200 Marketing Ideas for Your Website
By Henriette Martel-Lawson. Published by Marketing Cues, Western Australia, 2004. 215 page (pb). RRP $29.95. ISBN 0 9752186 0 3. Also available as an e-book. Order from www.marketingcues.com.au
THE figures speak for themselves and show why marketers are drawn to the web like moths to a patio light on a summer’s night. The October 2004 Nielsen/NetRatings estimates there are more than nine million active Internet home users in Australia and they are spending around 27 minutes in front of their screens in each Internet session.
Yet for all the hype on web design, search engine optimisation and other technical issues, where are the articles on how to develop effective web content? This may explain why Nielsen/NetRatings estimates that Aussie users spend an average of 54 seconds visiting a web page.
Henriette Martel-Lawson sets out in 200 Marketing Ideas for Your Website to profile ideas that work on the web and re-affirm the old adage that “content is king”. The promise of good content attracts people, keeps them, and encourages them to return to a site.
After studying more than 2,000 websites, Martel-Lawson comes up with marketing trends and strategies that work on local and international sites. The book is not about a model that we should slavishly follow; rather it is meant to stir our interest in applying successful ideas to our own domains.
The book’s 200 ideas cover plenty of territory, including visuals and sound features, e-commerce fundamentals and specific tools to market your site.
Marketers who use their websites to show visitors their credibility and expertise will find the section on Editorial Tools particularly useful. There are good examples of people marketing themselves through blogs, articles, case studies, testimonials and other tools.
200 Marketing Ideas for Your Website is hard to read as a straight text. It continually refers to websites that you must visit to understand what the author is talking about. But it does work as a reference that points you directly to best practice examples that can provide inspiration as you tackle particular problems.
There will have to be a follow-up edition to 200 Marketing Ideas for Your Website because today’s hottest web idea soon becomes common practice. So next time perhaps the book can not only report what works, but why it works as well.
Busy communicators owe Henriette Martel-Lawson for saving us countless hours by pointing directly to leading-edge sites that work from a marketing perspective.
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