This is a familiar refrain for all those who have spent considerable money and countless hours making their website "perfect."   And it may seem perfect at first blush.  Afterall, the website incorporates beautiful graphics, "cool" animation — and in terms of functionality, it does everything but clean the dishes.  Unfortunately, however, the website has yet to deliver a single lead — much less a single sale.

A website in-and-of-itself — no matter how beautiful and regardless of the number of "bells and whistles" does not generate leads and conversions.  A $500 website — or a $50,000 website — without a strategic digital marketing plan, will yield the same Return-on-Investment — ZERO.  That can't be, you think.  Let's do the math.  ROI is defined as Margin / Investment.   In both examples (because neither website generated $ sales) the numerator (margin) is $0.  So, $0/$500 = 0 and $0 / $50,000 = 0. Now that's a sobering thought.  But what can be done? 

To generate sales, you first need traffic to your website. Shown below are some critical questions you need to ask yourself  to see if you are taking full advantage of the various tools in your digital marketing toolbox to turn your website into one that generates a powerful ROI:

• How are you currently promoting your website?
• Do you have links to your website or email newsletter within your email signature?
• Are you running targeted pay-per-click advertising with Google?  What about Bing?
• Do you have targeted landing pages when visitors click on your pay-per-click ads — or are you just directing them to your home page?
• Are you consistently writing keyword-rich press releases, submitting them to Press Release sites and then directing these visitors back to your website?
• Are you writing focused articles and submitting them to article directories?
• Are you implementing link-building campaigns and using keyword-rich anchor text?
• Are you submitting videos to video-sharing sites such as YouTube?
• Are you engaging in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns with a qualified expert?
• Are you consistently blogging and engaging with your prospects and clients?  And directing traffic back to your website?
• Have you claimed and optimized your local listing on Google, Yahoo! and Bing?
• Are you leveraging and directing traffic back to your website from top social media portals such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube?

These are but a handful of considerations as it relates to driving traffic to your website.  That's the first step.  It's also not the last.  Once they get to your website, you need to make sure that you have strategies in place to keep them there, and strategies that will get the online visitor to take the next step.

To be absolutely clear, a website in-and-of-itself, is not going to generate a powerful ROI.  However, by implementing a comprehensive suite of digital marketing strategies your success will be that much more imminent.