I wasn’t intending to go to the Field of Dreams movie site. I was on my way to Milwaukee heading east on Highway 20 and the sign for Dyersville caught me off guard. The stop would delay the journey, but how can you not stop at the Field of Dreams? I mean, it’s the freaking Field of Dreams!
Now if you haven’t seen the movie Field of Dreams stop reading. What planet are you from? Go watch it, right now. Seriously, it’s that good. Ok, so you don’t have time to watch it? Watch this trailer because it will give you the general idea.
You know, the creepy voice that says, “If you build it, he will come.”
The “you” is you or your marketing department.
The “it” is your Web site.
The “he” is your traffic.
Remember in the movie, everyone thought Kevin Costner’s character, “Ray Kinsella” was crazy for building a baseball field over his precious fertile Iowa farm land? He waited all winter. He stared out the window looking at that field he built. Nothing but a big empty baseball field that no one used. This was Ray’s shot. His chance to do something meaningful with his life. Up to this point in the movie, he had failed.
Do you feel the same way about your Web site? No one plays on your site. No one visits. They do, but there’s nothing happening there, and they leave. They leave as quickly as possible. You spent a fortune on that thing, didn’t you? It was supposed to be this magical lead generation machine. It was supposed to change everything for the sales and marketing departments. Your company was going to go to next level. But it failed.
Back to the movie. After a few months, a baseball player finally shows up on Ray’s field. A ghost. Shoeless Joe Jackson. He brought other ghosts with him, like Smokey Joe Wood. And Mel Ott. And Paul Lessing. And Gil Hodges! But Ray Kinsella knew there was more when the voice came back, saying:
“Go the Distance.”
In Ray’s case, going the distance meant taking a road trip to discover what he was missing in his life. He found it, but it took a lot of hard work. He had to take James Earl Jones to a baseball game, travel back in time, pick up a hitchhiker, risk losing his farm to that dude from 30 Something and support his wife and daughter. But he went the distance.
Now, what’s this mean for your Web site? It means you need to GO THE DISTANCE. Simply building a baseball field and having some dead ball players show up wasn’t enough for Ray Kinsella. Building a Web site and getting some site visits that never materialize shouldn’t be enough for you either.
How do you go the Distance? You have to work hard on your Web site just like Ray Kinsella worked to get what he needed. Luckily, you don’t need to leave the state or pick up a hitchhiker. Here are six things you should do:
1. Nurture your Web site. That thing is more important than any single piece of marketing you send out. Don’t believe me? What’s the first thing you do when you hear about a company you know nothing about? You Google it. Do at least one thing a week to update your Web site. Doing so will increase your search engine rankings. When you do that, Google hears: “Hey, someone cares about this Web site. Let’s rank them higher.” I’m not kidding.
2. Update your Web site. Add new things to your site. News, white papers. Sorry to hear you’re limited by your ability to make frequent changes. I don’t care! Get a new tech guy who obeys commands or can build you a Web site with a content management system someone who only knows Microsoft Word can update. Being held at the mercy of the IT department is so 2000 and AOL. No more excuses.
3. Have conversations online. Start them yourself, or join conversations already happening. Blog, tweet, put videos on YouTube, get on Facebook and work your butt off to drive traffic to your site by providing the type of content your customer and prospects find valuable. If you don’t know what they find valuable, you don’t know your customer. Notice I didn’t call it “social media” because that term is shuned by your boss who doesn’t understand what it means. Social media is a mechanism/medium/vehicle/platform for getting your message to people. It shouldn’t be called “media” anyway because I typically have to pay for media. Social Media is free, and, like the Social Media Guru says, “It’s social media baby, you do it yourself.”
4. Search Engine Optimization. SEO doesn’t have to be about page titles and meta data. Save that for the wonk who makes it painful to update your Web site. (Don’t skim this post, go read number two again). Do a search on Google for “Iowa Social Media” – check the first two results. That cost the Lessing-Flynn squat.
5. Multipurpose your content. You know that tired newsletter you send out every month? There’s content in there, right? It may not look as tired if your shortened the five paragraph article, summarized it in two paragraphs and served it up like it was fresh as a blog post. Oh yeah, if they want to read more, link from your blog to your Web site and give them all five paragraphs.
6. Video is king. Why do I say that? Time on site. Time spent with your brand. Would you rather watch a three minute video and feel all warm and fuzzy or read a blog post that’s too long (like this one). Do you have any videos? Post them. Where? Anywhere you can. YouTube, your blog, Facebook, then tweet about them like it’s going out of style. These videos don’t need to look like some HD Pepsi ad either. Have you seen the stuff that passes as good marketing on YouTube? Today, quality in the content’s message is more important than how sexy it looks when produced. Our creative directors just cringed. Sorry guys.
I could go on, but those are the basics.
The Web site you built doesn’t have a cornfield with magical traffic pouring onto it. While there are best Web practices and good SEO tactics (and bad SEO tactics) there are simply things us non-code writing folks can do. We just have to commit to doing them. We have to go the distance.
Author: Josh Fleming
www.lessingflynn.com
I tried to get a Moonlight Graham reference in here but failed. If anyone has one, let’s have it in the comments section!
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Josh, thanks for this post this morning. It really hit home with me…or hit me in the gut is more like it. Things I needed to hear!__ Field of Dreams, indeed. Thanks.
Josh: You hit this post out of the park! (Pun manufactured and intended) It was so pertinent that you posted this today. In front of a room of substance abuse treatment professionals at a talk today, I was making the case for tying social media and optimized Web content together. I read this post right before my presentation, so it was fresh in my mind. I just told them to read your post! Thanks for making my job easier! Claire
But, I don’t search Google for Iowa Social Media…I search for Des Moines is not Boring.
@Buck – glad to help, sometimes I need to remind myself of some of these things, especially the “update your website” part.
@Claire – thanks! Where can I send the invoice for line item “Making your job easier” ? : )
@Pete – We all like to Google ourselves, don’t we? : )
Thanks for reading, folks. Still hoping to get the Moonlight Graham reference.
Josh, I know you are kidding about the invoice but isn’t that the typical agency stereotype you are perpetuating? If I think about you, I bill you. If I talk to you, I bill you, kind of thinking?
Typical agency? Yes. This one. No way. : )