Duped by all the media hype saying that the internet levels your playing field?

Do you recall when it was widely published that the internet levels the playing field for small businesses? Media raved about how small business could not only one up their direct competition but also compete against big companies, which sparked a lot of small businesses to get on the website bandwagon. If you were one of these businesses but have yet to see the promised positive results, you might be feeling duped by all the media hype.

Well, the good news is that it wasn’t just media hype – they were right. However, the bad news is they forgot to tell you that there’s a process that must be followed to gain internet success. Just like developing new products or implementing new processes, if steps are missing, the results are poor performance or outright failure.

So what was the process I should have followed?

Outpacing your competition on the internet is a complicated process, but when broken down into manageable steps, the result is a website that meets company goals and expectations. The three critical steps: goal setting, navigation, messaging, and content, and monthly data monitoring are detailed below. But don’t despair if you didn’t implement these steps when first launching the site; it’s never too late to start.

Step 1: Goal Setting

Asking the simple question, “what do we want our website to do for us (the goal)?” The answer to this question helps drive navigation, content and call-to-action decisions.

Here are some goals that might apply to your business:

• Grow my business by $900k within 6 months.
• Establish creditability as one of the best sources for the unique value we offer.
• Offer our market a one-stop source for equipment and repairs.
• Acquire viable leads and avoid requests for products/services that don’t fit our business model.
• Discover new markets for current products.
• Provide easy to find technical data for my current customers.

Once goals are defined, you can move on to step two.

Step Two: Navigation, Content, and Messaging

Once you have your goals clearly defined, take a critical look at your site and ask, “how well does the site’s navigation, content and messaging help us meet our goals?” If you answered that it doesn’t meet 100% of your goals, then it’s time to get to work and decide what is lacking or missing and then assemble a web team to fix the problem. Depending on your needs, typical web team roles can include:

• Someone who understands marketing; specifically messaging, brand building, and website optimization.
• A content expert; someone with a strong understanding of your products and services to help develop a strong story and on-point messaging.
• A graphics designer to elevate the look and feel of your site.
• A programmer to implement necessary code that supports website parameters for appearance, functionality and marketing tactics.
• Sales and service personnel that have direct customer interaction and know what customers expect.

In a small company, this team is often comprised of one or two internal people. Almost always, outside resources are required to fill any lacking skill sets. Your internal team should interview outside resources to confirm qualifications and fit with the team.

With your team in place, it’s time to create a clear project plan outlines activities needed to ensure the site meets its goals, and timelines and assigned resources to execute the activities. A project plan helps the team stay focused, so the project is completed on time and within budget.

Once the project is complete, now it’s time to protect your investment.

Step Three: Data Monitoring

With the goals set in step one, and the activities complete in step two, metrics can now be established that help you know if the site is meeting its goals, and defining the tools needed to track the metrics.

Monthly data monitoring is a must to stay focused on the results. Monitoring also helps to track trends and tackle any site issues proactively.

Examples of essential measurements are:

• Customer search behavior – how do they find the site.
• What do visitors do on site and how much time do they spend.
• Your site’s keyword rankings.
• Competitor rankings for your relevant and prioritized keywords and phrases.
• Traffic trends and volume from your market’s region
• Mentions in published articles.

The internet offers a level playing field, but the devil is in the details. Now you have a better grasp of to achieve website success.

As always, if you need help navigating search optimization best practices or redesigning your website so it meets its goal, give us a call, 1-360-834-2780.