Website Redesign ROI - 10 Ideas to Make the Most of Your Website Investment

Website Redesign ROI:
10 Ideas to Make the Most of Your
Website Investment
May 6, 2014

INTRODUCTION
• Skoda Minotti, CPA Firm
 Cleveland, Akron & Tampa
• Eight year BDO Alliance firm member
• Built our own internal agency from scratch
• Insights from the inside
• Practice what we preach
• Marketing partner with BDO Alliance firms

• Idea #1: Website Strategy
• Idea #2: Web Design
• Idea #3: Search Engine Optimization
• Idea #4: Mobile vs. Responsive
• Idea #5: Inbound Marketing
• Idea #6: Content Management System
• Idea #7: e-Newsletters
• Idea #8: Analytics
• Idea #9: Ongoing Maintenance
• Idea #10: Your Design Team
AGENDA

Idea #1:
Website Investment
Determine A Web Strategy

Begin With End in Mind
• What are your website goals/objectives?
 Drive traffic
 Reduce bounce rate
 Time on site
 Lead generation
 Revenue generation
 Current SEO rankings for important keywords
• Many of these goals are dependent on each other
WEBSITE STRATEGY
IDEA #1:

Four Categories of Websites
1. Establish a web presence/credibility
2. Promote your brand
3. Serve as a resource
4. Generate & track qualified leads
WEBSITE STRATEGY
IDEA #1:

Category #1: Establish a Web Presence/Credibility
• People are Googling your company
• What do they find when they get to your website?
 First impression
 Establishing a web presence allows you to control this message
• Smaller budgets that leverage existing templates
• Typically not more than 25 pages
• Functions as a “cyber-brochure”
• Typically leveraged by firms who live off of referrals
• Verifies you exist and hopes someone will give you a call
WEBSITE STRATEGY
IDEA #1:

Category #1 Establish a Web Presence/Credibility
• Basic overview
• No calls to action
• No interaction
• No unique resource information
• No lead generation or tracking
• Missed opportunities
INDUSTRIES
WEBSITE STRATEGY
IDEA #1:

Category #2: Promote Your Brand
• First interaction with your brand
 A branded website allows you to control the look and feel that your clients
and prospects encounter
• Allows you to differentiate your website from your competitors’
• Communicate core brand values visually
• Coordinate consistent messaging with your other marketing materials
• More flexible - allows for custom design/creativity
• Shares your firm’s personality
WEBSITE STRATEGY
IDEA #1:

Example: Promoting the Brand
WEBSITE STRATEGY
IDEA #1:

Category #3: Serve as a Resource
• Clients, business contacts and prospects are looking for answers to their
questions online
 Can you be the answer?
• Become visible in search engines for questions your customers are asking
• Content helps drive people to the site
• Have visitors return to your site over and over
• Further brand awareness
• Requires time/investment to create and maintain content
WEBSITE STRATEGY
IDEA #1:

Category #3: Serve as a Resource
• Blogs
• E-Books
• E-newsletters
• Industry Surveys
• Presentations
• Special Offers
• Videos
• Webinars/Seminars
WEBSITE STRATEGY
IDEA #1:

Category #4: Generate & Track Leads
• Attracting hundreds or thousands of visitors is great, but…
 Do you know who they are?
 What is important them?
 How they found you?
 When/how often they come back to your website?
 Are they qualified leads?
• Create relevant, valuable content in exchange for contact information
 Collect lead details by using offers (i.e., e-books, PPTs, videos, etc.)
• Invest your time pursuing qualified leads
• Time must be invested to create content that your visitors will value highly
• Leverage your team for content
WEBSITE STRATEGY
IDEA #1:

Generate & Track Leads
• Create free offers/e-books
• Promote on website & e-newsletters
• Build landing pages to capture lead
• Ask qualifying questions
WEBSITE STRATEGY
IDEA #1:

Idea #2:
Website Investment
Web Design

Website Design Considerations
• Benchmarking
• Homepage
• Subpages
• Navigation
• Reducing Site Load Times
WEB DESIGN
IDEA #2:

