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Whether you're concerned
with business-to-business, or business to consumer,
whether your organization is large or small, commercial
or nonprofit, there are some fundamental questions
around your website and technology strategy that
should be addressed to ensure success. |
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Otherwise, you risk missing opportunities,
and not maximizing
the return on your investment in your online presence.
If you haven't visited your own
website for a while, look at it
again in light of these questions:
Take your time - this is the key to one successful website
or
a number of successful websites linked together.
12website has been redesigning
and upgrading poor performance
websites for over 7 years using these guidelines.
Contact
us for help.
1. Does your website present an
appropriate image of your
company?
Marketers talk a lot about branding, and consistency
of message.
Does your company site reflect how you'd like your customers
to
feel about your business? Is it sophisticated, and professional
looking? Does it speak directly to visitors in language
that
they'll understand, and in ways that relate to their
issues and
needs?
Image is also about public relations.
Publicity is a powerful
marketing tool, and reporters are increasingly looking
for
stories and information online. Does your website offer
a media
center? Does it offer comment on current events in your
industry? Do you face up to the bad news, and spin it
to your
advantage? Whatever you may think of Microsoft, check
out their
extensive Press Pass area at:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/default.asp
2. Does your Website suggest potential
for new or currently
untapped markets?
In almost all the sites that I've consulted for, we've
identified markets or audiences beyond the "real-world"
customer
base of the business.
This may be because the site extends
the geographic reach of
your marketing. If you have good content on your site,
it may
also be because visitors looking for your subject area
find you
in search engines and come to read your articles and
white
papers.
Either way, if you find many "non-traditional"
visitors to your
site, you should assess whether they constitute a possible
new
market area for your business. Beware of Fast
Profit or Fast Talk.
3. Does your website suggest potential
for new products or
services?
A clear understanding of your visitor needs may also
encourage
you to consider new products or services. On the Web,
bundling
expertise into downloadable, for-sale content provides
valuable
new revenue streams for many businesses and non-profits.
You can find great clues for development
ideas by tracking the
keywords entered into your own site search engine. These
show
what visitors expect to find on your site - and therefore
what
they expect your company to offer.
4. Does your Website provide
continuing added value for existing
customers?
Most site owners focus on acquiring
new customers and fail
to
maximize the opportunities to support and service existing
ones.
These include password-protected
areas where your clients can
follow the progress of their projects, share documents
with you,
etc. Personalization and pre-populated forms (i.e. which
are
automatically filled in with the customer's details)
help to
create a feeling of value and save time for your visitors.
Check the average response time
for a contact from your Website.
One of the top complaints about major company sites
is that e-
mails are not answered in a timely (hopefully 24 hours
or less)
manner.
5. Does your website support your
internal operations and
employee needs?
This question relates to whether you're making the best
use of
all available technologies and integrating them with
your
online operations.
Example applications to consider
include:
* Instant messaging - fast becoming
a serious business tool
* Knowledge bases - continually
updated databases that can
provide automated customer support on a 24/7 basis
* Streaming media - perhaps for
just-in-time training or
on-the-spot manuals for your operatives
* Intranets and extranets - which
are really just fancy names
for password-protected employee and client areas.
6. Does your Website integrate
fully with your "real-world"
activities and processes?
One of the most frustrating visitor experiences is to
complete a
form, an application, or to submit a search on your
Website,
only to receive an error message. 12website produces
error free forms and interaction.
Customers want the security
of an e-mailed purchase confirmation.
Our ecommerce
shops confirm all purchases.
They want to know that they'll be taken off your mailing
list
quickly and without the need for multiple requests.
With the complexity of technology
and programs today, sometimes
a change to a seemingly unrelated system can wreak havoc.
Do you
regularly check all the input forms and processes on
your site
to ensure that no unexpected gremlins have crept in?
7. Does your Website provide you
with a justifiable return on
investment - ROI?
This is probably the most important question of the
seven and
possibly also the most difficult.
That's because the answer depends
on a clear understanding of
the goals of your site, both in direct financial terms,
and in
other less tangible benefits, such as name recognition.
The keys to evaluating ROI, to
improving your site, and often to
further business development ideas can be found in your
traffic
reports. These show what visitors are looking for, how
long
they spend on the site, where they go, where they leave,
and
what rate of response you get to the various calls to
action.
These reports can be daunting -
a mass of figures, graphs and
URL's. But I strongly suggest that someone in your organization
understand them. Otherwise, you're shooting in the dark
with
your Web investment.
At 12website we address all
of the above issues.
Let us advise you. Contact
12website
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