The people at SouthField know that, and that's why they chose to work with Koa Media. Planned to become the premier live/work/shop experience in Massachusetts, SouthField represents an enormous undertaking to provide housing for everyone.

With ambition like this, of course one would come to Koa Media to build the web site. Come see this wonder...

Southfield.com

Thanks to Tracy McCarthy for compiling these Cape Cod Networking opportunities!

We're drunk with power, and wine not? We've just published our second site of the day! Elise Currey, Napa Valley's premier real estate agent now has her beautiful Dick Danne designed web site live.

Looking for a cozy ranch complete with award-winning Cabernet vines? Elise has what you need.

naparealtor-elise.com

We have just launched a brand new web site for Cape artist Anne Boucher. Anne's watercolor and acrylic paintings, "draw upon the unique beauty of Cape Cod and the New England Coastal region".

Her work is exquisite, and you should immediately click on over to see it in all it's glory...

anneboucherfineart.com

Thinking about a new web site? What pages do you need? What kind of content? Most web sites are built with an educated guess as to the content that will best suit their target audience. Sometimes this works out fine, and for smaller web sites, a “seat of your pants” approach might even be somewhat effective.

But if you have established some business goals for your web site (after all, your web site is part of your overall business system, having some expectations is crucial for web success) it helps to have a model for looking at how that web site is going to funnel traffic.

Introducing the ABC method. That’s Access, Behavior and Conversion. Let’s look at each.

Access
What’s the plan for visitors to find your site? Unlike a Field of Dreams, if you build it, they won’t necessarily come. Naturally everyone wants to be in top position with search engines. If that is part of your strategy, then look at what is necessary to achieve that. In some cases, following best practices during site development, along with a little patience, will produce satisfactory results. In more competitive situations, the services of a SEO specialist may be necessary, which involves not only keyword research and content planning during development, but ongoing monitoring and tactical adjustments. Naturally this approach requires an investment in order to obtain results.

So we may look to other tactics to drive traffic. Advertising may be placed on other directory web sites; visitors may be directed to the site by other advertising and branding; the site may act as support for sales staff and other on-the-ground networking efforts.

Behavior
So you’ve made the effort and you have visitors coming to your site. Congratulations! What will they do now that they have arrived? If we think about the needs for each visitor type within your target audience, content can be developed and organized to maximize results. If we think about a new prospect for example, we might want to be sure that they see our products pages, how to order, company information (to build credibility) and end on a contact or shopping cart page. An existing customer may follow a different critical path, perhaps needing product support or specific contact information. For each type of visitor in your audience, if you can map out a critical path through the site you will have a much better chance at…

Conversion
For each visitor you want to have a call to action. You have made the effort to get them to your site, now let’s have them act on their visit. In some cases, the call to action is passive, providing technical support information on the site, for example. But im many cases you want to convert them. Conversion can include filling out a contact form, clicking an email link, making a phone call, signing up for a newsletter, registering to receive white papers, making a reservation, or completing a sale on an e-commerce site. It is critical to have a game plan for your conversions, both as an end point for your critical pathways, and also as a component in your overall business systems. So many web site owners lose out on potential prospects or sales because they don’t have a system in place to follow up the points of contact provided by the web site.

Conclusion
Being mindful of your ABCs can result in web site that is built with intent, rather than guesswork. You have better opportunities to convert your traffic into business, resulting in an increased return on investment.

We are so focussed in our industry on web and email scams we tend to forget the good, old-fashioned analog scam artist. Our favorite banker at Cape Cod Five sent me this slide show about a new scam happening at ATMs.