Without giving each of these the consideration it deserves, your marketing could end up sloppy, ineffective, or worse – wasting energy on luck instead of investing in marketing strategy.

I love the psychology part, because understanding the psychology of web marketing is both healing and empowering! With my Webphobia Coach hat on, I’ve noticed how the use of psychology has come into play on recent marketing projects.

Afraid of Websites? Build Trust.

We all like to feel competent and street smart, but the internet can intimidate even the most educated person who doesn’t trust websites. Spyware, fake website trickery, viruses, and private information vulnerability await the browser.

That’s why building trust is a cornerstone of web marketing psychology. As a business owner, consider your ideal fan and choose to be a brand that gives people something to trust. Don’t give into marketing fears. Start to build trust with these considerations:

• Planning. Take the time to plan how you’ll communicate Who You Are, What You Do, and Who You Serve. If you’re clear about your mission, your target revenue streams, and your business model, your ideal fans will come to you and experience a sense of belonging.
• Usability. A website should be easy to navigate and not confound your fans. Any button, link, or page should lead where it advertises. For example, a client recently admitted to being wary of search bars on certain websites, because some of them end up searching the internet instead of that site. Whether this was intentional or just sloppy programming, trust was lost.
• Credibility. Demonstrate that you have credentials and experience in both explicit and implicit ways. Consciously, we see portfolios and testimonials that boost our trust. We read relevant, valuable content and think “their expertise really shines through.” Subconsciously, credential badges (such as a Trust-e Verified badge) and industry-relevant seals of certifications work wonders, as does a clean and professional-looking web site. Proper grammar and spelling say you respect your reader.

Psychology is Not Deception

My opinion, influenced by my fellow Wild Web Women® and The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott, is that the best marketing comes from authenticity. If marketing got a bad rap in the past fifty years, it’s from spin and subliminal messaging that left us feeling deceived. So, if manipulation is removed from your marketing toolbag, what’s left?

Self confidence. The great thing about self-confidence as a web marketing psychology tool is that it comes from a genuine source, and people respond to it willingly.

As a consultant, I stand behind my clients because they’re doing what they love, they’re passionate about their business or cause, and they’re in it to succeed and gain popularity. Confidence is the fuel for inspiration in marketing. Confidence can be built by accepting that you have something great to share – whether it’s selling shampoo or social change. Effective planning and execution in web marketing will give your confidence positive reinforcement – voila, you’ve used psychology powers for good!

Agents of Empowerment
If you really want to connect to your fans and sell, start with your own web marketing therapy. The role of a (great) web marketer is not just to prescribe a set of small business marketing tools to a business owner and say “do it yourself” – but to combine these three powers of Friendship, Communication, and Psychology, and turn them into vision, leadership, and results.

• communicate directly with your consumers and stakeholders
• have people actually listen to you and interact with you
• build a community of fans or advocates for your company

That said, who could ever be ANTI-social media? Rather then trying to beg the media for attention (what I consider the traditional PR approach) or convince customers to pay attention to your company by purchasing pricey ad campaigns, offer great web content that delivers interested people right to your company’s virtual doorstep. Did you know that 45.9% of content sharing takes place on Facebook, E-mail, and Twitter? Check out the pie chart for a break down. The only way to get your ideas spread via word-of-mouse is to put it out there. Social media and the 200,000,000+ blogs need your content, so start feeding it to the hungry World Wide Web!

If that’s not convincing enough, Young also posted a fantastic YouTube video about the social media revolution we are experiencing. Any skepticism you had about social media will be put to rest after watching this brief video. FYI..if Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia.

Whatever your needs are and your target audience is, there is an option to use social media for your benefit. This expanding world of social media can only help you generate new buzz and business development opportunities. Start playing in the social media sandbox to partake in the fun! Hope you enjoyed your dose of Web Marketing Therapy.

But does one site fit all?

(Yes, I admit to feeling a little “Carrie Bradshaw of Web Marketing” as I type this)

Organizations have all shapes and sizes of target markets, products and services.  I challenge you to critically evaluate who you are, what you do and who you serve…then look at your website(s) and web marketing strategy and ask yourself if the people you are trying to reach and serve are truly being served well with your efforts.

Web Marketing Therapy invested in some of our own web therapy and are in the process of making site optimizations.  We had to change the message on both our home page and about page (and we are adding a new agency services page, updating the blog and adding design bling to the home page this month) because we stepped back, looked long and hard at the site and realized that were not best communicating and serving great people like you who use our site!  Sure, I had an ego-dent moment for about a minute and a half when I had to accept that my website copy (that I poured my love into) wasn’t cutting it.  Then I took a marketing chill pill and realized that it was more important to say clearly:

–Who We Are (A fun Learning Resource and full-service Marketing Agency)

–What We Do (Diagnose and prescribe cures for greater web health and wealth to maximize your strategic web presence and sales power via educational empowerment!)

–Who We Serve (businesses, entrepreneurs and marketers!)

…then guide people to where they needed to go via design and easy navigation

**stay tuned for site updates!!  Thanks to Pamela and Emilia for your copy support and to the Wild Web Women for input and thank you to SiteGoals for (once again!) getting our vision and supporting us!**

Sometimes one site does not fit all and it’s wise to create multiple sites for different audiences or make your home page a north star that guides the “all” types of folks who come to you for various products and services.

It’s the wild, wild web.  There are no rules, the answers to your success start with you…if you are willing to look hard at your web marketing efforts.

Web marketing is a commitment – the only constant is change.

I don’t want to hear that you spent a lot on your website and can’t afford to make changes or that you already have a site but just need to get more people to it.

Your website is your web marketing’s nucleus – your web marketing core.  If your core is not fully functional, stop, drop and roll your professional selves into a site self-analysis.

…or call me for some tough love

Example – Adding a link to a website requires having the right url, testing it, uploading it.  Search engine optimization requires attention to detail to make sure that proper phrases are in meta tags, content, hyperlinks, etc.

Every detail matters with web marketing….skipping steps kills success.

I like to remind marketing patients that “quick and dirty is always quick, but you always end up dirty“.  Focus on what is important (QUALITY and VALUE) and mind all the steps.

Web Marketing is a process, respect the steps and be prepared for a lot of surprise steps that you will have to attend to as well.

I will now go take a deep breath as I continue to work on the launch of www.webmarketingtherapy.com and try not to have any more panic attacks as I uncover surprise steps that I have to attend to.

Having control freak tendencies, being obsessive compulsive, and loving problems are actually healthy traits to have to be a successful web marketer.  Just remember to balance it out with patience, respect, humility and understanding…and don’t skip steps for success!!

Web Marketing Related Posts:

1. Copying someone else’s strategy does NOT equal success
2. Ask the Marketing Therapist – Small Business Owners and Marketing Mistakes
3. Web Marketing Tip – Never Stop Learning

In a web marketing relationship challenge? Ask yourself, What Would Audrey Do?

I can speak for all the wild web women at Web Marketing Therapy when I say that we love what we do.  Helping people help themselves is a really gratifying experience, the team plays well together (we have the Pajama Bowling pics to prove it) and we only work with ideal clients.  However, in our clear blue sea of “we love web marketing so much we want to marry it” feelings, our sloppy drippy web marketing love can get derailed.  Sometimes patients critically judge what they don’t understand or are stressed and tense and we feel their pain.