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I run a software company and that means in theory any software-project is something we could do... in practice not quite but still the range is very wide. However simply advertising online as a "Software Company" is very boring and there are so many others.

There is one specific area I'd like to target, a sector in which we have done some good work the last 2-3 years. BUT, I don't want to advertise only in that area in case some other things come up.

My business is such that I'd normally direct people to my website, not them find it through searching. I don't want multiple websites because much of the general software & specific sector content would overlap.

So what's a good way to consider this? I know that having the speciality field in some menu option won't really work, every click loses people. So perhaps on the home page, big bold panels for each area I want to focus on are appropriate, clicking any of those takes them to a page focusing on that.

For reference, we do general application development, web-backends, online games, and medical simulation... quite a range. I also worry a little that if a big business guy from a medical company visits my site and sees any mention of games along side medical simulation, they might be put off.

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I don't want multiple websites because much of the general software & specific sector content would overlap.

I'd encourage you to consider marketing multiple brands... Ok, so in practice this does mean having multiple websites, but it really doesn't matter if content overlaps. If you put yourself in a prospective client's shoes that is interested in some mobile app development; they want to see that the company they are dealing with is committed to this sort of development. Even targetted landing pages on a generic site isn't going to do the trick. You have to reach out to the specific niche for them to feel comfortable that you are the company for the job.

Focus on each niche with specific branding and marketing in order to get the best conversion rate. Always think from the customer's perspective, not an internal functional perspective. Think of the top 5 types of development you want to do. Create specific, focused websites that only cater for each of those types of development so you end up with five different websites, tailored (even if only slightly tweaked) to each type of client. All the other types of software development you can handle on your existing more generic website.

Manually building leads really doesn't scale well - I would really encourage you to think about harnessing traffic from search. That isn't to say you should stop developing leads - but you shouldn't actively prevent people from finding you via search engines either. Make your websites search friendly, have sector-specific useful content on there to give visitors a chance to get to know you as a company.

What is your long term strategy...? Is it to continue taking any type of software job that comes your way (because you can do it)? Perhaps another way is to structure your brand - the outward perception you project to the marketplace - into segments and then focus on the areas that return the highest and most sustainable rewards? Building those brands will add authority and trust in you as a company, ultimately giving you more power as a software house and a stronger business.

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Whats the source you are targetting?

Lets assume people come to your site from google search only.

You can get the information about the search terms in REFERRER location. It does not help to classify everything but you will be able to classify your most common users.

All you need to do is to have 3~4 versions of your landing page , eg the game version will have a much bigger banner about games. Now you need to load the right page based on the referrer. Isn't that hard to do when you have google analytics to check who and what is used to get to your site. You will always have the default version in cases when referer cannot be detected.

Also would be a good choice to store cookies based on first click / previous visit of the user (like I visit your site and click the app dev section, next time whenever my browser is used to visit your site , app dev is on top)

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As I said, I expect to drive people to my website, not have them find it by searching online. I expect to introduce myself to potential clients, who don't even know what I do is an option. – John Jun 1 '11 at 12:56
Missed that part but it does help to use cookies still in your case. On the other hand, the best option is to have 3 equally sized banners (say boxes, one on each side and one in middle). On clicking the choice , user is taken to the part of the site best suitable for the type selected. You have to have a selector from one of these choices 1. different address (yoursite.com/games, yoursite.com/apps etc or even subdomain like games.yoursite.com) 2. Referer or cookie storage to detect it. 3. User selects by clicking – A-b Jun 5 '11 at 8:14

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