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Suggest You - Planning Your New Website - How To Avoid The Most Common Mistakes
Networking is where you go along to an organised event. You meet lots of new people, exchange business cards and before you know it you've got some new business.OK, I know it doesn't usually happen that way. Let's rewind!Networking is where you go along to an organised event for the purpose of making new contacts. They might want to use your services themselves in the future or they might be able to refer you to others they know who might need what you have to offer, or they might be offering something that you or people you know need. That sounds good, doesn't it, so how come you end up coming away not quite achieving your mission?I guess there are lots of reasons, ranging from lack of confidence when you walk into the room to not knowing how to communicate what you do. If you see someone you know, you head straight for them, filled with relief, but this can often mean that you have a good excuse for not mingling, as you busy yourself with catching up with your colleague.I was talking to someone the other evening who said that she was never short of something to say normally, but as soon as she walked into a networking me
- qualitative feedback from website visitors will give you a feeling about how well your website performs. Do you get positive comments about how easy it is to navigate or about how useful someone found its content? Do you get enquiries from prospective customers via your website? Are you and your staff proud of the website?
- you can set up your own key performance indicators to measure your websites’ success. Monitoring the number of enquiry forms completed by visitors each month, for example, or the average order value from online shoppers, are important website metrics that you can track.
- website statistics provide details about your site’s overall activity, including the number of visitors it receives, how those visitors found your website and which pages of your site they look at most. (Our article covers website statistics in more detail.) Website analytics is a step on from website statistics, providing more detailed information about visitors’ behaviour, such as the particular sequence of pages viewed during each visit.
Mistake 6 - Most Business Owners Don’t Keep Their Website’s Content Fresh
The work involved in developing a successful business website does not stop at the moment you launch your new site on the Internet. A website that is allowed to age, without new content being added, will become increasingly out-of-date and offers few reasons for visitors to pay a return visit. The best websites
If you run a small business and you have a community following of sorts you have to be careful not to dilute your message by over marketing peripheral services. Yet at the same time if your existing customers desire a similar service, which you can offer and make a good profit at well then you might be considered a fool for not offering it right? Assuming of course you have the employees to do it and can manage it without too much additional upfront capital or training costs.Now then let us consider the similar service businesses of Auto Detailing, Car Washing and Mobile Oil Changes for Corporate clientele at office buildings. You see it is difficult to establish these businesses in the first place and building a solid steady route is not easy either. However, having been in the sector for 27-years and having franchised in 23-states, it can be done. Also getting into the larger companies is not difficult, if you get in first with car wash weekly service and detailing and once they trust you pitch oil changes.I have always found that works better in fact our oil change business grew out of customer demand for oil changes, hence; Lube on D
Conversely, those businesses that fail to undertake any planning are, inevitably, planning to fail.
Don’t let your new website become a disappointment to your business. Some careful planning will ensure that you:
- know what you want your website to achieve and who it is for
- can undertake appropriate actions to generate visitors to your site
- have reliable, regular methods of measuring your website’s performance
Mistake 1 - Most Website Owners Don’t Know What They Want Their Website To Achieve
Producing a successful website starts with understanding what you want your website to achieve and, as the business owner, you know your business best. Despite this, having decided to start work on a new website, many business owners immediately phone their website designer.
When you can define clearly the overall aim of your website, you are ready to present your thoughts to your website designer. Their role is to develop a website that achieves your aim; your role is to decide what that aim is.
Do not feel that you need to develop an aim that is radical or unique. Many business websites exist to generate sales enquiries from prospective customers. Just because this is the most common raison d’etre, it can be your aim too. As long as you have thought through your objectives and understand what you want your website to achieve, you have made the first step towards a successful business website.
Mistake 2 - Most Website Owners Don’t Know Who Their Website Is For
You have given your new website some thought and developed an insight into its purpose. Closely allied to this is the matter of who your website is for: who is your website’s target audience?
The usual answer is "customers" but this is too vague. Is your website aimed at existing customers, with whom you already have a relationship, or prospective customers who don’t know your business?
If your website is focused on prospective customers, is its role to attract their initial attention or is the website involved at a later point in the sales process?
Many businesses use their websites successfully to generate initial interest from prospective customers. This is particularly evident in industries where customers use the Internet as part of their research into sourcing a supplier. Other businesses will generate initial interest through different means and will then refer prospective customers to their website, either to demonstrate credibility or to provide more detailed information.
