November 29th, 2010 // by Josh Miles

4 Levels of Brand Engagement for Professional Services Websites

(The first article in a four-part series)

Professional services websites primarily exist to serve two purposes: to further legitimize the firm and to generate leads for their professional service. There are added benefits if your website elevates someone in your firm as a thought leader or sells books, apps, or other services online. However, most of these features exist ultimately to either lend credibility to your firm or generate new leads.

So how can your website do a better job of generating traffic, attracting business, and legitimizing your firm as a contender?

The secret is that brand engagement on your website isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. There are four levels of engagement that your site must surpass before it can truly begin to convert traffic to prospects.

Level 1 – Be found.
This may be obvious, but it’s usually the most overlooked. At the most basic level, you either need to send traffic to your website (via ads, social media, or other linking strategies) or help searchers find your site on their own.

If the most content-rich website doesn’t have any visitors, it is much like the tree that falls in the forest with nobody there to hear it fall.

To send more traffic to your site, be sure your email signature, social media profiles, guest blog posts, and any other websites are all linking successfully to your website.

Next, find out how you’re performing in search. Do a Google search for your primary professional service offering and your geographic location, such as “Design Indianapolis.” If you’re not in the top five, or at least on the first page, there’s a very poor chance that you’ll be found by searchers.

Now try doing a search for your firm, by name.

Are you the top search result? If not, you’ve got some work to do.

Stay tuned for Level 2 – The Two-Second Test…

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Josh Miles

Josh Miles is principal and founder of Miles Design, a branding firm specializing in branding and website design for professional services and software firms, as well as the author of Bold Brand.

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Tags: lead generation, online brand engagement, professional services, website redesign