Is Your Website a Small Town or a Thriving Metropolis?

The founders of HubSpot, Inc., Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, last week announced the publication of their new book, Inbound Marketing: Getting Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs (Wiley).

Full disclosure: I edited this book, so this post isn’t a book review nor was I paid (or even asked) to write it.

. . .

The one reason I really like Inbound Marketing is because Brian and Dharmesh talk about viewing one’s Website as a city or hub. You can have a Website that’s a small town, like Bath, New Hampshire (pop: 893), which has one road in and out — like this:

Or, you can have a Website that’s New York City where all roads, trains, buses, and planes lead to it — like this:

Because a small town Website has only one road to it, it has little in the way of visitors.

A large city Website has hundreds of ways to visit due to links from blogs, industry portals, other Websites, social media, and search engines — hence it gets loads of traffic all day every day.

If you want your Website to be an asset, you must view it as a thriving metropolis, and as Brian stated at HubSpot’s book launch party on Friday, October 16, you have to use all of the tools currently available to encourage people to visit it.

The more roads or paths you create, the more traffic you drive to your site, and the more leads / conversions / sales you get.

That in a nutshell is the basis of inbound marketing (a term coined by Brian and Dharmesh).

Brian and Dharmesh wrote Inbound Marketing because they wanted to share what they’ve learned as the founders of HubSpot and why marketing is changing. In it you’ll find their explanation for why inbound marketing works, and why it’s really important that you “get” the concept of inbound, as well as hundreds of practical tips for creating your own inbound marketing hub.

Although I consider myself a fairly sophisticated Web marketer, I learned quite a bit while editing Inbound Marketing. The book is an easy and interesting read, it’s geared toward small business owners, and it’s full of “real world” case studies on companies, from Zappos.com to Whole Foods Market, using inbound marketing tactics to reach customers and prospects.

So be sure to pick up your copy of Inbound Marketing — and be sure to download HubSpot’s new e-book: Hiring in the DARC Ages: Are the Right People on Your Marketing Team?

The e-book is a chapter from the Inbound Marketing book and it’s really fabulous as Brian and Dharmesh explain how to hire people who understand social media and inbound marketing — and how to apply it. After reading it, I realized I bring far more value to my clients than I knew.

Brian and Dharmesh, thank you again for the opportunity to work with you, and congratulations on your book and business success.