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Understanding your business requirements
This may sound like a pretty straight forward question, but it's amazing how many business' don't ask themselves; "what do we want from our web site?".
There are many possible answers to this question, we have outlined below some of the more popular ones:
Increase sales/turnover
Probably the most obvious answer. If you are able to drive quality traffic to your web site and turn visitors into paying customers then you are on to a winner. Increasing your organizations sales via your web site can take many different forms, the two obvious routes are online sales and increased awareness of your product or service.
Online sales are most relevant to businesses who's product or service fall into the 'low price / high volume' category. Transactions can be carried out by a web site quickly, safely and easily. More and more users are becoming familiar with and are willing to purchase items over the internet, all you need to do is provide them with a secure environment in which to conduct their business.
Obviously not all products and services can be bought and sold over the internet. Businesses who's product or service is not suited to bulk sales via their web site may simply want to raise awareness of their product or service such that potential customers contact them with a view to striking up a relationship and ultimately purchasing.
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Raise awareness of our product/service/company
This point, along with increasing sales and turnover, is probably at the top of the list for most businesses. Raising awareness of your business and product(s) and service(s) is a difficult task and probably one of the most important aspects of running a successful web site. For the more established business that has maintained a web site for many years the problem is not so great, for the new business however this is a mind boggling task.
The obvious starting point is to make sure that your web site easy to use, here's a few simple tips:
- make sure you site is easy to read and understand
- provide easy to use navigation, try to get users to the information they need within 3 clicks
- if you have lots of information then provide a simple site search box
- make sure you get a strong brand or corporate image across to your user
- carry out some user testing of your web site, ask staff or colleagues to put themselves in the mind set of your audience - how easy is it for them to find the information?
Once your web site is up and running and you've ticked all of the boxes in terms of usability you then need to consider the promotion of your web site. There are many forms of web site promotion, the most basic of which include putting your email address and web site address on all of your business stationary (business cards, letter headed paper etc.).
The one question we get asked the most is "how do we get to the top of the search engine listings?". While the answer is complex, this issue alone may determine the success or failure of your web site. In short there are three distinct avenues to promoting your web site:
Advertising your products/services on the bigger search engines is an excellent way to drive quality traffic to your web site. At the time of writing Google is the biggest search engine out there, their Advertising programme's offer businesses the opportunity to reach millions of users every day. More information on Google Advertising programme's is available here.
A word of warning: don't be under any illusion about of the costs of promoting your web site via the search engines. It costs a lot and is therefore the domain of the bigger business. SEO and web site advertising programme's are BIG business and may run in to hundreds of thousands of dollars per annum so make sure you do you research before stumping up the cash.
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Provide better information to customers
Most organizations, big and small, maintain information about the products or service they sell - so why not make that information available to your audience via your web site? It sounds simple but it's amazing how many businesses get it wrong, how many times have you come across a web site and wanted to find something simple like a branch telephone or address?
Bear in mind that your audience is far more clued up these days and many take the time to research a product or service in depth before jumping in and purchasing. If they can't find what they are looking for on your web site then guess what? They'll go to your competitor. It sounds obvious but you must make sure that the user can find the information they are looking for quickly and easily.
When writing material for your web site make sure your web developers include plenty of cross referencing and links to other pages of relevant information. Make sure the design and style of your site doesn't overpower the user, provide easy to use intuitive navigation that doesn't require any additional plug-ins or software installed to use.
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Provide better information to staff
With many organizations having a global presence these days it makes sense to utilise the power of internet to empower your work force with the information they need to a) do their job better and b) make working for you a better experience. The amount of and depth of information provided is obviously a matter for debate but the idea here is to provide your members of staff with a web based facility that will allow them to find the information they require. When you take a closer look at your business you could probably provide information on many different aspects of the work force's life with you as an employee, some of the topics may include:
- Employment terms & conditions
- Working practises
- Background company information
- Job opportunities
- Latest company news
- Important or useful contacts within the organization
- Detailed information on specific job related tasks
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