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Building For Your Customers Not The Search Engines
Neil McNulty
8th Jul, 2014 -
Building a website for the first time can be one of the most challenging things business owners face. There are so many different questions that come to mind, there is so many different designs to choose from and more frustratingly everyone is an expert. This means that there is more pressure that is not needed.
The best thing you can do is take a step back and ignore what is thrown at you by people who are “IT Gurus” and “IT Wizzes” or “I know a person…” and the “I got it done so much cheaper by doing it myselfers”.
This may make you think that you are out there on your own, but in reality you are in a much bigger pond with a much larger population of people in the same situation. This is where you can really start to work out what you want to do with your website and what you are trying to achieve. Setting goals like “a million visitors a month” is a little vague and doesn’t achieve what you are wanting to do.
A few things you need to consider include the following:
- Is your website there as a reference site for customers to be educated or as a way to sell your stock?
- Are you going to be posting regular articles or helpful information?
- What is the site primarily there to do for your business?
- What is your website advertising budget?
- What is the computer ability of your customers?
A few of those items may seem like obvious answers but here is why you need to consider them:
- If your site is a reference tool or brochure for your customers then you do not need a shopping cart. If you are wanting to sell product and educate your customers you need to work out what is the site primary purpose… Selling or Educating.
- If you are going to be posting regular articles and helpful information you will need either a dedicated blogging area or the ability to add categories to a blog for your articles.
- If your site is primarily there to sell product then go with a dedicated e-commerce solution rather than a blogging solution like WordPress with a little add-on that supposedly handles shopping. While it may work it is not the primary focus and therefore you need something designed to handle it.
- Most people say that building the website is their advertising budget. Well now is the time to assess that because like your retail business or physical premises there is no point having it unless you advertise you are there. Same applies with websites, no advertising (online) no traffic. Online traffic is crucial as typically more traffic equates to more sales. If you need more of an instant ROI consider Adwords or similar. If you want long term ROI then consider Organic Search.
- If you have a website aimed at people who do not use computers as a part of their job, chances are they will be impatient and very easily put off online shopping. Make sure that navigation and accessing things on the website is made easier for those sorts of customers. If they are older customers then make sure buttons and text bigger with easy to read fonts.
If you are building your website, it is more about having the right information, the right tools and more importantly the right setup for your customers rather than having it geared for search engines which love your site but get you very little sales or results because your visitors cannot use the site.
Suncoast Web Solutions helps new and existing customers each day through the process of building a website for customers not the search engines and helps them find working solutions that the end consumer will love. If you are in this situation where you do not know which way to go with your new website give us a call today on 07 5479 3888.
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