Which Comes First – Website Design or Website Promotion?

The Importance of Website Design

Designing a website that is not only relevant to your market but also optimized for the search engines will lay the foundation for your success. Successful sites on the web today are driven by social media and Web 2.0 platforms; your website must have a few fundamental elements of Web 2.0 design interwoven to the site so that components such as articles, blogs, and video can be shared easily across the major social networks. Without these components, you could be left far behind your competition and fail to reach your target market. In the end, this means lower levels of traffic and infrequent visitors.

A website that is both SEO-friendly and W3C compliant is another important element to keep in mind; if your site isn’t indexable by the search engines, even the most creative website promotion strategy won’t bring you steady traffic for the long-term.

The Importance of Website Promotion

Promoting your website also plays a critical role in website development; with the right strategy and well-designed site in place, you will be able to build steady traffic while increasing brand awareness of your business.

The overall design of the site can help you branch out into different social media networks and develop successful website promotion campaigns. For example, having a simple ‘share this’ feature implemented on your website will enable any user to bookmark your content and share it with their social network. This is a very basic, ‘natural’ form of website promotion that can essentially help you market your site to your target market. Including a discussion forum or a blog where users can post comments is another way to build a high-traffic site; this is another form of marketing as word-of-mouth spreads when users share information and link back to their posts and comments.

Without the appropriate features in place – which are all a part of your web design project - none of this can take place.

How to Proceed with Website Design and Website Promotion

When you’re building a website with new features and custom content, you will need to make sure the content is applicable to your target market’s needs. This is where a strategic marketing plan may be required, and this will then turn into a formal website promotion plan geared specifically to your market.

From the launch stages to tracking your visitors and learning about their behavior on the site, building your site to accommodate for your marketing strategy will help you get the leverage you need to succeed in today’s competitive marketplace – no matter what type of industry you are in.

About the Author

Caroline Melberg is President and CEO of Small Business Mavericks, a division of Melberg Marketing. She has over 20 years of experience creating marketing communications materials and writing copy for some of the largest and most successful companies in the world. Her small business columns are syndicated online, and she publishes the popular eZine, "Small Business Maverick Secrets." For more information about Website Design, Development and Promotion, visit www.SmallBusinessMavericks.com and get your FREE copy of The Business Owner’s Guidebook to Website Design and Promotion today!