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Creating a website to advance your business!
Internet: The Instant Medium
The advent of the Internet provided an easy way for all companies to get information to the masses quickly. This is both a blessing for some companies and a curse for others. Companies that understand the Internet and gear their sites to advance their business have helped themselves greatly. While others that have merely created brochureware sites may cost themselves some customers. A brochureware site is a site that is an on-line version of the company’s marketing brochure. A marketing brochure is usually distributed after an in-person meeting, attached to a mass mailing introductory letter or as a handout at a tradeshow booth. The brochure supports the credibility of the company and the representative they met. The Internet is very different. It is your first impression.
Providing Value for Free
People surfing the Internet are looking for something. Generally they are trying to get answers or get the latest information about something other than your company. If the user comes to your site and is able to answer their questions, you will gain credibility with them and they are more likely to read on about your company and check out your site. If they find that your site has some good current information, they will probably bookmark your site and return to check up on new articles. For example, HP provides free drivers for their printers whether you are a customer or not. Amazon provides free book reviews. Kolaco provides white papers and news on technology issues.
Companies that do not provide any value for free hurt themselves in the long run. If the user comes to your site as a result of a search and all they get is information about what you can do for them for a fee, they will get frustrated and leave your site quickly. A typical example of a bad experience is trying to download an updated driver for a digital camera from the manufacturer. You can search the entire site and not find the driver and when you call the support line, they tell you that for $25 they will ship you a CD that would be delivered in a week. They just lost a customer.
How to provide value for Free
The information that you provide for free should be targeted towards your customer base. It should also be written from an unbiased perspective to create some credibility. Good free information that every company can post includes industry news (or links to news articles), white papers ranging from competitive product comparisons to “How to” articles and frequently asked questions (FAQs). You don’t have to give away everything for free, just enough to keep them coming back.
How to make it happen
The key to providing value for free and keeping your site current is in the design. Your site should…
ü Have the ability to be updated quickly and easily by a non-technical person
ü Have basic portal capabilities to allow the posting of links to relevant news on other sites
ü Provide a full text index to allow users to search your site.
ü Include time sensitive pages like events, news and what’s new pages and automatically remove these pages as they expire.
ü Allow for modification of the search engine information by a non-technical person.
ü Allow you to make frequent changes without costing you for each change.
If your current site does not have these basic capabilities and you are not yet providing your customers and prospects with value through your website, maybe its time to review your website strategy. |