Website Marketing Strategy: Why Your Site Comes First
The website is the one marketing channel you own. What a website marketing strategy covers, and where to start.
Most businesses spend their marketing energy on social media, because that is where the reactions are. The website sits in the background and gets updated when someone remembers. It should be the other way round. The website is the one marketing channel you own outright, and every other channel works better when it has somewhere solid to send people.
This guide covers what a website marketing strategy is, what it needs to include and where to start, using what we changed when we rebuilt our own site.
What is a website marketing strategy?
A website marketing strategy is a plan for what your website must do for the business and how every other channel feeds into it. It decides the job of each page and the questions those pages answer. It also covers how the site is kept fast and current, and how you will tell whether it is bringing in enquiries.
Why the website comes first
On social media you are a tenant. The platform decides who sees your posts and can change that whenever it likes, which is why so many businesses watch their reach shrink without changing anything. We explain why that happens in why organic reach on Facebook and Instagram is so low. Your website has no such landlord. What you publish there stays where you put it.
The website also matters more now that people ask AI tools for recommendations, not less. Those tools build their answers from web pages, and Google says its own AI features run on its normal search systems. A business with a thin website gives them very little to work with, and we go into the details in how to show up in AI search.
What a website marketing strategy covers
| Part | The question it answers | What good looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | What is each page for? | Every page has one job, such as explaining a service or taking a booking |
| Content | What do customers need to know before they get in touch? | The questions you hear on the phone, answered on the site |
| Speed | Does the site load quickly on a phone? | Good scores in Search Console's Core Web Vitals report |
| Trust | Who is behind this business? | Named people and a contact route that works |
| Measurement | Is the site bringing in enquiries? | Analytics and Search Console connected, with form submissions tracked |
| Upkeep | Is the information still true? | Pages updated when something changes, with someone responsible |
Give every page one job
When we audited our old site before rebuilding it, it had grown to 35 pages, some of them for regions where we no longer worked. The new site has a handful of service pages, and each one has a single purpose. Fewer pages are easier for visitors to find their way around, and easier for us to keep current. We tell the full story in what we learned when we left WordPress.
Answer the questions customers actually ask
Google's guidance on helpful, people-first content offers a useful test for any page: "After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they've learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?" For a business website, the goal is usually deciding whether to contact you. Details such as a price range or the area you cover are what let them decide.
Make it fast, but keep speed in proportion
Speed affects how visitors feel about a site before they read a word. Google's own position is more measured than much of the advice about it. Its page on page experience says that Google Search "always seeks to show the most relevant content, even if the page experience is sub-par", and that a great page experience helps most when there are many equally helpful pages to choose from.
So fix a slow site, but do not expect speed alone to carry it. When we measured our rebuilt homepage with PageSpeed Insights the day after launch, it scored 98 for performance on mobile. That helps. The content on the page is what earns the enquiry.
Make it clear who you are
Google's same guidance asks whether it is "self-evident to your visitors who authored your content". On a business website that means a real About page with the names of the people a client will deal with, and contact details that match your Google Business Profile. Visitors want the same reassurance before they get in touch.
Measure enquiries, not just visits
A website marketing strategy needs a way to tell whether it is working. Connect Google Analytics and Search Console, and count enquiries as well as visits. We found out how easy this is to get wrong when we discovered our old site had been sending its data to a version of Google Analytics that no longer existed. If your numbers have already dropped, why your website traffic is dropping shows how to work out the cause.
Update it when something changes
Freshness means accuracy, not new dates. Google's own self-assessment asks: "Are you changing the date of pages to make them seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed?" Update a page when your services, prices or team change, and give one person the job of checking the main pages a few times a year.
How the other channels fit around it
Think of social media as the shop window and the website as the shop. The window gets people to stop. The shop is where they look properly and decide.
That means every channel should send people to a page that is ready for them. A social post about one service should link to that service page, not the homepage. An ad needs a page that matches its promise, and an email campaign needs a page that continues the conversation. Your Google Business Profile should point to the page that serves local customers best.
How often you post matters much less than whether those posts lead somewhere useful, and we look at posting frequency in how often to post on social media.
Where to start
- Open your site on a phone and try to find your prices or your contact form in under a minute.
- List your pages and write one sentence on what each is for. Merge or remove the ones you cannot describe.
- Collect ten questions customers ask before they buy, and check which ones the site answers.
- Run your homepage through PageSpeed Insights on mobile and fix the slowest parts first.
- Check your tracking. Open the real-time report in Google Analytics, visit your own site and make sure you appear.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a website if I have a strong social media following?
Yes. Your followers are on a platform you do not control, and the platform decides how many of them see each post. A website gives those followers somewhere to go, and gives search engines and AI tools something to find when people look for what you offer.
How fast does my website need to be?
Fast enough that visitors on a phone do not wait. A practical target is good Core Web Vitals in Search Console. Beyond that point, content counts for more, because Google says it shows the most relevant page even when the page experience is weaker.
How often should I update my website?
Whenever something on it stops being true. Prices and opening hours are the usual culprits. A scheduled check of the main pages a few times a year catches what slips through.
What pages does a business website need?
Start with a homepage that says clearly what you do and where, and one page for each main service. Add an About page with real people and a contact page. After that, add a page only when it has a job of its own.
Is a website still worth it if people use AI to search?
More than before. AI tools answer questions by reading websites, so the businesses with clear, specific pages are the ones they can recommend. A business that exists only on social media gives them little to go on.
Salty Lavender, a full-service marketing agency in Faro, designs and builds websites as the base of the marketing it runs for its clients. If you are not sure whether your site is doing its job, tell us what it is meant to do or write to hello@saltylavender.com.