Have you ever wondered why your website doesn’t get more hits? Do your customers go to your college website and just give up when they can’t find your Workforce Development or Contract Training Area? Just how boring is your website?
From my experience, the Continuing Education/Workforce Development Area of a college usually is an “add on” after the main academic website is created. This area may or may not even have its own identification button.
I suffered from the same website issues when I launched my consulting business, Contract Training Edge. My first website was a “sea of words” with little or no graphics. There were no “keywords” identified for people to find me in their search. The website wasn’t very engaging. It was time for an extreme makeover.
After meeting Brad and David at WorkSmart Integrated Marketing, they agreed my website needed major changes and added the following updates:
- Changed the font, making the web pages easier to read.
- Created a Visual CV so people could learn about me right away with one click.
- Placed my latest presentation on Slideshare so people visiting my website could learn something new.
- Placed a white paper for downloading as a value-added benefit of visiting my website.
- Created a Tips Page. We print four or five bullets of an article in my monthly e-newsletter and then drive readers to my website to finish the article. We can then track traffic to my website, pages visited, clicks, and forwards.
- Embedded my Benchmark Study for downloading on my website.
- Designed the header with Flash, featuring keywords and quotes from my happy customers.
- Placed upcoming events on every page so customers can track my upcoming workshops.
- Added LinkedIn and Facebook buttons making it easy for people to connect with me.
- Inserted keywords in my website that people would search for in this industry. Examples included Workforce Development, Contract Training, Continuing Education, Solution Selling, and Sales Coaching.
The extreme makeover has worked. My customers say they can easily find me and learn about my services. They enjoy the free tips and ability to learn the latest about sales or workforce development in a PowerPoint presentation or white paper. Every month I gain more friends on Facebook and increase my LinkedIn network because people have visited the website. Stop by and see for yourself!
Ask your customers how easy it is to find you on your website. If the answer is time consuming or many layers deep, it may be time for an extreme makeover.