Guest post by James Hallam
This is the first of a series of guest blogs from James Hallam, a fellow Aussie blogger who also blogs about small and medium-sized business and how they can make the web work harder for them.
As a small business owner, getting your business on the web can be a challenge. There are a lot of questions to answer, from what you should pay, to how the website fits with your marketing strategy and what you can expect in terms of payoff. Where should you start?
In this post I want to give you 7 tips that will make getting your business online not only easier, but more cost effective and profitable in the long run.
1. Build your online strategy into your business plan.
A site without a clear purpose as part of a larger strategy is pointless. First things first. Do you have a business plan? Do you have a marketing plan? Does your marketing plan include an online component? If it doesn’t, go back and write it, BEFORE you commission a website. Paying a recognised expert in online marketing and social media to develop your strategy will be well worth your time and money.
2. Set clear goals and measure your progress.
You’ll need a target in terms of increased turnover, or reduced customer contact time or whatever the objective of your online strategy is. Having realistic and quantifiable expectations will help you tweak the site to get the results you need, without thrashing around making changes reactively. One of the great things about the web is the ability to instantaneously measure just about everything, including site traffic, leads, sales, demographics and so on. This gives you the ability to fine tune your online efforts to laser precision, just as long as you know what it is you’re aiming at.
3. Don’t get distracted by details.
It’s easy (particularly for the nerdier among us) to get caught up in bells and whistles of the internet and spend too much time concentrating on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and so on. Remember the mantra, Content is King. Spend most of your effort delivering value to your customer, not tweaking keywords. The most highly optimised site is pointless if the customer doesn’t get anything out of it. The problem is that it’s a bit like trying to furnish your house with a designer lounge suite before you’ve finished building it. It might be fun, but you’re wasting your time – you’ll only have to do it all over again once the house is finished. Get your content, your product and your service offering right before you spend too much time and money polishing the details.
4. Make sure your site is usable.
This includes the layout of menus, links, buttons, headlines, the use of white space, colours, how pages fit together, navigation between pages and so on. If you don’t have a strong foundation in web usability yourself, make sure you hire someone who does. Make a point of asking your web designer or developer about usability – if they don’t have an in depth knowledge of the subject, go elsewhere. A great looking site that’s hard to get around won’t be effective in meeting your goals. Read work by the likes of Jakob Nielsen to understand what web usability is all about.
5. Keep your site fresh.
A website needs to be updated frequently. Website visitors have notoriously short attention spans, and the dynamic and interactive nature of the web means that people expect novelty. Remember that a website is not a business card or brochure you print once and use forever. Visitors won’t come back if you keep serving the same old gruel.
6. Be prepared to pay for quality.
Doing it yourself can save you money, but it won’t save you time. And unless you know what you’re doing, you may not get the results you expect either. What you can do is work out what sort of site you need based on your business plan. Talk about your goals and your budget with your developer or online consultant to get a handle on what’s possible and what’s not. Like any other product, with a website, you get what you pay for.
7. Build your site for your customers, not for you.
What you like doesn’t really matter – do your research, understand who your customer is and why they might visit your site. We’ve all heard the adage “The customer is always right.” Apply it to your site.
If you’ve already got a site, jump into the comments section and weigh in with your own tips on how to get it right.
Did you know … that The Bowditch Group works with several graphic and web designers in Australia and can recommend the right person to you for any website upgrade or review you need? If you would like to find out how I might be able to help you with making your website better, more relevant, and found more by Google, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594 or email me nick@thebowditchgroup.com.
James will be contributing more blog posts in coming weeks. If there is a particular topic you would like him to cover, let us know.
Do you have any other tips that can really make a website work better for a small business owner? Do you disagree with any of James’ tips?
Please let us know in the comments below. When you leave a comment on this site, it appears straight away – no signing up, no waiting for the comment to be moderated – it will appear below straight after you have posted it.
James Hallam writes a blog about making the web work for small and medium businesses. James is an internet entrepreneur who in former lives has been a Software Engineer, Sales Representative, Boat Builder, Manager and Business Analyst. James loves to help people “think about things in an unambiguous way” and has a knack for identifying business problems and drivers and converting them to solutions. You can also follow him on Twitter.
