It's a cliché, but true: The only thing constant on the web is change!

It wasn't that long ago that:

• Going to your web site meant typing in the "URL."
• Search engines like Google and Yahoo! played a much smaller role in internet marketing, and internet marketing played a much smaller role in marketing overall.
• There were several million fewer web sites competing with yours.

Now:

• People find your site via their favorite search engine, and don't care what your URL is.
• The saturation of advertising has gotten to the point where attention spans are short, filters are mighty, and capturing attention is harder than ever.
• Your web site competes with other web sites, blogs, and social networks.

Your web site needs to capitalize on new technologies, new marketing techniques, and the changing ways people use the web if you want to get the most out of it.

This is the story of how Acuity Consulting, Inc. moved their site forward.

AcuityConsult.com was created as part of a branding effort (see the case study). The site was on message, unique in its design, and capitalized on the “hot” techniques and technologies of the day.

Five years later, the need for an update was apparent. Key project objectives included:

• Increasing the site's attractiveness to search engines in order to draw more visitors to the site, and
• Having visitors view more pages once they’re on the site so they’ll absorb more content.

The new design is built around the concept of a “wheel of pain.” Prospects (supply chain companies) visit the site and “Click Where It Hurts.”

By design, the “wheel” concept is keyword rich and focuses on the needs of Acuity’s target audience. Clicking on areas of pain such as "inventory" or "manufacturing" takes visitors to pages where they're given precise, uncomplicated (and keyword loaded) suggestions for making the pain go away.

The redesign also features an “Ask a Guru” feature so that site visitors wanting more information can quickly and easily get the answers they need. These requests go straight to Acuity’s marketing department, which responds in a pragmatic, prospect-focused way.

The results were immediate: visitors went up 174%, and page views went up 146%.

Ongoing monitoring revealed that visitors and page views continued to increase even though promotion of the site was limited. But, Acuity CEO Nick Testa wanted visitors to spend more time on the site.

In order to address the issue, we had to assess why people were not spending more time with the wheel in the first place.

As Testa pointed out, “There is a lot of pressure on supply chain managers. This tool, which helps them find and fix problems, had enormous potential, but only if it got used."

Because of the site's unique design and concept, we speculated that skeptical visitors were leaving early because they didn't think the tool was "for real." So, we added a short description of Acuity's qualifications, along with a listing of solutions the company provides, to the page.

In October of 2008, we went live with the update, and the results are (so far) spectacular: visitors are up 295%, and page views are up a whopping 392% from original levels.

Unlike the first web site update, which was trumpeted with emails and other marketing, these results were achieved with no additional marketing or advertising.

There are over three times as many people visiting the site as there were before the redesign, they’re spending more time and viewing more pages while on the site. The new design is engaging its target audience.

A gratified Testa says "The metrics show that people are not only finding the tool, they're using it. Without the metrics, we wouldn't know that our message was being seen.”

And so now, it's time to consider your own web site. How long ago was it built? Is it keeping pace with the demands of today's marketplace? How (and how often) are you measuring its performance?

If you want to sell more stuff, your web site must be up to snuff!

Best,
Luis Maimoni
Creative Director
Fresh!

(562) 595-0555 Voice
(562) 595-0527 Fax
(562) 537-0678 Cell
Luis@FreshGraphics.net
www.FreshGraphics.net