Junior exploration and mining companies know a web presence is essential. But just being online isn’t quite enough. There are a few factors you may not have considered for your business site, but are common sense when you think about your own behaviour online.
The first hurdle is being found. To ensure that your site is one of the top results returned by a search engine, you need to understand and maximise your search engine optimisation or SEO (see my post WTF is SEO? for a fuller explanation).
Once visitors arrive on your site you have less than 20 seconds to impress and retain them.
The first 10 seconds are crucial
Visitors will make up their mind about your web site – and possibly your company – within a few seconds. Design and layout take primary responsibility for first impressions, and keeping people engaged with your site longer than 20 seconds comes down to clear, direct content and simple navigation.
Clever design and layout of high quality content is vital if you want to convert site visitors into business partners
Often junior exploration and mining companies upload content, perhaps in a rush prior to a major conference or data release, that isn’t written specifically for the web. This often involves recycling material written for another purpose from annual reports, PowerPoint presentations and brochures.
Writing for the web means scan-able text, short, conversational sentences, lots of facts, a mix of text and multimedia, speaking the language of your audience in a conversational tone and gently directing the reader using links and calls to action.
Is your company website written for the web? Have a look and ask yourself:
- Does your site appear in the top three responses to a search?
Maximise traffic to your site by regularly reviewing and updating your pages, use audience-relevant search terms/keywords throughout your content and create a clever link strategy. - Is your content appropriate to the audience?
Who is your target audience? Investors, local communities, potential JV partners? What are your key messages? Don’t just recycle content from other sources, create fresh, clear, focused, relevant content specifically for the web and for your target audience. - Is the layout clear?
Visual appearance is the first and most important factor to keep visitors on your site beyond those critical 10-20 seconds. You don’t want users to be confused by a poor layout, overwhelmed by dense text or a layout that is too ‘busy’.Visitors will scan the page and read only a quarter of the text.
Pages need to be scan-able and consistently laid out. A clever mix of well-written content, headings, link, dot points, lists, images and other visuals is essential to keep visitors on your site.
- Do you provide the right information for your audience?
Is your content focused on your target audience/s? Are you using jargon that will scare off potential investors or local community partners not familiar with geology and geophysics terms? Use appropriate language, stick to your key messages, anticipate and answer relevant questions. - Are you site visitors doing what you want them to do?
Is your hard work and investment into a great website being converted into business goals? Are your visitors being guided by links and content to contact you, sign up to your newsletter or blog or download your fact sheets? A well-written and design website converts users and visitors into partners and investors and customers. - Are you monitoring and analysing your visitors?
It’s all about the numbers! Monitoring and evaluating how your website is being used is crucial to ensuring that it meets your business needs.
Ultimately you want to feel confident directing important business associates to your web site. The goal? For potential partners and investors to say, “I found you on the web and liked what I saw. Now lets talk about working together.”
For an honest, informed appraisal of your current web content, or to discuss how I can craft new, engaging material for your company, contact me.