Creating A SME Web Presence That Delivers
In the
today’s business environment the Internet has become an extremely powerful
business tool. At a minimum it can be used to generate plenty of juicy new
sales leads or at its full potential delivering a full e-commerce sales vehicle
and revenue stream.
Unfortunately
this been said it still tends to be the very large business groups or industry
specific groups such as the hospitality sector that use the internet to
anywhere near its full potential.
Using
the Internet for your companies’ business advantage need not be either a
complicated or costly measure. I believe armed with a little knowledge you can
start to develop your company’s web presence so that it will quickly become an
important part of your business strategy and ultimately deliver plenty of new
sales and customers.
Your Website
Your
website is your both your company’s shop front and product showroom on the web.
Therefore it’s critical that you put in some work beforehand and plan for its
design, wording and creation so that it delivers your company, people and
products in their best light. Start by asking yourself questions. What do you
want to achieve from this process? Can your on line presence add to your bottom
line?
Goal
Once
someone visits your site they become a potential customer so the primary goal
of a business website needs to be to guide and encourage the visitor to make a
positive next step such as giving contact details (leads), picking up the phone
to call (leads) or making a decision to purchase on line (sales). Don’t forget
a web designer’s business is the look and feel of the site not what your
customers will want so you are the one that is best placed to manage the
process.
About
Keeping
your primary goal in mind your site is also a source of information to your
potential customers. In other words, it’s like a sophisticated on-line brochure
providing potential buyers with relevant information about the company, its
people, products and existing customers. What is a potential customer likely to
want to know about your business to help them to buy your product?
Text
The text
needs to contain a decent sprinkling of the key words (search terms) that your
potential customer is going to type into the search bar when searching for your
product. In this way it’s very different to a standard hard copy brochure and
that why it’s never a good idea to just replicate existing hard copy text on
line. This bit requires some research beforehand from you. You may feel you
have a good idea of what people are lightly to be searching for but you also
need to consider and research less obvious keywords and search terms. Not doing
this is lightly to be cutting off large numbers of potential visitors and
ultimately customers. Include all these keywords in the text of the site and
where possible in the text of your home page. It is also worth considering that
search engines love new information so where you can stay away from coping or
replicating existing on line content.
Pictures and
Bios
It’s
a good idea to include pictures and bios of the main people within the company.
This allows you to demonstrate to the potential buyer the levels of experience
within the organisation and show off any relevant qualifications and
achievements.
Graphics
Buck
the latest trends and keep graphics to a minimum. While they can look good they
sometimes create more trouble than they are worth. Heavy graphic dependent
type-sites are extremely difficult to get a good ranking on Google or the other
search engines due to the nature of how websites are indexed. Remember
Information rich sites rather than flashy sites usually win the ranking battle
within the search engines.
E-content
Newsletters,
blogs and free advice are a great way of keeping your potential customers on
the site while also giving you an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise in
your chosen field. The process of having a visitor sign up for a newsletter
also provides you with sales leads.
Links Page
You
also need to create a links page in your site. This is to allow you to add
relevant links to other sites within your site. You include this page so that
you can start to exchange links with other sites and build up the back links to
your site.
SEO
Now
that you have created your website you first need to get it listed in Google,
Yahoo and DMOZ. You can wait for the search engines to discover your site or
alternatively you apply to have your site listed. Yahoo charge for the
privilege but if you wait they will pick it up. Once this is done your next
task is to ensure that your site appears high enough up the search engine
listings so that people actually click through and visit your home page. This
is called search engine optimisation or SEO for short
One
way to do this is to pay an SEO specialist company to do this for you or
alternatively you can do it for your self. In simple terms search engine
ranking is decided by three factors
1.
The number of links backs to your site
2.
The quality of these links
3.
The relevance to your site of the sites linking in
Online Directories
Your
first port of call should be on line directories. There are literally hundreds
of directories out there that will list your site. Some charge for the
privilege but many don’t. Be warned this can be a time consuming process because
you have to enter the details about your site with each application and many
take months to list your site. Remember try to target directories that are in
some way relevant to your site i.e. Irish, Industry, business or product
related.
Link Exchange
Exchanging
links with other sites is another extremely effective way of building up the
number of quality back links. Again target sites that are relevant to your
business. Contact their web or IT person by e-mail or phone and propose to list
their site provided the return the favour. Ideally you want to target sites
that have a better or at least similar page rank than yours. To see what page
rank a site has download the Google toolbar.
Online Articles
You
can also write articles within your area of expertise and get them published
online including a link to your site. One way to do this is to set up a free
account with a site such as www.ezinearticles.com. These
types of sites provide a service that allows their visitors to publish your
articles on their website or blog therefore creating additional links back to
your site. Alternatively you can target relevant sites and directly request to
have your article published. Well-placed articles also deliver quality
additional visitors and potential customers.
Google Adwords
Adwords
is an online advertising service provided by Google. You pay to have your site
listed for specific keywords and search terms. In effect you bid for relevant
keywords and your site appears somewhere in the sponsored listing section.
Where it appears depends on the popularity of the specific search term and the
amount that you are prepared to pay. Adwords is a good way to get visitors to
your site while you are building up your search rankings.
Google Page Rank
Page
rank goes from 0-10 (10 being the highest) and is how Google views the
importance of your website. Building up the number of quality back links is the
easiest way to achieve a higher ranking. Results take time but it is worth the
effort over the long term. Download the Google toolbar and you can watch your
rank increase over time.
Summary
Your
website should be an effective on line marketing and selling vehicle for your
company. It can be used to generate good quality leads or be full e-commerce
revenue stream for your business. Creating a professional business website is
only the first step, it also needs to appear high enough up the search engine
listings so as to attract sufficient visitor numbers. Lastly it will then need
to hold these potential buyers attention and guide and encourage them to make a
positive next step. This process doesn’t have to be costly provided you are
prepared to invest some of your time and energies. What you will get back
depends largely on what you are prepared to put in.
Author's Bio
Niall
Devitt is a sales training consultant with Real World Sales Training web:www.realworld.ie. He has worked as a Sales
Manager and Sales Trainer in the Insurance, Finance, Telecommunications and IT
industries. He has trained salespeople to sell into the residential, B2B and
the Irish Public Sector markets .He has trained people to sell products ranging
from finance to search engine technology software and pocesses a broad
experience of developing training in sales techniques, account management,
presentation skills and new business development.
