In today’s world, your website is the backbone of your entire marketing plan, or it should be. In fact, done right, your website marketing plan can be one of the most effective inbound marketing strategies you use.
Let me explain. While lots of people think of their sites as simple online brochures, the reality is that your website can be a dynamic 24/7 salesperson that goes beyond proving your legitimacy. What’s more, your website can serve as a hub for all of your marketing and sales efforts.
I often tell people “Your website should back up everything you do.”
And this holds true whether you are your company or you have a team with dozens of people. It follows then, that creating a website marketing plan is all about finding a way to drive traffic to your website—a website that’s written and designed with conversion in mind.
Because a gorgeous website alone won’t convert visitors—you also need copy that speaks directly to your audience and what they need or want most when they need your services. And, once you have that, the biggest challenge is getting the traffic, getting people to your site so you can guide them toward the next step in working with you (or buying from you).
But how do you do that?
How do you create a website marketing plan that helps you build buzz once you have a site so you can start capitalizing on your website launch?
Gosh, I’m glad you asked.
Understanding the Role of Your Website in Inbound Marketing
Before we get too far into website marketing plans, I want to make sure we’re on the same page as far as the role your website plays in your marketing strategy and your business as a whole.
The first thing anyone does when considering working with a business? We Google them. So if you don’t have a website, they automatically question your authenticity and legitimacy.
When I speak to audiences about website strategy, I always say that your website should do four things:
- Give you legitimacy — the act of having a website shows people you’re the real deal.
- Builds credibility — while related to legitimacy, a good website takes it a step further, allowing you to highlight what you can do for your audience.
- Builds confidence — this is more for smaller businesses and entrepreneurs, but it holds true for b2b audiences. If you have a bad website, you don’t want to send people to it, or maybe you apologize for it. On the other hand, if your site is great, you’ll send people there confidently, knowing it will back up whatever you’re saying.
- Backs you up — in addition to giving you a solid place to host your content (social media is fickle), it backs up everything you’re putting out into the world by unifying your efforts. And, with the push away from third-party data, it gives you a place to collect your own data and information about the people who are visiting your site.
So let’s take this a step further — your website is where you make first impressions and set the stage for the customer experience and long-lasting relationships. While social media, email, and SEO-optimized content are often important factors in your marketing strategy, the rest of your site has to back up, not just the sales and marketing process, but also the rest of your customer journey.
So that might be getting deeper than we need to on the role of your website, but it sets the stage for why a solid website marketing plan is so crucial to your overall strategy.
With that in mind, I also want to make sure we dive into your website roadmap.
For more insights on this, consider reading “So you’ve created a website, now what?”
Understanding the Elements of a Website Roadmap
When I start a website copy project, we usually start with brand messaging. But I also create a copy deck that serves as a website roadmap — outlining the core goals of every page and identifying some important messaging points, and giving me a central place to link all of the copy I’m writing..
In creating that document, I’m also thinking through how visitors will interact with the website and the role every page plays. For some projects, I also create a detailed timeline that defines responsibilities, deliverables, and ballpark timelines every step of the way.
Key things to consider during the brand messaging, website roadmap, and copy deck development process:
Objective:
Why are we creating this copy? Why now? What are our goals? What actions do we want visitors to take?
Target Audience:
Who are we writing this to? What are their problems? What is the stage of awareness?
Brand Voice:
How does our word choice and tone affect that audience? Is there a voice disconnect between how we show up now and how we want to show up? (P.S. I have a WHOLE brand voice-finding process that we go through to define this.)
SEO Keywords:
While my SEO strategy focuses on writing for humans first and bots second, I partner with an exceptional SEO strategist on keyword research to ensure that we’re incorporating the correct keywords.
Copy, Design, and Development Milestones:
How does the copy tie into your designer and developer’s timeline? What are the phases? While I define this in my proposal, laying it out in the roadmap clarifies the different touchpoints and responsibilities (and timelines) for each aspect.
Site Map:
How will the pages interact with each other? What are key goals and messages of every page? CTAs?
The bottom line here? A website roadmap makes sure your project has a flow and everyone involved understands the timeline and their roles.
Beyond Design and Copy — Driving Traffic to Your Site and Launching with a Website Marketing Plan
Not to gloss over the process of writing and designing your site because that’s a huge phase, but we’re totally glossing over it. (You can read more about my process here.)
So let’s pretend all of that is in the rearview mirror and you’re getting ready for launch. What is your website marketing plan? How will you drive traffic your way?
