Web help and advice - Comment archive

Return to comment archive index
 

July 2008

Five steps to improve your website

Step 1 - review what your website is delivering for you

It is easy to lose sight of the fact that the reason you have a website is to deliver results. It's aim might be to support your business through marketing or direct selling; or - more usually - a combination of both. Hence, the first stage of improving your website is to review what those aims are - they can often change over time. Be as specific as possible; think about things like audience profile, what stage they are at in interacting with you (prospective, new or past customer) etc.

Having reviewed your aims look at how your website is performing against each of them. Try to use real numbers (sales figures, numbers of leads generated etc.) as well as your own subjective view (and direct customer feedback if possible). One problem we often see is that sites perform well in educating and informing prospective customers, but then fail to convert those leads in to contacts or sales - so look out for that.

Is your business feeling the pinch?

There's no point denying it - we're definitely starting to see the early stages of a recession in the UK. Input costs are rising and customer spending is down - and most businesses are sandwiched in between.

So, what should a business do to weather the storm? Cut spending... or invest in marketing your business more effectively? A downturn in the market is the perfect opportunity to invest: your competitors might be following the trend and cutting back, so investing will help increase your market share, bolster income and - looking ahead - put you in a perfect position to grow when the economy picks up again.

What is the cheapest, most effective way of marketing your business? Online of course! A small spend tidying up your website, in particular focusing on optimising it to deliver better position in the search engine results (search engine optimisation) and building on that (search engine marketing) will give the greatest return on your investment from any marketing activity.

So, if you're feeling the pinch, don't batten down the hatches - invest wisely now and you will reap the benefits for a long time to come.