background information
when you refer people to it. Or it can be everything to your business,
both the most important marketing tool and your only sales channel.
Where on that spectrum should you locate your site?

You can readily see that these are important and powerful questions —
and these are only a few of the centrally important points that need to
be considered. You can dramatically increase the power of your website
by thoroughly examining such considerations — in other words thoroughly
*planning* what you are doing. And since most of your competitors likely
have not and will never carry out such planning, to do so gives you
immediate and ongoing competitive advantage.

If you want to climb Everest, or become a national-level athlete, brain
surgeon or concert violist, you would start with a plan. We can readily
see, in these cases, that the chances of success are enormously
increased by following and implementing a plan. The same is true in
business, and the same is true with your website.

Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy
www.marketing-alchemy.com