You have been tasked with building a new business website for your company. Either you are a business owner with this project on your “must do” list or you have been volunteered by your boss to get it done. It doesn’t matter if it is your company’s first website or you need to replace one that is not producing.
Your business has to have a website. Yellow pages and newspaper advertising doesn’t work anymore. A website that doesn’t produce leads is merely an expense. A site that produces leads or direct sales is an income generator. You need an income generator.
Where do you start? Start by looking at the typical barriers to website success that most businesses face. Find the ones that apply to your situation and then create strategies and plans around these barriers.
- No experience: You don’t have any experience with Internet marketing. What works and doesn’t work? What is the best sequence in planning and building a business website? Solution: Hire an Internet marketing consultant that has plenty of experience and can guide you through the process.
- No conversion strategy: You don’t have a clear purpose or a planned action you want visitors to take. A website should have a business purpose with a specific action you want visitors to take. Your call-to-action should be visible and compelling to your best buyer. You need to design a “selling sequence” that is appropriate for what you sell.
- No traffic plan: Where will the visitor traffic come from? How will you attract visitors? There are 634 million websites on the Internet according to netcraft.com (Dec 2012). Will you optimize your site for search using SEO? Will you advertise with Google Adwords? Decide your traffic sources before you build your website. SEO works best when designed into your website. Adwords work best when sent to a landing page.
- No time: You have a business to run. You don’t have any extra available time to take this project on. Not only do you need a website built which is going to take a chunk of your time. You also need to maintain your site and keep it updated, stay current with Google’s latest changes in their algorithm.
- No money: New business websites that are built correctly with a good conversion strategy are expensive. These typically cost 10-20K on up to have built. Then you have the cost of maintaining them. Will you hire an employee to do that? What is the annual cost of an employee?
Start by building a plan for your new website. Get the advice of an Internet marketing expert and create your own blueprint for success.
