Your website IS your agency to the outside world. Is it in fact effective for you?
To prospective clients, search consultants, potential employees and the media, your website is the
crucial first impression you make. It’s the most important source of information about you. It must
quickly show the right prospects why you’re right for them. Some agency sites are terrific. But many
aren't good enough. How good is yours? Is it regularly delivering prospects to you on its own?
Research indicates that if prospective clients don't start seeing what they want to know about your agency within 2-3 minutes, they'll leave the site... and you've just lost your chance. Don't be one of those agencies.
To be truly new business-friendly, here are five things that your site and its SEO must do. (There are more. Call me and we can talk about them.)
1. Feature your 4-6 WHAT WE KNOW BEST target categories prominently on the home page. (See "Be Different" in the nav
bar above.) This is what prospects are looking for. More than anything else, they want to know if you've helped to solve a
similar problem before. Make WHAT WE KNOW BEST very easy to find.
2. Each of these target categories needs its own landing page which includes client experience, a very brief case study with
specific results, a few examples of noteworthy creative work in this category plus 2-3 fresh, useful insights on how marketers can succeed here. These pages prove your expertise. If you can, add one or two testimonials from clients in each category.
3. Prospective clients might set aside an hour to quickly scan 15-20 agency websites. Can they start finding what THEY want to
know (within a minute or less) after getting to your home page? Such as…
- Do you have experience in my category? Have you helped to solve a similar problem before? For whom? The results?
- How big is your agency? How many people? Key services provided? Who are your major clients?
- Whom would I be working with if I selected your agency? What experience do they have and what do they look like?
- What kind of work do you do? (And I only need to see a few strong examples... not page after boring page of your last five
years’ worth of everything.)
4. Having strong title tags (also known as page titles) for every page in your site is extremely important to your search
rankings in Google and Bing... which directly determine whether or not interested parties will find your website
during their online search. On-page text and h1 tags are also important. While not crucial to search rankings per se (at least for Google), your meta descriptions significantly affect clickthrough. Many agencies (and their "Digital gurus") still don't
understand the importance of these things and do a poor job on them. Don't be one of these agencies. I can fix this for you
within four weeks.
5. If you spend more than 2-3 sentences talking about your philosophies, systems or so-called “Proprietary processes”, delete,
delete, delete. Even better… don’t talk about these at all.
I’ve analyzed hundreds of agency sites. I've structured and written new business-friendly websites for seven agencies and four marketers. I've also built six sites of my own from scratch (and developed their SEO). Contact me for a free consultation about yours.
To prospective clients, search consultants, potential employees and the media, your website is the
crucial first impression you make. It’s the most important source of information about you. It must
quickly show the right prospects why you’re right for them. Some agency sites are terrific. But many
aren't good enough. How good is yours? Is it regularly delivering prospects to you on its own?
Research indicates that if prospective clients don't start seeing what they want to know about your agency within 2-3 minutes, they'll leave the site... and you've just lost your chance. Don't be one of those agencies.
To be truly new business-friendly, here are five things that your site and its SEO must do. (There are more. Call me and we can talk about them.)
1. Feature your 4-6 WHAT WE KNOW BEST target categories prominently on the home page. (See "Be Different" in the nav
bar above.) This is what prospects are looking for. More than anything else, they want to know if you've helped to solve a
similar problem before. Make WHAT WE KNOW BEST very easy to find.
2. Each of these target categories needs its own landing page which includes client experience, a very brief case study with
specific results, a few examples of noteworthy creative work in this category plus 2-3 fresh, useful insights on how marketers can succeed here. These pages prove your expertise. If you can, add one or two testimonials from clients in each category.
3. Prospective clients might set aside an hour to quickly scan 15-20 agency websites. Can they start finding what THEY want to
know (within a minute or less) after getting to your home page? Such as…
- Do you have experience in my category? Have you helped to solve a similar problem before? For whom? The results?
- How big is your agency? How many people? Key services provided? Who are your major clients?
- Whom would I be working with if I selected your agency? What experience do they have and what do they look like?
- What kind of work do you do? (And I only need to see a few strong examples... not page after boring page of your last five
years’ worth of everything.)
4. Having strong title tags (also known as page titles) for every page in your site is extremely important to your search
rankings in Google and Bing... which directly determine whether or not interested parties will find your website
during their online search. On-page text and h1 tags are also important. While not crucial to search rankings per se (at least for Google), your meta descriptions significantly affect clickthrough. Many agencies (and their "Digital gurus") still don't
understand the importance of these things and do a poor job on them. Don't be one of these agencies. I can fix this for you
within four weeks.
5. If you spend more than 2-3 sentences talking about your philosophies, systems or so-called “Proprietary processes”, delete,
delete, delete. Even better… don’t talk about these at all.
I’ve analyzed hundreds of agency sites. I've structured and written new business-friendly websites for seven agencies and four marketers. I've also built six sites of my own from scratch (and developed their SEO). Contact me for a free consultation about yours.