All businesses need a website, and it’s important for the website to be effective. If you invest in making a website that turns out to be ineffective:

• you’ll have squandered money creating a useless site;
• you’ll have wasted valuable time;
• you’ll have scared away or failed to attract potential clients;
• and now you’ll be saddled with hosting fees.

So, with that out of the way, let’s get down to business. What makes a website effective?

First of all, is your contact information on every page? This is an absolute must, so don’t forget about it.

Secondly, you have to identify what it is that you want visitors to your website to do. Do you want to have them fill out a form for a sales lead? Do you want them to buy something? Join your mailing list? Download your white paper?

Once you figure out what you want your visitors do to on your site, it’s time to look at your current site design. Is there a clear call-to-action that is easy to locate? That is, are there elements on every single page of your website that clearly incite visitors to take an action that you want them to take?

If you have both contact information and a call-to-action on each page, that is fantastic. But if not, now’s the time for a redesign.

Now that your contact information and your call-to-action are both in place, it’s time to make your website more user-friendly. If you have a lot of extra money to spare, you can pay a company to run tests on your website. Or, you can just call a few of your closest friends and family members and ask them to do a walkthrough of your site with you. During this process, stay on the phone with them, and ask them to take your desired call-to-action. Take notes on any troubles they may have. If you do this with at least five people, and several of them have trouble with your call-to-action, then you know it’s time to fix the problem. If they don’t have trouble, great!

Once that’s out of the way, it’s time to look into the SEO-friendliness of your site. By “SEO,” I mean Search Engine Optimization, which basically refers to a set of tools that website designers use to elevate their sites in search engine rankings. It’s an important part of any Search Engine Marketing (SEM) strategy.

Just in the last few years, there have been countless books released on SEO and SEM, but for now you’ll do fine with the basics. Keep these things in mind:

• Is your targeted keyword included in the title of the page on the title bar of the browser window? The answer should be yes.
• Are there tons of graphics on your site, or did you use graphics in place of text? If so, there’s a good chance your site is not SEO-friendly and needs a few minor fixes.
• Is there a lot of flash on your site? If so, you may be missing out on valuable traffic, because the search engines can’t index your text.
• If/when you hired someone to design your site, did he or she do so with SEO in mind?
• If you did the design yourself, were you aware of the best SEO practices at the time? At least make sure you have meta and alt tags.
• If someone wrote your copy for you, did he or she do keyword research first?

Another point to keep in mind.. Content is still king. As long as you provide regular content that is VERY relevant to your target market, you are creating a site that will draw in your ideal clients.

[Article by Jennifer Davey- Business Coach and Marketing Strategist www.jjscoaching.com]

“The challenge of the Information Age is to learn our customer’s language. And then to speak it so clearly that our voices can be heard over the din…”

Your online strategy and endeavors start and end, live and die with your CUSTOMER. Many strategies fail because business owners do not take the time to separate what they think their customers want from what their customers really want.

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I believe that success is in the plan. In everything I do, I always make a plan and then work out the plan. A while ago I stumbled on some  great information and tips to help you on planning a website project…

[Adapted from October Succeed Newsletter] Now is the perfect time to start planning your new website.  A good website can boost sales. If you create a solid plan and hire a good website development company, then you can have a website that goes live early in the New Year.

There are three steps to creating a successful plan: Scout, Sketch and Discuss…

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There are encouraging signs that the conditions in South Africa are at last getting ready for true ecommerce – the sale of goods and services online – to such an extent that owner-managed businesses and not just huge corporate retailers can start viable online shops. Consider the following:

• Last year, online retail sales surpassed the R1 billion mark for the first time, says internet researcher Arthur Goldstuck, who predicts that it will grow a further 20% this year despite the recession. It’s still a fraction of total retail sales, but is becoming increasingly difficult to sneeze at.
• The total number of internet users in South Africa grew a 12,5% last year to a total of 4,6 million people. The rate at which South Africans are ditching dial-up for ADSL or other broadband connections grew a whopping 50%, says Goldstuck.
• The arrival of Neotel’s Seacom submarine fibre-optic cable in June this year will increase South African broadband access a staggering 40 times, making internet access cheaper and internet shopping more comfortable.

But more telling than any of these statistics is the experience of Charles Meyer, the Centurion-based owner of www.pokerathome.co.za, a straight-forward ecommerce website that sells poker and bingo sets in South Africa.

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