Business Builders

Navigating Your Way to Internet Success

It doesn’t matter what your industry is, an internet presence is essential to the growth of your business. The Internet offers a 24/7 place to learn more about your business, allowing you as the business owner to communicate your message directly to the consumer - on their terms. No other advertising or marketing medium can provide you with a more cost effective way to reach out to more people who could possibly benefit from what your business has to offer. There’s only one hitch, you need a website.

That’s the first thing, and really the only thing we will touch on here - starting a website, and some of the initial questions you should be asking yourself. There will be plenty of other forms of internet marketing discussed here on Business Builders.

 Let me paint a picture; it could be 11pm at night, and the wife needs an estimate on fencing in our backyard. Sure as sugar I will be online looking for a fencing contractor in my area. Why? First off, if the company has a website, they are up to date with technology - that’s the first message. Secondly, by browsing different sites, we are better able to make a design or buying decision before even contacting the company. Maybe one company even has prices listed by square footage. Now that’s shopping I can get behind! The point here is this, without the Internet, I would’ve wasted countless hours getting estimates, looking at samples, and maybe even interviewing some references supplied by the company. With the addition of a simple website, the company I chose allowed me to accomplish all of that on my time. Sitting on my butt…in about 10 minutes.

 Where do I begin? How much do websites generally cost? How do I even begin to look for a website provider in my area? What about the search engines?….I ain’t gittin on the darn intirnit, all my business is word of mouth!

 To start at the absolute beginning, let’s first answer some questions:

1.   Is your main goal for the website going to be generating new customers, or referring existing ones? We call this a selling site, or a brochure site - is your site going to help you sell more product/services? Or, is the website there to provide additional educational resources about your business? What are your main goals for the site? How will it increase business? How will it help your business operate more efficiently? Are your competitors on the web? Really develop a game plan for what you want the website to accomplish. More customers? More sales leads? Feedback from your exiting customers? Customer loyalty?

2. Are you looking to have your site found on the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN….etc.)? One of the most important questions - and yes, you need to ask yourself at this early juncture to prevent wasted time, money, and resources down the road.

3.Which brings us to our third most important question; do I build it myself or do I hire a web designer? Really the $64,000 question - with an array of answers. It really depends on your needs, and that is all the more reason to go back and make sure you have definable goals for what you want the website to accomplish. The idea of “build it and they will come” is not good enough. You wouldn’t send a Ferrari to Aamco…or change the oil yourself for that matter. We’ll address the shopping issue in future discussions.

 Any hard earned dollars you are investing in marketing or promoting or advertising your business, should return to you at least threefold through those efforts. Whether that is from increased customer loyalty, or from generating new customers - much like starting your business, do not skip this crucial step of identifying goals and thinking a bit ahead of how you want to structure your internet presence.

 As you can imagine, the questions range from the obvious to intricately complex, and the objections sometimes reach a fevered pitch. But one thing is certain; the Internet is here to stay. Get on board, or miss the money train!

Tags: Internet Success, Website