Midway through the project, I give every client my Website Launch Plan so they can use the launch of their site to build buzz and get people to it. It’s newsworthy to your business so it’s important to talk about it and use it as a tool to make your audience stand up and take notice. (It’s available to student in Whomp Whomp to Wow)
Where a developer’s launch plan focuses on the technical details they have to do, this is a website marketing plan so you’re not just launching into the void.
Because for your website to actually convert, you need people to go to the site so they can convert. And yes, a content marketing strategy is critical here, with SEO and inbound marketing tactics. We’ll get into that below.
Instead, what I want you to think about right now is how you can capitalize on the experience of launching your site so you can use THAT to build in public and build buzz. It’s sort of like online PR. Scratch that. It is online PR for your business.
So here’s what I want you to think about before you go about creating and posting content:
- What has the experience been like?
- Why did you decide to rebrand or update your messaging?
- What aha moments have you had?
- What surprised you along the way?
- Who have you partnered with?
- Who are your biggest cheerleaders?
- What was your big hairy goal with the process?
Note: If you’re B2B this is still hyper-relevant. The tone of your answers will be different than if you were B2C or a personality-driven brand, but the process remains the same. I recommend gathering stakeholders to talk through this—and when I take on these types of consulting projects, I often facilitate sessions like this at the beginning of the process, once copy sign-off is complete, and once you’re in the final days of implementation, getting ready for launch.
Why do I want you to answer those questions? Let’s get into it.
Generating Buzz Around Your Launch
Creating anticipation and excitement around your website launch is one of the most important parts of actually rebranding your company and building a new site. Here’s why. If you launch into the void, you’re missing a ton of opportunity…and it might even confuse your audience when they see a whole new look and feel.
Think of it like moving locations if you’re a brick-and-mortar business. You don’t want people to end up in someone else’s business or wondering where the heck to find you now, so you pump out a ton of information—flyers, emails, ads, texts, social content, banners on your site, signs on the door of your old place.
A move is so similar to a redesign. Even if your URL is the same, you want to excite your audience…not confuse them.
So by using the launch as an anchor for your website marketing plan, you have a reason to reach out to your audience. And, you can use the answers to those questions above to create a variety of content to let them know about your big new thing.
What Happens Post-Launch?
The short answer is “you keep going!”
Too often people talk about launching a website as the culmination of their efforts. And while the project itself may be over, launching your new site is just the beginning. While I’ve primarily focused on the buzz-building launch portion of your website marketing plan, now it’s time to talk about your ongoing marketing strategies.
But for most businesses, especially the smaller companies and startups I most frequently work with, the difference between marketing strategy and “boots on the ground” reality is huge. Because I work heavily with founders, owners, and mission-critical team members, their time is split between operations and marketing, and that means that they (we) often go into putting-out-fires mode, and priorities shift.
While I love working ahead and creating a loose 12-month marketing calendar, it’s generally not productive to spend a ton of time building out details 6-12 months in advance. Instead, by focusing on seasonal (or quarterly) plans, we can identify the efforts that are both realistic and sustainable and that build towards the 6-12 month big-picture goals without identifying a whole bunch of shiny objects.
The other aspect of this, particularly over the last 5 years, is that the market shifts rapidly, so focusing on shorter periods is both easier to bite off and more realistic.
That usually means creating one big-picture goal for every 90-day period, and identifying which efforts will get us there. Some are mission-critical, while others are more fluid and flexible and can be pushed off or eliminated if other projects, priorities, or problems arise.
Instead of getting into details here, you can read more about my approach to creating these strategies in How to Create A 90-Day Content Strategy To Smash Your Goals .)
So what’s included in this? It depends on your business, your customer base, their level of problem-awareness and YOU-awareness, and how you can connect with them. Generally speaking, these strategies are primarily digital, focusing on blog content, SEO, email marketing, and social media marketing. However, sometimes, it also includes paid advertising and direct mail campaigns.
Wrapping Up Your Website Marketing Plan
The long and short of it is that there are two phases to your website marketing plan:
Phase 1: Leading up to and during launch. (usually 1-2 months)
Phase 2: Your ongoing marketing plan. (ongoing)
What’s more, what you do depends heavily on your business and your audience, so there’s not really ever a one-size-fits-all plan. Instead, we focus on right-sizing your strategies and efforts to your budget and resources, which is usually a blend of internal and external (that’s me).
Ultimately, I want you to realize that your website marketing plan, and realistically, your entire marketing strategy is not one-and-done. It’s a living, breathing entity that you adapt over time based on the market, your audience, and your ability to keep things moving.
If you’re ready to dive into a new website and need some help figuring out how to adapt your messaging and copy, and how to market your business on a long-term basis, I’m your Girl Friday. Let’s chat.