A website should be an extension of your business

Share This November 9th, 2009 Antowan

Many people think a website should outperform and outrank the “competition” on search engines and be the best super duper website around in terms of design and looks. These things do matter, but only slightly so. Content is still king! A website should be an extension of your business and help those who want to communicate with your business to do so more efficiently. Static websites stink. They really do! Your website should change according to what your business has to offer and allow your customers to interact with it. It doesn’t have to rank high on Google, but it has to certainly rank high with your customers.

Unless you are planning on building the website itself as the business (a la YouTube or Facebook) instead of it being a complementary service to your current and future customers, then you might be barking up the wrong tree. With millions of websites out there the odds are you won’t get the search ranking you are looking for or think is a necessary reflection of the excellence of your business. Not so! Use the content management systems out there to gain control of your website. Get a professional to design the interface if need be but gain control of your own content and talk to your customers or audience.

Why do you want a website? A website is a 24 hour virtual representation of your business offering. Whether you make designer candles or fix cars, your website should speak for your business when you are either too busy to do it yourself or when you are simply not available. In some instances you can take your order processes and other functions online to facilitate sales and so forth but most folks would only have a use for a website as a communications tool. Sure online advertising is best served if a click through can take somebody to an informative website but it should be more. It should be part of your business. An extension of it if you like. It should be something you constantly pay attention to and nurse with stuff your customers are interested in.

Very few businesses will expand their markets outside of their immediate confines, i.e. suburb, city, state or country. You are thus not competing for the hearts and minds of people overseas but in the vicinity of your brick and mortar business. A business website is generally not a marketing tool for new customers but should serve as support to such efforts. As I said, you don’t need the best looking website, but you do want to have the most informative.

Entry Filed under: General, General IT, World Wide Web