Are You Hunting For New Business With A Prehistoric Website?

by Bonnie Boots

The hunters you see above are about to become prehistoric pudding pops for that toothsome Tyrannosaurus. And all because they're not hunting with appropriate tools.

They've forgotten the first rule of big game hunting: you have to use the tools that will get the job done.

As it turns out, that's also the first rule of sales promotion and marketing. Yet every day I see small business owners step out onto the internet armed with nothing more than a web site so outdated in function and appearance that it's nearly prehistoric.

Such a web site is going to leave you in the same predicament as our soon-to-be dinosaur dinners. You'll be on the hunt. But it will be you that winds up as road kill.

The internet of today is infinitely more sophisticated than the internet of just three or four years ago.

And the users of that internet have grown just as sophisticated.

Today's internet user is accustomed to interactive sites that offer multiple means of connecting with content.

Imagine someone in your target market--your prime potential client--spending an hour on the internet. They check several social networks to connect with friends, then stop by YouTube to see what's hot and Tweet about a video that catches their attention before going over to Hulu to watch their favorite TV shows.

Along the way, they search Google for someone providing your service and click over to your site.

Remember, they've just spent an hour being bombarded by video, audio, animations and instant messaging.

What will your site look like to them?

If your site is nothing more than a static business brochure, it will look prehistoric.

We all know what it feels like to encounter a business that seems lost in the past. Say, for example, we step inside of a sandwich shop and see a sign saying it doesn't accept credit cards.

We instantly step back outside, shaking our head that anyone could be so clueless, while we scan the street for a café that meets our expectations.

People come to your web site with expectations built upon visits to hundreds of media-rich web sites. If you don't meet their expectations at least halfway, you'll loose them.

If you're embarrassing yourself with a website that's nothing more than a static business brochure, you're hunting with the wrong tools.

Today, the best internet publishing tool for any business  is Wordpress.

The advantages of Wordpress are almost too numerous to mention. I can illustrate a few of them by pointing out that the web site you're reading this on, The Internet Wizards Magazine,  is simple html. It's poorly optimized for search engines, which means it I have to work to drive traffic to it. That takes a lot of time and effort.

But if you came to this web site from The Internet Wizards Blog  and a post describing this article, saw Wordpress in action.

That blog is powered by Wordpress and outfitted with numerous plugins and widgets ( simple software tools--most of them free) that instantly alert numerous social networks, RSS feeds and other web sites the instant I publish a post.

All that works to drive traffic to the blog without my having to do anything other than write an article. It's like having a built-in public relations staff working for me!

When I leave that Wordpress site and come back here to the Magazine, I really do feel as if I've come back to a dinosaur!

With Wordpress, even a one-person business can present a web presence that looks as good, as media-rich and interactive as a big corporation like Coca-Cola. So don't let a prehistoric website leave you looking like a dinosaur. Come into the modern world of web marketing with the tool that will get the job done.

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Bonnie Boots is a digital publisher and internet business consultant. She is available to help you bring your small business marketing into the modern world. Use the contact form here to email her and arrange for a free 30-minute consultation call to discuss why your current internet marketing isn't delivering what you want.

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