Corporate websites are constantly evolving their ability to engage with customers, and the tools and techniques that marketers can use for this are also evolving as the market innovates.
Websites at the centre of your digital strategy
Your website should always be seen as the central point of your digital brand. There are many digital solutions that can and should support your website including Social Media, online ads and email. These and other activity should all be used to drive traffic to your website. Once customers are on your website, you can direct messages and manage their journeys through your website to specific goals you set.
Driving traffic to your site
Online and offline marketing communications will help drive traffic to your website and landing pages.
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) friendly pages should be used. These should have relevant keywords and sensible navigation and breadcrumbs as well as friendly URLs. Back-links from authoritative websites will also assist in SEO. Additionally, accessibly web pages will rank higher, so ensure you conform to at least W3C AA standards.
- Email marketing will present target customers with catching summaries of your content. Sending them regularly will allow you to build up a picture of individual's habits and interests, allowing you to create more personalised offerings and landing pages based on their preferences.
- Social Media requires some investment in time, but the rewards can be excellent if you get the message right and this is shared amongst opinion leaders.
- Pay Per Click (PPC) and display advertising can be a major traffic driver if you have the budget.
- Offline communications should also support your online message and creative. Ensure landing page URLs are used so that visitors from offline can be measured, tracked and ROI understood.
Website optimisation
Improving the services delivered online and honing user journeys is a key element of website optimisation.
- Top tasks should be identified via your analytics. This will enable you to then concentrate your efforts on ensuring these activities are presented in the best way, and that transactions are a streamlined as possible.
- Multi-variate testing will allow you to further refine page layout. This is a process where by users are dynamically presented with different versions of a page and the resultant behaviours are subjected to statistical analyses to determine which is the best version of the page to adopt. This is not a one-off process, but a continually evolving and iterative one where alternative variants are tested regularly.
Analytics for insight
Measuring everything to understand what works and what doesn't. This includes all your online traffic driving activity, website user journeys and marketing activity. From the careful analysis of such data, insights can be uncovered to create actionable improvements to navigation, content and processes.
In addition to basic information such as visits and bounce rate, you should also look at
- Exit Pages - is it a valid exit / why did they leave.
- Internal Search - use internal and external search terms to build an SEO strategy.
- Dead Content - measure and review pages that are not visited.
- Goal Pages - set goal, monitor them and amend accordingly.
This will feedback into your traffic driving and web optimisation activity. You will be able to see where traffic is coming from, i.e. which channels and marketing activity are producing the most traffic. Analytics can also be used to determine what visitors do on your site, where they complete tasks and where they fail.
Case Study
GOSS regularly implements this approach and works with clients to ensure maximum conversion rates. 
This Case Study details one such partnership with Brittany Ferries a leading car ferry operator that has seen significant improvements in its online customer experience and bookings. This is due to the work done to understand their customers, engage with them, optimise their website and drive traffic to their site.