Benchmark Current Metrics
• Document your current performance metrics
• Start by analyzing your existing site over its history
 Number of visits/visitors/unique visitors
 Bounce rate
 Time on site
 Current SEO rankings for important keywords
 Domain authority
 Number of new leads/form submissions
 Total amount of sales generated
• Don’t have Stats? Add Google Analytics
WEBSITE DESIGN
IDEA #2:

Avoid Pitfalls. Inventory Your Assets
• Redesign typically good, but…
• Don’t delete existing web assets
 Most shared or viewed content
 Most trafficked pages
 Best performing keywords you rank for
& associated pages
 Number of inbound links to individual pages
ALERT!
Removing page(s) that have a high number of inbound links, could result in
a loss of SEO credit, which could decrease your search ranking!
NOTE:
Many web designers don’t consider this because they are not marketers.
WEB DESIGN
IDEA #2:

Analyze the Competition
• Don’t obsess, but it helps to know how you compare
• Run your website through Marketing Grader
– Run competitors too
• Review competitor sites, note what you like/don’t like
• Don’t copy them. Improve on what they have!
SPECIAL NOTE:
Marketing Grader: Go to http://marketing.grader.com to get a report card of
how your website and marketing is performing today. It’s free!
WEB DESIGN
IDEA #2:

Homepage
• A homepage is a “portal” into the
rest of your website
• How can you quickly get visitors
where they want to go?
• Features to consider:
– Messaging to address client hot
buttons
– Timely information: News/blog feed
– Site search
– Lead generation/calls-to-action
– Easy to find contact information
WEB DESIGN
IDEA #2:

Subpages
WEB DESIGN
IDEA #2:
• Specific
service/industry
subpages can
improve SEO &
overall site
navigation
• Keep the reader in
mind when writing
copy. Less is more.
• Always include a
means to request
more information
• Leverage sidebars
to include related
content that may
interest the visitor
Best Practice Tip:
Add Calls-to-Action
buttons to generate
qualified leads

WEB DESIGN
IDEA #2:
Website Navigation
• “Non-traditional”
navigation may cause
poor user experience.
• Keep menu titles and
options simple and easy
to understand
• Consider “mega-menus”
as an improvement on
standard drop down
menus
• Analytics programs can
give you clues about
which pages need more
navigation prominence
during redesign

Reducing Website Load Times
• Faster loading pages are more user-friendly
AND more Google-friendly.
• Best practices:
 Minimize image file sizes where possible
 Prioritize “above-the-fold” content from a load
time perspective
 Reduce the number of website plugins
 Ensure optimized website code
WEB DESIGN
IDEA #2:

Idea #3:
Website Investment
Search
Engine Optimization

SEO Plays a Key Role in Customer Acquisition
Survey N = 3,339 Source: HubSpot
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
16%
Avg. Percentage of Leads that Convert to Sales
15%
13%
12%
11%
9%
8%
7% 7%
SEO
IDEA #3:

Source: Forrester Research
SEO
IDEA #3:

Source: Search Engine Watch
SEO
IDEA #3:

SEO – PAID VS. ORGANIC
IDEA #3:

SEO – KEYWORD RESEARCH
IDEA #3:
https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner

SEO - DESCRIPTIONS
IDEA #3:
Meta Description Tags

SEO - LINKS
IDEA #3:
Create Individual Sub-Service Pages
• More indexed pages result
in better SEO rankings
• Rather than just list
sub-service offerings,
create individual pages
for each sub-service
offering.
• More pages equals
more service specific
keywords which
enhances SEO

SEO - LINKS
IDEA #3:
Create Individual Sub-Service Pages
• List services but link
them to their own
page.
Best Practices Tip:
Leverage free offers

SEO - LINKS
IDEA #3:
Value of Links
• Link quality matters. Less about quantity
• Consider landing page for links
 Link to specific service or industry pages vs. home page
 Better user experience
 More link juice to the page
• Don’t “keyword-stuff” anchor text
• Google frowns on “link-schemes”
 Creating links intended to manipulate PageRank
 Leveraging links that weren’t editorially placed or vouched for
by the site’s owner on a page.

