By Craig R. Miles
How effective is your website? Is it doing its job? If you own a website and you are expecting to see profitable results, these are the questions you need to ask yourself. It is so important that your website is an effective business tool. Therefore you should check every aspect of our tools to make sure that it is working properly.What’s more important; stats and counters to count the hits and visitors on your site? Not really. The real issue is how much traffic is your website bringing you and how much business are you getting and how much money are you making?
Many websites, as well as affiliate replicated sites, or MLM websites are ecommerce sites. Most of these sites give you access to stats such as sales, number of reps and downline information but are really poor on the actual effectiveness of the website. The ability for the website to build traffic is not the object since the company itself is counting on the massive number of replicated sites to catch ‘hot market’ customers from the replicate owner. The question is how many clients are lost because of the lack of a marketing strategy or mechanism that is not built into the website.
Other websites have other issues like bad layouts, poor copy, substandard design or navigation that is either complicated or confusing. How many clients have you lost because of these and other issues?
Your website is your store front; your public image; where you do business. The person who designed your website should also be your Internet Marketing Consultant, a person who knows how to add business and marketing value instead of just a troubleshooter for technical issues. That person should also be one who is knowledgeable of the latest multimedia and social media applications.
You need to have someone analyze your website. But are you willing to spend the money to get it done? That said, are you going to believe that person and take their advice? Another course of action is to do it yourself.
Ask yourself the following questions. Be honest. You will learn from the answers if you need to upgrade your present website or build a new one.
1. What Is The Goal For Your Website? What is it being used for? What results are you expecting? Every business website should have a clear business statement describing the basic theme of the business. This will help you determine other aspects of you site such as:
a. Buzz creation
a. Buzz creation
b. Customer service support
c. “How to” instructional
d. Lead generation
e. Marketing, branding, positioning
e. Marketing, branding, positioning
f. Promotional campaign
g. Sales-oriented
h. Service or product demonstration
2. Is Your Website Theme-Focused?
Your website needs to be theme-focused. Visitors to your website like structure. Remember, your website is a visual representation of you and the first impression is key. Clarity, balance, and concise information are what visitors are looking for. If your website is multi-focused, create a page for each focus or theme. Acquire separate Domain names for each distinct page that has a unique focus. Then establish marketing campaigns for each page.
3. Is Your Website Functional?
Websites should be easy to use, flow well and should work. Like a carpenter with a hammer; like a painter with a brush; your website is a tool. The functionality of your tool; your website; reflects how professional you are and how well you handle your business. Your site should have personality while reflecting your business image.
4. Content is king.
Content is the focus of your website. Business is the transaction. Profit is the result. The content or information that your website provides should attract customers and clients that fit your target market. The result should be a business transaction at some level. The business transaction should translate into a unit of profit whether it is a product or service. Your content should relate to your product of service. It should be an experience that affects sight, sound and emotion. Unlike media portals like television, radio and other media you are creating an environment for the mind and soul.
5. Don’t forget to provide your contact information. Another characteristic of your website is a point of contact with potential clients and customers. Make sure to provide a way for people to contact you. Include your email address and a phone number. If you don’t want to include your home, business or cell phone number get a separate phone number for messages such as eVoice. This is a voice mail system that can be retrieved by your cell phone or email.
6. Does your website have a database feature?
Make sure your website has a way of building a database of people who like your website and desire to receive more information from you. Offer updates on new articles, special pricing on services as a member and then make sure you are consistent with that information whether it is daily, weekly or monthly. If you have an affiliate website that captures that data for you, make sure that you have access to that information and be proactive for your own business. Even though the company that you are affiliated with may provide access and collects the information for you, remember they are collecting it mainly for themselves; not for you. Even if they are sending out a newsletter on your behalf, they are retaining that database and if you ever leave that company, you might lose access to that database. If you do not have access to that database, then you need to create your own website as a gateway or landing page to your affiliate website with a responder to capture and build a database before they enter your affiliate website. I recommend Aweber.com as a way of sending out newsletters and related information as well as capturing and building a database of your own.
Remember, it’s your business so take charge of your business.
For more information and websites: http:/www.ultimateinternetmarketer.com, http://bestinternetmarketingtool.info, http://thebestinternetmarketingtool.blogspot.com
Contact Craig Miles at (214) 602-5390.
