Four Steps to Website Success

Your website should be a significant source of new business. Yet many NZ business websites simply don’t deliver what they could - or should.

The reasons for this are varied, but usually come down to the business owner seeing the website as a one-time expense rather than an ongoing investment. The trouble is, the website quickly becomes THE face of the business. If it’s obvious that the business isn’t maintaining the website, then people draw their own conclusions about the level of service they can expect - and vote with their feet.

Here are four steps to make your website more successful - and generate more business.

Step One - Track your visitors

Before you do anything else, make sure you have some kind of visitor tracking or analytics software installed on your website. This lets you establish a baseline, and measure the impact of any changes you make going forward.

The most best and most popular small business web analytics software is called Google Analytics, and is completely free. All you have to do is add a few lines of code to each page of your website. Your web designer should be able to do this, and it shouldn’t cost much, if anything.

Step Two - Get your keywords right

Many businesses think they know what keywords their target customers will use to find them, but they don’t check their assumptions. They also don’t use their chosen keywords effectively in their website content. These businesses either don’t get found, or get found for the wrong things.

Google has a great free keyword tool which you can find at http://bit.ly/gQZKKa. Google Analytics will show you which keywords your visitors using to find you today. You can use these to develop (or improve) your keyword strategy, and then implement that strategy on your website.

Step Three - Update your website, often

Websites that don’t change get stale, and slip down the search engine rankings. You should add new content regularly - at least once a week if possible. Each new page you add will bring in more visitors and, potentially, leads.

If you’re stuck for ideas, consider adding a News or Blog section where you write about what’s happening in your business and industry. This gives you more pages that use your chosen keywords. It also builds your credibility and increases the likelihood that people will contact you.

Step Four - Continuous Improvement

As I said earlier, you need to keep working on your website for your investment to pay off.

The cycle is simple:

• Make a change
• Measure the impact of that change with Google Analytics
• Refine and repeat

If you make this a regular discipline for your business, your website will start to bring in more business - guaranteed.

Totali builds websites that make your business grow. We can also help you follow these steps to website success. If you need help getting your website to generate a positive return on investment call David Parrott, Business Development Manager for Totali on 07 928 8867, or fill in our Contact form. David has over 10 years experience working with businesses to help them develop effective web-based solutions that deliver results.

This article was originally published in the March issue of the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce Enterprise magazine.

Posted on the 25th of February, 2011, Written by David Parrott. Subscribe to our RSS Feed or our newsletter.

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