How to Use Your Web Site 101
A web site success story - www.cheercarolina.com

When Cheer Carolina All-Stars owner Marcus Walker decided to get a web site two years ago, he knew exactly what he wanted to accomplish.

“We were known locally,” said Marcus, “but we wanted to go statewide, or even national.” And did it work?

“Definitely. Absolutely!” says Marcus. cheercarolina.com has brought work to Cheer Carolina from over half a dozen U.S. states and from Germany. In the past two years, Cheer Carolina has outgrown two gyms, moved into a new larger facility in Hillsborough, and opened additional gyms in Lexington (Cheer Carolina Storm) and Kernersville (Cheer Carolina Kernersville).

“For the team in Germany, we videotaped the competition routines and put them in on the web site. The teams could then learn the routines from the web, and also download the competition music we made for them.”

Marcus’ web site gets outstanding results because he consistently uses several basic principles for success:

Principle #1: Know your audience.

"We use lots of pictures. And bells and whistles. If it moves, they’ll watch it.” said Marcus.

Marcus’ site is high-energy, and that matches his target audience of active youth, teens, and young adults. He uses music videos, interactive ads, and lots of moving images to grab and hold the attention of his audience. And it works. Marcus regularly receives messages like these through his web site:

“Just sending to tell you what a great job u people do and thanking you for being such an inspiration to me! I must have looked at every routine in the video archive at least 10 times each! Your cheers are so unique and inspiring. They make me wanna "stand up and cheer!". Thank you for providing such a great website, and whenever I go to my computer your website is the first thing on my mind.”

“I just wanted to say that you guys look AWESOME!!!!(from the videos on the site) I love this website. It makes me wish I lived in NC!!!”

Principle #2: Make it “fresh.” It gives people a reason to come back.

I asked Marcus what advice he could offer to web site owners, and he immediately replied, “Keep the pages fresh. We constantly provide updates, tips, and results on the web site, and this brings people back to see what’s new.”

Principle #3: Be creative.

Marcus is always thinking of ways to use the web site to promote his business.

One of the most successful campaigns he has run was an online voting contest in which people could vote for their favorite cheerleader to win a cash prize. We posted a small video clip of each cheerleader and used an online poll to collect and report the results.

During this web campaign, Marcus’ web site traffic increased about 1000%. Other features he uses are an online forum, secure login areas for his clients and club members, and downloadable forms. Which bring us to Principle #4...

Principle #4: Make it useful – for your customers and for you.

“We use the site to post results, information about upcoming events, practice and competition schedules, and forms people can download. The web site makes it very simple. And it really cuts down on the number of questions we have to answer over and over again.

“We continually say around here,” Marcus added, “if we had to choose between a phone and web site, we’d choose the web site. That’s how much time and money it saves us.”

Principle #5: Promote your site.

“We put cheercarolina.com on everything. T-shirts, cups, magnets, our answering machine message, our door. Everything.

We talk about, we push it verbally, and the kids share it with their friends,” said Marcus.

Summary

Hopefully, these five basic principles of web success will help make your web site a success. Remember,

1: Identify your target audience and then cater to their needs.

2: Keep your content up-to-date and changing so people will have a reason to return to your site.

3: Be creative. Think of ways to entertain and inform through your site. Don’t limit yourself to an online brochure!

4: Make it useful. Think of ways a web site can help you, and then think of ways a web site can help your customers. Then do it!

5: Promote your site. Talk about it. Write about it. Create an email newsletter. After all, your site won’t do any good if no one knows it’s there.

Filed October 27, 2004