Do you rely on your “Webmaster” to tell you what you need to do to be successful online? How to improve your rankings, traffic, and engagement?
If your answer is YES, you’re not alone.
The truth is, your success online is dependent on a proactive approach to increasing your website’s visibility – online, as well as, offline.
The person responsible for optimizing your online presence is your Webmaster. Are you and your webmaster communicating at least once a month? If not, it’s time for a new approach.
Not All Webmasters Are Created Equal
In the past, webmasters were typically technical and analytical by nature.
That’s a good thing.
The implementation of coding is their strength, but too often, marketing is their weakness.
Marketing savvy, in addition to some technical expertise, is what helps to increase the visibility of your website. This in return, drives traffic to your pages that turn into leads and eventually into customers.
This kind of Webmaster I like to refer to as the New Age Webmaster.
The New Age Webmaster is essentially a technically savvy MARKETER who can see the website through the eyes of a customer.
To start, he or she can implement marketing strategies, such as search engine optimization, PPC campaigns, email campaigns, and social media marketing, that draw clicks to your page (like You did to reach this page).
How Do I Find Out If My Webmaster Is A Marketer?
Here are 9 tell-tale signs your Webmaster is more of a techie or even a designer than a savvy marketer:
- What EXACTLY do you sell?
Visitors to your website are looking for something. What is it? They should know they are on the right page or website as soon as they land on your page. - Your contact information is NOT in plain sight
At the very minimum, your phone number or contact information link should appear at the top of every page. Not something a techie would think about. - Your website is NOT mobile responsive?
More and more visitors to your website are using tablets and mobile phones to look up your information. Particularly, local businesses. Does your website adjust to the screen of the user’s device? If not, you may be losing customers. - Your website has not been updated in the last 30 days
If being found online is important to your business, it should also be important to your webmaster. Your Webmaster should regularly update your website with “useful” and “unique” content to increase authority. - Your online marketing does NOT enhance your off-line marketing
Has your Webmaster asked what marketing you’re doing offline on TV, radio, or print? It’s always a good idea to tie in your offline offers to your website as a re-enforcement. - You don’t get a web traffic report every month
Really?! Your Webmaster should set this up. It’s easy to do and can be automated on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. - Your business is NOT listed when you type your business name in a search engine
This is very sad. At least 80% of the search results should be related to your business. If you search for “cavemedia llc“, you’ll see what I mean. - Do you know which keywords users are typing on search engines related to your website?
This bit of information is the key to better search engine marketing. It only requires a line of code from Google Webmaster Tools. Ask your Webmaster to install it if it’s not installed yet. - Is your website useful?
People remember to share and bookmark websites that are useful.
Did you see the FREE Website Audit tool on the right sidebar? It’s a free tool to help you identify what you need to fix on your website to increase your rankings.
Your webmaster should be finding ways like this to engage visitors and provide value in an effort to turn visitors into customers.
These 9 signs are just the tip of the iceberg but enough to know where you stand.
Your Webmaster should be an asset that makes you money. Investing in your Webmaster is similar to investing in the director that produces your TV commercial, the personality or salesperson who scripts your radio spot or the designer that designs your print ad. They should all be marketing savvy.
Please feel free to let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments area below.
To your success online and off-line,
Luis Garcia
New Age Webmaster