In both instances, the target audience is "potential customers" but the approaches are different.
Mistake 3 - Most Business Websites Have A Poorly Defined "Call-To-Action"
The most beautifully-designed website is, in itself, entirely useless unless it encourages visitors to take some specific action. That action will vary with the nature of the website but common examples are to:
- complete an online enquiry form
- register on the website
- purchase a product
- sign up for a newsletter
- progress deeper into the website to read more about products and services
Each of these is a measurable action which should correlate with the website objectives you defined earlier.
Once you understand the particular call-to-action that you want visitors to follow, you can address your website’s content, design and navigation. Without a well-defined call-to-action, your new website is only going to produce disappointing results.
Mistake 4 - Most Business Owners Don’t Work Hard Enough To Generate Visitors To Their Website
Generating visitors is an important aspect of running a successful business websiteThe "build it and they will come" philosophy rarely works for websites, especially for business websites. All businesses exist alongside competitors that offer broadly the same products or services. The notion that you can launch your new website on the Internet and wait for a stampede of visitors is optimistic, at best.
Instead, owners of successful business websites work hard to attract visitors.
The specific way you approach this will depend on the nature of your website. The most common visitor-generating initiatives involve:
- search engine optimisation - encourages search engines such as Google to position your website prominently for keyword searches relevant to your business
- search engine advertising - enables you to pay search engines such as Google to position your website prominently for keyword searches relevant to your business
- online PR - generates interest in your business as well as links to your website
- email marketing - you can market directly to a defined target audience and encourage them to visit your site
- off-line marketing - using your website address on company literature, clothing, vehicle livery etc. will raise awareness of your site and encourage visits
Marketing the website to generate a consistent, reliable stream of visitors is the most overlooked aspect of running a successful business website. Careful thought about which methods of generating visitors will be most effective for your website is vital if your site is going to produce the results you want.
Mistake 5 - Most Business Owners Don’t Measure Their Website’s Success
Website statistics help you measure the activity on your websiteYour website will require an investment of both time and money and, as a business owner, you should expect a return on your investment. Unless you measure what your website achieves, you will not know how much difference it makes to your business. If you do not know what affect your website has on your business, how will you know whether continued investment of time and money is justified?
Your website’s success can be measured in three ways:
- qualitative feedback from website visitors will give you a feeling about how well your website performs. Do you get positive comments about how easy it is to navigate or about how useful someone found its content? Do you get enquiries from prospective customers via your website? Are you and your staff proud of the website?
- you can set up your own key performance indicators to measure your websites’ success. Monitoring the number of enquiry forms completed by visitors each month, for example, or the average order value from online shoppers, are important website metrics that you can track.
- website statistics provide details about your site’s overall activity, including the number of visitors it receives, how those visitors found your website and which pages of your site they look at most. (Our article covers website statistics in more detail.) Website analytics is a step on from website statistics, providing more detailed information about visitors’ behaviour, such as the particular sequence of pages viewed during each visit.
Mistake 6 - Most Business Owners Don’t Keep Their Website’s Content Fresh
The work involved in developing a successful business website does not stop at the moment you launch your new site on the Internet. A website that is allowed to age, without new content being added, will become increasingly out-of-date and offers few reasons for visitors to pay a return visit. The best websites
The working environment these days is insecure, and there is no such thing as a job for life any more. While some careers are far more secure than others, such as a profession with rare skills like veterinary surgeon or doctor, generally speaking you should not expect to go into a job for life when you leave college or university. You may not even get the type of job you want in the career that you want.When you start to think about career training, it is probably in your interests to be prepared for alternative careers, or maybe careers that can be moved from one industry to another. If you set off on a single track and that route hits a dead end, then you may struggle to redirect yourself into another career.Precisely how you go about dual career training is going to depend on what your first choice career is, and the types of skills that are required for that career.I will use my own example and hope that it may give you some ideas for your own situation. As a teenager I presumed I would make a living from writing, but I was realistic enough to realise that that would not happen overnight, so started working in offices at 18, i
Mistake 2 - Most Website Owners Don’t Know Who Their Website Is For
You have given your new website some thought and developed an insight into its purpose. Closely allied to this is the matter of who your website is for: who is your website’s target audience?
