For many of the clients I talk to, they view their web site as an online brochure. When their potential customers visit, they are able to find product, service and contact information. This is important information for people who want to know how to contact you. Unfortunately, they’ll NEVER contact you if they can’t find your web site. Your web site has to do more than just tell your customers about who you are or what you do.
Your site must be a business machine. It must be all of the following things:
1. Fast and Available – Your web site must be up and running to be found. Pick a secure, reliable and customer centric host that is available 24/7. It must perform well too. Your customers don’t want to wait for a page to load.
2. Interactive – Your customers must have a way to give you feedback on how your product or service impacts their lives. The reason may surprise you. It’s not just that it gives your customers an outlet to dialog with you but you must USE that feedback to improve your product or service. You must have a web site that is built for interaction.
3. Secure – If you are going to collect your customer’s information, your web site must be secure and your customer’s privacy protected. You must structure your web site in a way that places this concern above all others.
4. Intelligent – Your web site must gather information about your visitors and display this intelligence in a format you can use to take action with. For instance, what keywords are your customers using to find you? What are your customers searching for and not finding? How quickly do your pages load? This is valuable data that if left uncollected or unused, could either leave you scratching your head wondering what to do next or could spell disaster, needlessly, because you didn’t have the information you needed to prevent it.
5. Useable – Small business owners don’t need to have the flashiest designed web sites. They need a look and feel that is consistent and useable. It must match your online and offline marketing materials. No need to get fancy. Just make it clean, nice looking and easy to use.
6. Last but not least, Findable – Your customers must find you to do business with you! Your web site must be structured in such a way to rank on the first page of Google, be talked about on Twitter and Facebook, be found by customers using smartphones. How are your customers finding you now?
A brochure can’t do all these things. You must have a business machine that takes care of all these concerns. Do you have a machine that is working for your business, 24/7. If you don’t or don’t know, please contact me for a free consultation. You might need some help.
