Dave Marquard, CEO of SuperFlash has been appointed as WEMCO IT chair.
WEMCO is a Standing Committee of AWS that represents manufacturers making products for welding process and application. The Association is dedicated to providing a common voice to the welding industry, government bodies, and technical organizations worldwide.
Part of Dave's duties as WEMCO IT chair is writing an IT column. Below is one of Dave's IT columns on the topic of making your website more effective.
“Check List for Making Your Website More Effective”
√ A website with great aesthetics and interesting content will generate “organic” (normal) Google search results for free. An organic search result is the best and most sought after type of search result that will ultimately increases the number of “hits” and traffic your website will have. An organic search result for your website is not something that can be purchased, even though many companies would like to sell you “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO) services. Often times these services are not very helpful and aren’t worth the cost. The best way to generate organic search results for your site is by having the most relevant information for a particular topic.
√ Plain old search ads can work, but they must be managed. Using search ads that are paid for will provide you with immediate feedback. This feedback will show you how well your ads are working, and allow you to take corrective action to adjust / improve them.
√ Think of what the “conversion” is for the ad. Can customers take some action such as buy a product or sign up for a newsletter after seeing your ad? If not, your ad is not doing its job.
√ How your ad appears on mobile devices must be taken into consideration when setting up your ad. It is important to include the “Click to call” option in your ad for mobile devices. This will increase the “conversion” results in a call to you, and works well for a lot of traditional businesses.
√ “Remarketing” is an advanced concept which shows your ads to people that have visited your website before. “Remarketing” is a great way to show ads to customers that have expressed interest in your products and keep your brand in the customers mind so that when they are ready to make a purchase, they think of you.