The usual answer is "customers" but this is too vague. Is your website aimed at existing customers, with whom you already have a relationship, or prospective customers who don’t know your business?
If your website is focused on prospective customers, is its role to attract their initial attention or is the website involved at a later point in the sales process?
Many businesses use their websites successfully to generate initial interest from prospective customers. This is particularly evident in industries where customers use the Internet as part of their research into sourcing a supplier. Other businesses will generate initial interest through different means and will then refer prospective customers to their website, either to demonstrate credibility or to provide more detailed information.
In both instances, the target audience is "potential customers" but the approaches are different.
Mistake 3 - Most Business Websites Have A Poorly Defined "Call-To-Action"
The most beautifully-designed website is, in itself, entirely useless unless it encourages visitors to take some specific action. That action will vary with the nature of the website but common examples are to:
- complete an online enquiry form
- register on the website
- purchase a product
- sign up for a newsletter
- progress deeper into the website to read more about products and services
Each of these is a measurable action which should correlate with the website objectives you defined earlier.
Once you understand the particular call-to-action that you want visitors to follow, you can address your website’s content, design and navigation. Without a well-defined call-to-action, your new website is only going to produce disappointing results.
Mistake 4 - Most Business Owners Don’t Work Hard Enough To Generate Visitors To Their Website
Generating visitors is an important aspect of running a successful business websiteThe "build it and they will come" philosophy rarely works for websites, especially for business websites. All businesses exist alongside competitors that offer broadly the same products or services. The notion that you can launch your new website on the Internet and wait for a stampede of visitors is optimistic, at best.
Instead, owners of successful business websites work hard to attract visitors.
The specific way you approach this will depend on the nature of your website. The most common visitor-generating initiatives involve:
- search engine optimisation - encourages search engines such as Google to position your website prominently for keyword searches relevant to your business
- search engine advertising - enables you to pay search engines such as Google to position your website prominently for keyword searches relevant to your business
- online PR - generates interest in your business as well as links to your website
- email marketing - you can market directly to a defined target audience and encourage them to visit your site
- off-line marketing - using your website address on company literature, clothing, vehicle livery etc. will raise awareness of your site and encourage visits
Marketing the website to generate a consistent, reliable stream of visitors is the most overlooked aspect of running a successful business website. Careful thought about which methods of generating visitors will be most effective for your website is vital if your site is going to produce the results you want.
Mistake 5 - Most Business Owners Don’t Measure Their Website’s Success
Website statistics help you measure the activity on your websiteYour website will require an investment of both time and money and, as a business owner, you should expect a return on your investment. Unless you measure what your website achieves, you will not know how much difference it makes to your business. If you do not know what affect your website has on your business, how will you know whether continued investment of time and money is justified?
Your website’s success can be measured in three ways:
- qualitative feedback from website visitors will give you a feeling about how well your website performs. Do you get positive comments about how easy it is to navigate or about how useful someone found its content? Do you get enquiries from prospective customers via your website? Are you and your staff proud of the website?
- you can set up your own key performance indicators to measure your websites’ success. Monitoring the number of enquiry forms completed by visitors each month, for example, or the average order value from online shoppers, are important website metrics that you can track.
- website statistics provide details about your site’s overall activity, including the number of visitors it receives, how those visitors found your website and which pages of your site they look at most. (Our article covers website statistics in more detail.) Website analytics is a step on from website statistics, providing more detailed information about visitors’ behaviour, such as the particular sequence of pages viewed during each visit.
Mistake 6 - Most Business Owners Don’t Keep Their Website’s Content Fresh
The work involved in developing a successful business website does not stop at the moment you launch your new site on the Internet. A website that is allowed to age, without new content being added, will become increasingly out-of-date and offers few reasons for visitors to pay a return visit. The best websites
Have you ever noticed that for some colleagues and bosses you'll move mountains while for others, you can't seem to do anything right? What's going on here? Is it just you or is there a larger issue at work?Recently a friend and I were discussing an incident where she lost her "stop-gap" job as a sales clerk at a bookstore. She's a professional woman who had been supplementing her free-lance writing income with several days a week at this local branch of a national chain. In spite of the fact that she thought she was doing a good job, every time she turned around the owner was riding her for some transgression. First she was blamed for someone else's computer errors. Then rather than being praised for helping a customer grow a small order of books found in the store into a large order including additional books she ordered at my friend's suggestion, the owner saw this as a mistake. Stick to what we have on hand and don't raise expectations was the reprimand.My friend thought she was crazy, but every time she stepped into the bookstore she found herself losing confidence and was poised to make mistakes she'd never make in any other
- complete an online enquiry form
- register on the website
- purchase a product
- sign up for a newsletter
- progress deeper into the website to read more about products and services
Each of these is a measurable action which should correlate with the website objectives you defined earlier.
