I was having lunch today with CJ McLanahan from Reachmore and we were discussing the concept of opportunity cost as it relates to your website and online presence. The question we were wondering about was "how much money is being left on the table by having a weak online presence?"

Since today's buyer typically includes online research as part of the decision-making process, these questions may be relevant as we consider how to find and influence new customers:

• How many customers are you losing each day by not having a website?
• How many customers are being turned away each day because your website does not inspire trust?
• How many customers are you rejecting each day because your website is difficult to use?
• How many prospects are searching for your product or service each day but not finding you?
• How many prospects are asking for referrals on social networks? Are you there to respond?

It's sometimes difficult to quantify the opportunity cost associated with your marketing tools or lack of tools but it's important to ask these questions to make sure you are making good decisions.

How much money is being left on the table and how can you start getting more of it?

I’m sure we've all heard the term "brochure website" before. For a while, it was used as a legitimate way to label certain types of websites and was accepted as a normal way to do business. Organizations would simply take their brochures, turn them into static websites that regurgitated brochure content, and called it a day. We all thought this was ok.

Then, we evolved beyond this and realized that websites were more than just a digital brochure. We started to add things like fresh content, Flash promos, and changing photos. This let our audience know that things were happening and that whenever new content was available, we would publish it in real time on the web. This was a good next step.

Today, the modern corporate or non-profit website is much more. It must truly be an information hub. Though some organizations still don’t understand this, we are way beyond the brochure website. We are also evolving beyond the "changing content" websites that followed. We are now in an era in which our constituents demand extensive access to online tools and information that creates a two-way dialog. Your constituents expect to be able to engage with your website to actually do things that help them get their work done and be productive. Things like:

• Register and pay online for events in 2 minutes or less
• Download your latest product documentation
• Ask a question and get an answer
• Find a real person with a name and title to start a conversation with
• Subscribe to an email newsletter that teaches something (not just promotes)
• Comment on your blog
• Subscribe to your Podcast
• Share your educational content with their social networks
• Make an online donation to your non-profit in 2 minutes or less using a credit card
• Fill out your volunteer application form online (not on paper or in a Word document)

Whether you like it or not, your prospective customers (or donors, or volunteers) are making snap judgments about your organization as they research you and your competition online. Having a beautiful website is the absolute bare minimum to be taken seriously. Having an information hub makes you a competitor.

As you may already know, blogging is a great way to improve your search engine visibility as well as create a platform for educational content. Blogging with the right keywords and content structure can boost your rankings and get your website in front of new audiences. As useful as all this is, it's not always easy to figure how to write content that is well-optimized for search.

At SpinWeb, we now have a better way to help you blog. We've now included an option to use the Scribe SEO Analyzer in your website. This tool will analyzing your blog content (or press release or web page) and give you an SEO score. It will also give you tips on what you can change to optimize it better for search.

There is a video tutorial available our Learning Center so take a look to see how it works.

We hope this helps you blog better for search! If you are a SpinWeb client and would like this service activated, please contact your Account Manager.