No website is an island! Left alone, a website is not much more than a little billboard on the information superhighway, so for it to be effective it's important that you weave it and other digital efforts frequently into your overall marketing activities. And like any marketing activity, the purpose should be to generate qualified leads...
I've been in the web business for over ten years and in that time I have seen way too many website design projects where money and resources were wasted because of over-engineered solutions that wouldn't provide the client or their audience much benefit. This is the dirty little secret most web design companies don't want you to know about. They're agencies and like any agency they want to bill you for their time and often for building solutions they wouldn’t even consider taking the risk building for themselves. In addition, if a fancy solution is proposed most agencies are likely trying things for the first time and billing you for the time it takes them to learn how to do it. Sure, it’s cool to have an intensive site and pour tons of money into design…if you aren’t into making money.
I recently attended the Art of Marketing Conference in Calgary featuring some terrific speakers that covered a number of topics relating to business and supposed "revolution" that the marketing industry is currently going through. After attending I'm convinced that the function of marketing is indeed going through a revolution in the Western World...
Blogs are increasingly popular and many have become amongst the web's most popular destinations (I.e Huffington Post, Mashable, PerezHilton). For organizations they represent a great way to showcase your expertise, engage with website visitors, and are an effective way to boost your visibility in search engines since blog posts are a source of fresh content that search engines are always hungry for. If you have a blog...