Once you understand the particular call-to-action that you want visitors to follow, you can address your website’s content, design and navigation. Without a well-defined call-to-action, your new website is only going to produce disappointing results.
Mistake 4 - Most Business Owners Don’t Work Hard Enough To Generate Visitors To Their Website
Generating visitors is an important aspect of running a successful business websiteThe "build it and they will come" philosophy rarely works for websites, especially for business websites. All businesses exist alongside competitors that offer broadly the same products or services. The notion that you can launch your new website on the Internet and wait for a stampede of visitors is optimistic, at best.
Instead, owners of successful business websites work hard to attract visitors.
The specific way you approach this will depend on the nature of your website. The most common visitor-generating initiatives involve:
- search engine optimisation - encourages search engines such as Google to position your website prominently for keyword searches relevant to your business
- search engine advertising - enables you to pay search engines such as Google to position your website prominently for keyword searches relevant to your business
- online PR - generates interest in your business as well as links to your website
- email marketing - you can market directly to a defined target audience and encourage them to visit your site
- off-line marketing - using your website address on company literature, clothing, vehicle livery etc. will raise awareness of your site and encourage visits
Marketing the website to generate a consistent, reliable stream of visitors is the most overlooked aspect of running a successful business website. Careful thought about which methods of generating visitors will be most effective for your website is vital if your site is going to produce the results you want.
Mistake 5 - Most Business Owners Don’t Measure Their Website’s Success
Website statistics help you measure the activity on your websiteYour website will require an investment of both time and money and, as a business owner, you should expect a return on your investment. Unless you measure what your website achieves, you will not know how much difference it makes to your business. If you do not know what affect your website has on your business, how will you know whether continued investment of time and money is justified?
Your website’s success can be measured in three ways:
- qualitative feedback from website visitors will give you a feeling about how well your website performs. Do you get positive comments about how easy it is to navigate or about how useful someone found its content? Do you get enquiries from prospective customers via your website? Are you and your staff proud of the website?
- you can set up your own key performance indicators to measure your websites’ success. Monitoring the number of enquiry forms completed by visitors each month, for example, or the average order value from online shoppers, are important website metrics that you can track.
- website statistics provide details about your site’s overall activity, including the number of visitors it receives, how those visitors found your website and which pages of your site they look at most. (Our article covers website statistics in more detail.) Website analytics is a step on from website statistics, providing more detailed information about visitors’ behaviour, such as the particular sequence of pages viewed during each visit.
Mistake 6 - Most Business Owners Don’t Keep Their Website’s Content Fresh
The work involved in developing a successful business website does not stop at the moment you launch your new site on the Internet. A website that is allowed to age, without new content being added, will become increasingly out-of-date and offers few reasons for visitors to pay a return visit. The best websites
Competition Analysis will give comprehensive information about your competitors business, about his strategies, about his customers etc. Understanding and analyzing competition is a core part for any successful online business. To Start an Ebusiness every company has to conduct competitive analysis to identify the key areas of competition.How to do competition analysis?Since you are going to start online business, probably your first source would be search engines. Try few search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista etc to find out about your competition. Try few keywords pertaining to your business. Say if you are into Shoe Business and you want to extend your business online.Steps to Conduct Competitive Analysis through Internet:Step1: Find Top 3 Competitors by using relevant search phrase (Keywords: Cheap Leather Shoes, Quality footwear etc) Step 2: Go to each Competitors website Step 3: Study their WebsiteWhat to Study from the Competitors Website:Concept Analysis How the Website has being conceptualized? What is the theme of the website? What are the links they have conceptu
Marketing the website to generate a consistent, reliable stream of visitors is the most overlooked aspect of running a successful business website. Careful thought about which methods of generating visitors will be most effective for your website is vital if your site is going to produce the results you want.
