By Sara Haines
Today most businesses, regardless of size, know the benefits that an effective website can offer. In reality it is your 24/7 window to the world that can help you both attract and retain customers.
However how many people do you know complain that their website does not bring them business? This could be because people don’t know about it or the site is too hard to use.
A well designed website can lead to increased business, but unfortunately there are many sites that underperform or can even have a negative effect on the business. This is easy to overcome by following a few simple rules that will help you avoid some of the common mistakes.
Before you decide to either have a website or up-date of your current site you need to decide on the site’s purpose. Both you and your designer need to be completely clear on the sites aim. Is it to increase sales, raise awareness of your business, reduce the numbers of printed brochures you send out, to inform or a combination of all these? Having an effective brief that both you as the client and your designer, have been through, discussed, understood and agreed to will save time, money and potential disappointment at a later stage.
If you have an existing site be ruthless in your critical examination of it, ask your customer’s what they think of the site, how it could be improved, what would they like to see. You might not be able to meet all their suggestions but you will gain some useful feedback and your customers will appreciate that you value their input.
Think about sites that you regularly use and what makes them work for you. Construct a list of likes and dislikes and go through them with your designer.
If your business has a brand identity you will want this reflected in your site, make use of logos, strap lines and colours however a new website could also be the opportunity to up-date your identity.
We live in an increasingly competitive world so your website must spell out what makes you different, what makes your business stand out from the crowd. In other words what is your USP unique selling point. Communicate this to your visitor in a clear, concise and easy to understand manner.
Your site must be kept up to-date, fresh information will encourage visitors to return on a regular basis but you need to decide how this is going to be achieved. Using a content management system will save you money and they are relatively straight forward to use but be honest with yourself. Do you have the time to do it, or could you be spending that time more profitably somewhere else? Decide how often your site will need to be updated and then discuss the options with your designer.
Once you have decided on the above there is one more aspect yet to consider how are you going to let people know about your site? Your designer should build in search engine optimisation to help your site climb the rankings but you will need to plan an effective marketing strategy that may include advertising, pay for clicks, email campaigns and site partnering. If you would like to find out more on marketing your site please contact us.
Getting your website right takes time in both the preparatory work, the build and testing but following these brief tips will go a long way to helping you achieve a successful site.