Find New Link Partners
• Partners/vendors
• Trade associations
• Community organizations
• Local Chambers of Commerce
• Better Business Bureau
• Colleges/Universities (recruiting)
SEO – LINK BUILDING
IDEA #3:

Idea #4:
Website Investment
Mobile vs. Responsive Design

Why Do You Need a Mobile Friendly Website?
MOBILE VS. RESPONSIVE
IDEA #4:
Source: Smart Insights - http://bit.ly/1cjAdpn
Website Visits by Device Q4 2012 Q1 2013 Q2 2013 Q3 2013 Q4 2013
OverallTabletSmartphone

Responsive Design vs. Mobile Website
• Responsive Design
 Automatically adjusts to optimize
display size
 Must be built “from the ground up”
• Mobile Website
 Custom-designed for a smartphone
experience
 Can be “added on” to an existing website
 Does not require a complete rebuild
IDEA #4:

Responsive Design vs. Mobile Website
IDEA #4:
Element Responsive Design Mobile Website
Design Flexibility Design adapts to any monitor/device Design built specifically for mobile
User Experience
May cause longer load times for mobile
visitors as all website content loads onto
each page
Can be customized for the mobile user
experience(show as much or as little content
as is needed).
SEO
Google announced it prefers responsive
design for SEO purposes
Google supports mobile sites but it is not its
recommended approach
Content Updates
Content only needs to be updated in one
central location
Content changes will require two separate
updates. (i.e., Main & Mobile)
Cost
Typically a more expensive solution as the
entire site needs to be coded in a
responsive format.
Typically less expensive as a mobile site can
be custom-designed and usually will require
much less content than a full site.

Mobile/Responsive Best Practices
• Keep in mind that you are designing for touch
• Design to allow space for a finger (28x28 pixels)
around your links
• Redesign your drop-down menus
• Think through how lead conversions will work
• Implement features like “click-to-call” and
“click-to-map”
IDEA #4:

Idea #5: Inbound Marketing
Website Investment

What is Inbound Marketing?
• Creating highly value content that your
clients/prospects will seek out and find you
• Marketing practice that makes your firm and
your content easy to find
• Drives prospects to your website
• Leverages your website to generate and track
qualified leads
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

Inbound Marketing Components
• Blogs
• Calls-to-Action
• Contact Forms
• E-book/Offers
• Landing Pages
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:
Quick Poll
• How many firm’s here have a blog?
• How many times a month does your firm
post a blog?
• How many authors do you have?
• How many people here contribute to it as an
author?

INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:
Source: HubSpot

INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:
Source: Vitberg 2013 – 2014 CPA Firm Best Lead Generation Practices Survey

INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:
Blogs - Content Generation
• Industry News/Opinion/BDO
 Content Curation Sites (i.e., Scoopit.Com)
• FAQs From Clients
• Firm News
• Guest Blogs
• Repurposed Content From Other Platforms
 Speaking engagements, white papers, videos, etc.
• Leverage Keywords (i.e., headline & body copy)
• Build a Team of Bloggers and Go!

Attracting Traffic to Blog
• Search Engine Optimization
• Website
• E-blast/E-newsletters/E-mail signatures
• Social Media
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

Measurement
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

• Generate significant, targeted organic search traffic on an ongoing basis
• Content “lives forever” online
• Continue to attract search traffic long after it has been posted
Search Growth-Blog
2009
Visits: 6,902
Page views: 7,235
Search Hits: 1,115
Blogs Posted: 131
2010
Visits: 14,761
Page views: 16,050
Search Hits: 5,866
Blogs Posted:174
2011
Visits: 21,712
Page views: 24,731
Search Hits: 12,712
Blogs Posted: 200
2012
Visits: 28,308
Page views: 41,945
Search Hits: 20,416
Blogs Posted: 274
2013
Visits: 36,259
Page views: 54,599
Search Hits: 21,094
Blogs Posted: 246
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

BLOGS
Best Practices Tip:
Leverage free offers
Best Practices Tip:
Allow people to
subscribe
Best Practices Tip:
Sort by service or
industry
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

Sign Up
Order Now
Download
Get Started
Read Now
Free Trial
CALLS-TO-ACTION
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:
Calls-To-Action
• Important element for driving qualified leads
• Capitalize on traffic to your website
• Drive prospects deeper into the sales funnel
• CTAs drive traffic to landing pages
• Landing pages convert traffic into leads

Call To Action
Best Practice Tip:
Ask Qualifying Questions
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

