Is your business ready for the 21 st century? Most businesses today understand that they need a website to remain competitive in their market.  Getting started seems to be the problem.  A typical business owner spends a majority of their day working in the business.   A business owner needs to wear several hats each day while working on day to day issues that arise.  Trying to manage cash flow, supervising employees, dealing with difficult customers, juggling multiple tasks and still finding enough time left to spend with their family.  Running a business is hard work and taking the time to think about a website and other business planning frequently takes a back seat.

Having a plan or roadmap for developing a website can save you a lot of valuable time and money.  Spending adequate time planning upfront will ensure that you won't be reworking the website after it goes live. The best thing to do is grab a piece of paper, a pencil and a cup of coffee or beer depending on your preference, and of course, the time of day.  As with any project (building a house, saving for retirement, taking a family vacation or building a website) all require planning in order to be successful.  As the saying goes fail to plan, plan to fail.

When you plan your website you will need to answer several questions. What is the purpose of the website?  What is the goal of the website?  Who is the target audience of the website?   What will the target audience want from the website?  Answering these questions is the first step to developing a website for your small business.  It doesn't matter if you're going to develop the website yourself, have an employee do it or if you plan to outsource it to a web designer; you still need to be involved in the planning of your website.  Generally a good web designer will help to guide you through this process.

A website can have many purposes for a business.  One is to let the audience know that your business isn't still stuck in the dark ages (pre-internet).  Just like automobiles, televisions and computers, the internet is here to stay.  A business website is like a business card and telephone, it is just part of doing business today.  Businesses can use a website to help create sales leads, keep customers informed, provide customer support, create brand recognition, develop a database of prospects, sell products, collect payments, and much more.   More than likely your website will have some, or all of these purposes and they should be determined and documented for consideration during the design phase of your website.

Before actually beginning the design of a website it is important to understand the goal of the website.  What is the goal of your website?  To make you millions so you can retire early on a private Island , sure it might be a goal, but what else?  The goal of your website will depend on what the purpose of your site is.  If you are not directly selling products or services online then a goal of your website will be to inform the audience about your business.  Your website needs to sell visitors on your business by displaying your products, service, business philosophy and culture in a format that will impress and convert prospects to customers.

Typical goals include:

Once you understand the main goals of your website you need to plan the design accordingly.  One of your goals may be to collect names and email addresses of prospects in a database.  This information can be used for newsletters or email marketing campaigns.  To accomplish this goal you will need to create a form to collect data on your website.  If your site offers directions or maps to your business locations or instructions for your products, a goal may be to reduce the number of calls and time employees spend on the phone answering the same questions over and over.

Putting together a website just to say you have a website does very little good and could even hurt your businesses reputation.  Before you create a website, remember, this may be the first impression of your business that a potential customer sees.  It is important to plan your website and establish some obtainable goals so that you will be able to realize a proper return on investment.  Let's be honest, your business doesn't need a website, your business needs an internet marketing and sales tools that provide a good return on investment, which of course, includes the creation of a website.

Chris Cook is the Owner of Majestek Solutions LLC A Web Design and Development Company for more information regarding internet marketing and website development go to: http://www.majestek.com

 

Call today: 262-896-0693 - Majestek Solutions, a Web Design Company.