Hi,

 

So I'd like to know what others do to give their clients more than just a website. What I mean is, how do you help them actually get more hits to their new site and to achieve their goals? Do you give them guidance on how to market themselves etc?

 

At the moment i'm designing and building website but I'd love to give my clients more than this. No point in having a pretty website if it's not being found or being used to it's potential right?

 

Looking forward to your replies.

Yep the web site its-self is often only a small part of the service. It depends on the clients needs and what they ask for really, some just want the site then go it alone, others ask for extensive help in lots of different areas such as content writing, how to use Twitter/Facebook, sending newsletters (eg via the CMS and/or something like Mailchimp), even how to crop and resize images either using the CMS tools or an image editor.

It's been something that I've wanted to do for awhile really but wasn't sure where to start.

 

I'm ok at one on one to show them how to use their new shiny website and to offer basic advice for blogging, social media, newsletters etc

 

For example: A client wants a new website and to sell more items per month, attract new clients to their art workshops and to get booked for more teaching hours.

 

Where would you start with that? This, I assume, is extra to the website build and maybe a job for someone else?

I spend a lot of time "training" clients as part of the service. Obviously all clients get initial training on how to use their CMS but anything extra that the client wants to do themselves I usually do as "training" as well, this may include things like:

 

Writing for the web

Preparing media, eg images, PDF's/documents, video

Best practices for Facebook/Twitter marketing

Using analytics

 

For your examples of increasing sales or new workshop clients that's really a case of looking at what happens currently and what changes may need to be made to get the desired outcome. It may be as simple as pushing something via Social media, but could be looking at the site+content+structure to see if something can be improved them monitoring effect of and chnages or do some A/B testing.

Digital marketing and search marketing is a completely different ball game, although many design companies try to offer all these services to their clients.

 

Firstly, if they are getting good traffic (something like 10k plus of intent users per month) then you need to be extremely mindful of where that traffic is coming from and why they're heading their. Analytics will tell you how and what needs changing to improve their goals

 

If they get less than 10,000 hits a month, look at how you can increase that through organic, social, paid and brand marketing. The payments for these are based on monthly retainers and whilst you're probably extremely proficient at what you do, avoid offering services you're not versed in and partner with a reputable agency.

 

Personally, include in your contracts a few hours of hand over that include blog writing, social media marketing and show them how to distribute their content. Whilst this is 0.01% of a strategy, if they stick to it then it can work well. Avoid the pitfalls of "...and put your keyword here, here, here, there, there, here, there and there and here". Just get them to write nice content and market their website.

 

Also look at how they market their business offline. The whole point of good digital marketing is to build brand awareness. I work with a range of clients, one of which I actually have ranking for GLASS. Whilst this is a great keyword for boasting about, I'd much rather increase their branded search volume as I'm already further down the conversion process then someone typing in GLASS (If you see the website you'd understand why they wanted to rank for this). But it's sustainable, it's more powerful to build brand presence and it's just a better experience. So get them to promote their website offline, run competitions on social media, engage with local media and news outlets and work on getting them to increase their brand locally.

 

Another thing. Whether your client sells a product to their neighbour or some guy in Australia, it's still a sale. So why work tirelessly to attract buys from miles away when they can just start locally.

 

tl;dr talk them through extremely simple content generation and marketing, offline marketing and brand building. Stick to what your good at and partner with an agency or freelancer that know what their doing.

Thanks for the great replies bluedreamer and jasondexter.

 

I guess it's something that I would need some outside input on, perhaps draft in someone who works in this field. I'll just stick to the coding! It's gives me food for thought though because ultimately, I do want to give my clients more than just a website. If that means working with someone else alongside, together, then that should be fine.

 

Thanks for the advice

Maybe you could give them link to basics of SEO? I guess that would help.

Yep all the above. Nowadays I find you're essentially providing business, as opposed to just say a new website. All the advice/tips/training etc all come under that umbrella

 

Yeah, building a website is just one part I suppose. I'm just contemplating whether I need to be changing things up for my business from 'just a website' to the 'full package' kind of thing. Ultimately, I'd love to help businesses achieve their goals.

Yeah, building a website is just one part I suppose. I'm just contemplating whether I need to be changing things up for my business from 'just a website' to the 'full package' kind of thing. Ultimately, I'd love to help businesses achieve their goals.

 

Absolutely a good idea! I'd suggest offering "value added services" to your quotes to cover all these sort of extras and see if clients start taking the offer up. I'm sure you could do a lot of stuff yourself but for more specialised areas there's no reason you can't sub the work out and charge the client + a profit margin.

Yeah, building a website is just one part I suppose. I'm just contemplating whether I need to be changing things up for my business from 'just a website' to the 'full package' kind of thing. Ultimately, I'd love to help businesses achieve their goals.

 

I don't know what your situation is (freelancer, small agency etc), but there isn't anything wrong at all with offering more services for your clients. If you provide them excellent customer service and provide them with a fantastic product then I', sure they'd stay around if you offered SEO, PPC, Social, Printing etc. Always take a cut and grow the business that way. Use reliable suppliers until you have a sustainable amount of income from these services to bring them in house and hire someone

The biggest problem with marketing is that it means different things to different people, and is widely misunderstood. You need to be very careful offering 'marketing advice'.

 

As a web designer, you wont have the knowledge, skills, or PI cover required to give marketing strategy or business development advice. In my experience, the very best web designers realise they aren't marketing experts. The designers who think they know marketing are the ones to avoid.

 

Jason, you are quite right. If you want to offer these kind of services, outsource it and make money from it that way.

I agree. I think it's best left to an expert at least until I get a lot more knowledgeable.

I agree. I think it's best left to an expert at least until I get a lot more knowledgeable.

The vast majority of my marketing consultancy work comes from recommendations from web designers, graphic designers, copywriters etc etc, who all recommend that their clients speak to me before they carry out work for them.

 

I usually spend just 50 mins talking to their clients, to point them in the right direction strategically, before they have their 'design work' done. This has loads of advantages for both the designer and the client.

ominous topic title

 

Whatever could you mean.