This is the question you should be asking yourself every day:
How effective is your website at achieving the goals you have for your business?
If you do not know the answer, it may be because you have not set your goals properly. Do you know what the purpose of your site is? What are the benefits for you and your business?
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Lets take a look at these questions, and potential answers.
- Your website should position you as an expert in your field. Perception and reputation are everything to your potential customers and clients. Having a website that effectively conveys that expertise to your visitors improves your visiblity in the marketspace, your credibility as a business-person, and begins to build trust in your products/services.
- Your website is a starting-point for the identity of your brand. It is a starting point because it is impossible to control all aspects of your brand identity anymore. Your customers have blogs, forums, and Twitter now – where they can and will discuss your product’s price and quality, your customer service interactions, even your advertising strategies.
- Your website expands your marketspace beyond yesterday’s geographical boundaries. Depending on the products and services that you offer (shipping may be a consideration) you can now offer the services of your business to a global audience, not just the people within a few minutes’ drive.
- Your website is a tool for expanding your list of potential clients. Due to the expanded nature of the marketspace and the rapidly growing number of people who do their research online before making a purchase. Having an e-mail capture/site registration application on your site can help you to build a list of self-selected potential customers.
- Your website is a venue for providing value to your market before you ever make a sale. E-books, white papers, product reviews, service explanations – all of these marketing tools can be made available throught your site. For free, or for the price of an e-mail registration. When your visitors see your site (and your business) as value-added then doing business with you is an opportunity, not a risk.
Does your website do these things? If not, do you need help putting them in place? Let us know how we can help.
If you would like a tool to manage your small business activities and Projects, you can use this web aplication:
http://www.Gtdagenda.com
You can use it to manage and prioritize your Goals (for business but also in other areas of your life), Projects and Tasks. It has a Checklists section, for the routines and repetitive activities that any business has to do. Also, it features a Schedules section and a Calendar, for scheduling you time and activities.
Some features from GTD are also present, like Contexts and Next Actions.
And it’s available on the mobile phone too, so you can access it from anywhere.