Mistake 5 - Most Business Owners Don’t Measure Their Website’s Success
Website statistics help you measure the activity on your websiteYour website will require an investment of both time and money and, as a business owner, you should expect a return on your investment. Unless you measure what your website achieves, you will not know how much difference it makes to your business. If you do not know what affect your website has on your business, how will you know whether continued investment of time and money is justified?
Your website’s success can be measured in three ways:
- qualitative feedback from website visitors will give you a feeling about how well your website performs. Do you get positive comments about how easy it is to navigate or about how useful someone found its content? Do you get enquiries from prospective customers via your website? Are you and your staff proud of the website?
- you can set up your own key performance indicators to measure your websites’ success. Monitoring the number of enquiry forms completed by visitors each month, for example, or the average order value from online shoppers, are important website metrics that you can track.
- website statistics provide details about your site’s overall activity, including the number of visitors it receives, how those visitors found your website and which pages of your site they look at most. (Our article covers website statistics in more detail.) Website analytics is a step on from website statistics, providing more detailed information about visitors’ behaviour, such as the particular sequence of pages viewed during each visit.
Mistake 6 - Most Business Owners Don’t Keep Their Website’s Content Fresh
The work involved in developing a successful business website does not stop at the moment you launch your new site on the Internet. A website that is allowed to age, without new content being added, will become increasingly out-of-date and offers few reasons for visitors to pay a return visit. The best websites
I just got back from spending 2 glorious weeks in the Caribbean ...and my tan is fading as I write this! (April in Canada isn't exactly tanning weather!)It was wonderful to take 2 weeks off, and know that while I was away - the Sales Diva systems were generating revenue even when I wasn't there.I had over $20,000 booked while I was away - all with the help of automated systems, a fabulous assistant and...here is the most important part...the fact that I don't feed my sales with a teaspoon.You're thinking....teaspoon? What the heck is she talking about!Are You Filling Your Bucket One Teaspoonful At A Time? Do you remember playing birthday party games as a kid where you had to fill a cup with water one teaspoon at a time? (OK - maybe we just play weird games in Canada !)Anyway - it took a whole lot of effort and spilled water before the cup was full. I see entrepreneurs and salespeople operating like this every day. Running around like chickens with their heads cut off (OK - another Canadian expression!) and believe me - it isn't pretty!These entrepreneurs/salespeople are exhausted, frust
- qualitative feedback from website visitors will give you a feeling about how well your website performs. Do you get positive comments about how easy it is to navigate or about how useful someone found its content? Do you get enquiries from prospective customers via your website? Are you and your staff proud of the website?
- you can set up your own key performance indicators to measure your websites’ success. Monitoring the number of enquiry forms completed by visitors each month, for example, or the average order value from online shoppers, are important website metrics that you can track.
- website statistics provide details about your site’s overall activity, including the number of visitors it receives, how those visitors found your website and which pages of your site they look at most. (Our article covers website statistics in more detail.) Website analytics is a step on from website statistics, providing more detailed information about visitors’ behaviour, such as the particular sequence of pages viewed during each visit.
Mistake 6 - Most Business Owners Don’t Keep Their Website’s Content Fresh
The work involved in developing a successful business website does not stop at the moment you launch your new site on the Internet. A website that is allowed to age, without new content being added, will become increasingly out-of-date and offers few reasons for visitors to pay a return visit. The best websites are not allowed to fade away because new content is added regularly, keeping the site alive.
Not only does fresh content give visitors a reason to return, it encourages greater attention from search engines as well. Google, Yahoo and others will happily follow links to new pages on your site and index the content they find. More exposure in search engines generates more visitors, which further increases the chances of your website achieving its objectives.
New content, particularly press releases, announcements, articles and case studies, gives you a reason to contact people and encourage them to visit the site. For instance, many businesses distribute a regular newsletter which refers to recent additions to their website and this helps them to generate return visits.
A facility that enables you to add new content to your site is important. (Our article about the benefits of a Content Management System may be of interest.)
Many websites fail to live up to initial expectations and are regarded by the business owner as "a waste of money". Planning your site’s objectives and understanding what action you want your target audience to take is critical preparation. Developing a strategy for generating visitors and ensuring that you have the means to measure your website’s activity will help you to assess how well your site meets its objectives. And, once your site begins to produce the results you want, regularly adding new, informative content will encourage return visits and enable you to build a website that is highly valued by your target audience.
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