Business Builders

Navigating Your Way to Internet Success – Checks and Balances

No, we’re not going into a review of 11^th grade U.S. History & Government here. And believe it or not, there are some lessons we can learn from our current system of government, and apply them to your own business. Seriously, no irreverence intended - $700B buyout or not - one integral part of our governance that we can apply to our online marketing plan is the concept of checks and balances.  Without taking too literal a role - of one crusty Social Studies teacher emanating an odiferous mélange of coffee and Winstons - we’ll look to illustrate how you can apply these lofty bureaucratic ideals into your website strategy.

Checks and balances relating to our government loosely means that no single branch of our government will become too powerful - the three independent branches of government, “check and balance” each other to ensure a nice homogenous lawmaking assembly. Over simplified yes, but we’re here to talk about making more money for your business, not a sleep inducing history lesson.

The checks and balances concept in relating to your business, and more so your website marketing strategy, is a lot more introspective. Meaning, nobody is out there to check your strategy - sans fee of course. Nobody is going to help you balance your marketing budget to make sure you are maximizing every positive return on investment available - it’s up to you. So, check yourself before you wreck yourself, fool!

In keeping with the theme of the series, we are well on our way to finishing our website design aspect. Many people may think, “OK, I got a domain, website is being built from my son’s older brother, now let’s get crackin’ on earning some Internet business!” That’s all well and good, and that approach can probably get a blind squirrel a nut every once in awhile. But when those long harsh winters come (it’s gettin’ mighty chilly in this economic climate), a more comprehensive approach, that is reviewed, and edited, and adjusted, and reviewed, time and time again, is the only way to sustain a profitable new business pipeline. I bet it’s been some time since you last looked at your Mission Statement, or your Marketing return on investment over the last 18 months. Only through a comprehensive analysis of the past, can we accurately shape our financial future. And when we apply this first major checks and balances session, is before our website is even live. In fact, it is essential at this point.

Is your navigation neatly arrayed and easy to follow? How bout the copy, are you lending any consideration to keyword saturation? You might realize through this cathartic self-observation that you are in over your head, and require the help of a professional.

We talked about domains, and do it yourself pitfalls. Hopefully the message came through loud and clear, and we have started on the path to reaping the rewards, BUT. Now is the perfect time to review everything, your strategy, your finances, your marketing plan for the next 18 months, your performance from the previous 18 months, and everything else essential to your business functioning at the highest, most efficient level possible for your situation. You’ve heard of hindsight being 20/20. Take the time now, BEFORE your Internet marketing plan has taken flight, to do the proper checks and balances with your website project. How is your site going to streamline the delivery process? How can your website speed up the transaction process? Are you still happy with how your website development plans are coming together? Have you given any thought to analyzing what works for you offline in regards to marketing, and trying to integrate that into an online strategy? Have you begun to already amass customer related data? Are you concerned with search marketing?

You better be, because in our next article we will tackle and look to simplify the search engine conundrum. Either way, in case the underlying message is somewhat cloudy - your website needs to have an active SEO (search engine optimization) campaign in order to achieve it’s utmost marketing potential. If your website cannot be found when I am searching YOUR geographic area, for YOUR specific product or service, then you are either wasting money or not spending enough to generate the return on investment. We’ll examine that balancing act in the next installment.