Call-To-Action Buttons
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

Contact Form
• Base model
• Only on one page
• Requires almost no effort from
site owner
• Low lead generation
Practice Areas
Accounting & Auditing
Business Consulting
Employee Benefit Plan Audits
Estate Planning
Litigation Advisory
State & Local Tax
Tax Planning
RANALLO
& AVENI LLC
RANALLO
& AVENI LLC
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

Contact Form
• Have on every page
• You never know at what point
someone will decide to
contact you
 Touch base
 Ask questions
 Request quote
 Request information
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

Ask an Expert
• Answer direct questions from clients
& prospective clients
• Requires technical expertise &
monitoring
• Timely response
• Dedicated
• Provides direct interaction
• Positions you as an industry
expert/leader/authority
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

Jonathan
Mailing List
• Sign up for information
• Typically an e-newsletter
• Need to create & provide
information
• Dedication (i.e., quarterly, monthly
weekly, etc.)
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

Jonathan
Jonathan
jebenstein@skodaminotti.com
Ebenstein
Skoda Minotti
Mailing List
• Sign up for information
• Typically an e-newsletter
• Need to create & provide information
• Dedication (i.e., quarterly, monthly
weekly, etc.)
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

Events
• Webinars
• Seminars
• Open House
• Lunch & Learns
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

Best Practice Tip:
PULL LIVE FEEDS
E-Books
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

Lead Follow-Up
• Someone MUST own this
• Create process and follow it
• Personal contact
• Add leads to marketing communications
(i.e., e-newsletter, e-blasts, etc.)
• Keep-in-touch program
INBOUND MARKETING
IDEA #5:

Idea #6:
Website Investment
Content Management System

What is a Content Management System (CMS)?
• Make updates to website content without a
required knowledge of code
• Functionality can typically be customized to
meet specific website update needs
• Many CMS can be upgraded over time to
account for new functionality requirements
• There are a wide variety of both free and paid
CMS solutions from which to choose
CMS
IDEA #6:

Choosing the Right CMS for You
• Benefits of choosing a free CMS solution
(i.e. WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc.)
 No start-up cost
 Large developer community to rely on for
support/plugins/themes/etc.
 Familiar interface for managing content
• Benefits of choosing a paid CMS solution
(i.e. Expression Engine, HubSpot)
 Commercial support available for quick resolution to
issues
 Less vulnerable to security breaches than free CMS
 “Official” (trusted) plugins/modules available to
enhance site functionality
CMS
IDEA #6:

CMS Functionality to Consider
• Add/remove pages/blog posts
• Edit text/photos/videos on pages/blog posts
• Edit site navigation
• Add/remove digital assets (i.e., pdfs, audio,
video, zip files)
• Edit webpage metadata (for SEO)
• User login/member management
• E-commerce
CMS
IDEA #6:

CMS Best Practices
• Train multiple users on the system to prevent
delays on updates
• Be aware when pasting content directly from
Word – use Notepad instead
• Create website style guide to ensure all
updates are consistent
• Have a team in place to spot check updates on
a regular basis and scan for errors (i.e., broken
links, formatting issues, SEO data, etc.)
CMS
IDEA #6:

Idea #7:
Website Investment
E-newsletter

E-newsletter Considerations on Your Website
• Easy to signup on your site
• Host an archive of old issues/articles
• Link e-newsletter sends to your website/blog
• Increase search rankings
E-NEWSLETTER
IDEA #7:

Best Practice Tip:
CROSS PROMOTE
E-Newsletter
E-NEWSLETTER
IDEA #7:

Idea #8:
Website Investment
Analytics

How Are You Measuring the Success of Your Website?
• Number of visitors?
• Search visibility?
• Quality of visitors?
• Number of leads?
• Number of sales?
ANALYTICS
IDEA #8:

Google Analytics
• In order to start tracking, you need an
analytics program
• Google Analytics is free and easy to use
• http://www.google.com/analytics/
• Install tracking code and you can be up and
running in minutes
ANALYTICS
IDEA #8:

Google Analytics Overview
ANALYTICS
IDEA #8:

Referring Sites
ANALYTICS
IDEA #9:

Website Redesign ROI - 10 Ideas to Make the Most of Your Website Investment

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