B2B Web Strategy Blog – eMagine » So You’ve Just Re-Designed Your Website

So You’ve Just Re-Designed Your Website – Now What??

January 4th, 2007 Posted by: Bill Gadless

OK, you’ve taken the plunge and just completed your first major re-design in several years. It looks great, says what everyone thinks it should say; but the response “out there” ranges from tepid to deafening silence.

A good bit of the beauty of the Web is that sites market themselves, to an extent; but they invariably do much better with some human help. A new or re-designed site needs some extra directed effort even more; otherwise it could feel like eons before the site starts contributing like everyone hoped it would. Here are some things you can do to jumpstart the effectiveness of your new website…

First Stage: Pre-Launch

Permanent redirect (301 Redirects) – An optional function of web servers that redirects the visitor from the current page or site to another page or site, while returning a response code that says that the original page or site has been permanently moved to the new location. Search engines like this information, and will readily transfer link popularity (and PageRank) to the new site quickly. SEMs like 301 redirects, and they’re usually the preferred way to deal with multiple domains pointing at one website. Make sure you incorporate 301 Redirects, or you could be compromising your hard-earned SEO results. For more info, see Matt Cutts’ Discussion on 301 vs 302 redirects.

Display your URL address in every e-mail auto-signature on every e-mail sent by every staff member in your organization. This is a very basic – but too often lost – opportunity for advertising. It’s easy to overlook the basics.

Give the site a visibility boost in your offline advertising (broadcast, print) and tradeshow presence. You don’t need to trumpet that the site is new or improved; just give the readers a good reason to visit and discover it for themselves. Again, basic stuff!

Second Stage: 3 Months after Launch

Launch a Pay Per Click campaign utilizing your site’s important keywords. This should provide immediate and extra exposure, without having to wait for the search engines to find your site. Refer to our previous posting about PPC.

Submit website to Internet Yellow Pages on www.superpages.com and industry directories as appropriate. Side note: Over the weekend I received my new “paper” phone book (Business Listings), which I proceed to toss in the recycling bin. Driving around my neighborhood, I found that many others had done the same! When you are listed on the superpages.com it’s an inbound link and targeting local search traffic. Learn more about targeting local search on IYP (Internet Yellow Pages) sites.

Do a press release. No, the press isn’t exactly waiting with bated breath for news of your new/improved website, so limit the distribution to mainly local/regional business pubs. Sending it to industry-association sites and online distribution vehicles such as PRweb is likely to get you some click-through visits.

Third Stage: 6 Months after Launch (Basic Link building)

Check out your competitors on the web to discover what sites link to theirs; typing their full URL preceded by “link:” into the Google search box is an easy way to detect their inbound links (example: “link:http://www.yourcompetitor.com”). Presumably, it makes just as much sense for those sites to link to yours as well; so contact a marketing counterpart in each target company (or if you can’t determine a functional contact, email their webmaster), giving a rationale for why it’s appropriate for them to link to your site.

Ask your resellers and appropriate vendors/suppliers to place a link to your website on their business website. This is one out of 8 ways to develop links. eMagine offers directory submits for all our customers. I’ve listed 8 different types of links Google and other search engines look for: (I plan to have a dedicated posting on link building in the future.)

1. Authority links
2. Directory links
3. Reciprocal links
4. Links from friends or related sites
5. Edu and .Gov links
6. Radio station, television, magazine, or newspaper links
7. Press release links,
8. Article bio links

Fourth Stage: 9 Months after launch

Announce the site on select Internet newsgroups and lists; however, be sure to mind your netiquette and don’t put it on online discussion groups that in no way relate to your business. (Newsgroup charters can be found at faqs.org; any search engine can help you find various online discussion groups.) Newsgroups will work best to the extent you participate regularly by offering relevant answers to queries; this activity helps build a reputation for your organization and its website as a valuable resource. Check out Google Groups and Yahoo! Groups, to help get you started.

Email news of your website updates to your customer/prospect list, including a promotion or special offer as an inducement for visiting the site. (If you don’t already have a regular e-mail newsletter, do your company a favor and take this opportunity to start one.) If you direct-mail a hardcopy newsletter, include the news there as well.

Throughout the entire process, don’t forget the most important thing:

Monitor the number and types of people visiting your site …via tracking software, site analytics, online questionnaire, etc. This will help you gauge the success of your marketing effort, and where you may need to make adjustments.

In the wider view: many of the things you should do to market your re-designed site are in fact things you need to do anyway, simply to drive traffic to your site. You just need to give them an extra boost around launch time and throughout the following year, to maximize the number of visitors who will encounter the new content and/or functions …and hopefully return for additional visits and talk up your site (and company) within their professional networks.

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