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7 Questions to Answer Before Designing Your Small Business Website

Author: Christine Milot   |   June 13th, 2010

You’ve got a small business, or maybe you’re just starting. Now is the time to think about your website.

The place to start is to determine what you want to accomplish through your website, followed by a review of options to help determine costs. Every business has different sets of objectives whether it is new client acquisitions, relationship building, and a source for referrals, selling products online or simply a site that validates them to the public.

Determining your specific needs will help define the parameters and set the goals for design, programming and marketing your site.

So, how do you define what it is that you want to accomplish with your website? Keep in mind that your website is an extension of your business and should communicate the benefits of working web design ideaswith you. Having said that, it is time that you took an in-depth look at how you do business “now” and ask some basic marketing questions that will lead you toward the answers.

  1. Who are my clients and what are some of their daily activities?
  2. Do my clients search the web or are they more likely to listen to the radio or another activity?
  3. What is the demographic area that my clients come from?
  4. What are the main benefits of my business that set me apart from my competition?
  5. How do you currently get clients, referrals, word of mouth, advertising, and public relations?
  6. How much new business do I want?
  7. Do I have a budget and what is it?

Once you have answered these questions and have a clear understanding of who your clients are and how to reach them, you can develop a website plan that will effectively build relationships and new business. An effective website plan should always include ways to bring clients to your website from other sources including search engine management, social media, print advertising, radio, public relations, referrals, plus additional sources.

Once you have traffic going to your website it is essential that you have a plan for capturing those leads. An incentive such as a coupon, free consultation or a free downloadable document in exchange for their contact information are all lead generation tools that you can easily implement on your site. The offer should be presented prominently on your home page and be of value to the users coming to your site. A website is a powerful lead generation marketing tool and if used as part of your larger marketing plan can also be very successful.

Christine

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One Response to “7 Questions to Answer Before Designing Your Small Business Website”

  1. Chris Says:

    I love #4.

    So many small companies (and large ones too) look at a website as a largely technical exercise. You get these really generic sites with boilerplate text.

    Think about what makes you special, and put it on the site! You need to get people to not just visit the site, but become customers because of what they see.

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