Are you making it easy for your customers?

Doing what I do for a living I look at many websites every day and speak to lots of people about their experience with the websites that they come across. Quite often the website experience is not a good one.

In business what is the purpose of a website? Personally I think it’s about selling something, be that product or service. Your website is there to provide information about your product/service to potential clients, and to entice them to purchase right away or make contact with you.

So with this in mind think about your own website. If you were looking for your product/service would you find what you are looking for on your website? Is it easy to find your contact details?

If you think from the point of view of your potential customers, what is it that you want to find on a website? I offer some suggestions as to what I’d be looking for:

1. What do you do or sell
2. Why should I buy your product or service
3. How can I contact you

These are three simple points, but not always easy to find the answers to.

Here are my three tips that can help you make your website a better experience for your potential clients.

1. Make your content to the point and clearly state what it is that you do or sell, and why they should buy from you. If you don’t feel the words you write are doing your business justice, a professional web copywriter can help turn your words into content for your site that will grab the attention of visitors.
2. Ensure you update your content on a regular basis. If you want people to keep coming back to your website then you need to give them a reason to. Think about starting a blog and on a monthly basis post an article that your target market will find useful.
3. Make sure your contact details are easy to find, and give options. Some people will prefer to email you, while others would rather speak to you on the phone.

With these three tips in mind sit down for a few minutes and have a look at your site. Is it time to update your content?

When free isn’t always good

Recently I was stopped behind an electricians ute at a set of traffic lights.  They had some eye-catching branding on their ute advertising their business that made me take note.  I can’t recall the name of the business now but one thing that did stick in my mind was the fact they had a Hotmail email address.

This got me thinking.  Why would a business, any size business, use a free email service when having your own domain name and email accounts is cheap, and makes your business look more professional?

Over the past few weeks I’ve had the need to research various trades and am surprised at the number of them that have not registered their own domain name.  Think about it, would you first contact someone via email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ?  Personally I’d contact the latter.  While Freds Electrical might not have a website, just the fact they have gone to the extent of registering their domain name makes them look more professional.

Going back to the electrician I was behind at the lights – they were happy to spend a couple of thousand dollars branding their car, but missed the opportunity to boost that image by registering their own domain name.

Here is some food for thought…  Something that isn’t very well publicised is that free email services are often block by Internet service providers because of the high amount of SPAM emails that are generated from such accounts, so no matter how many times you send an email there is the potential for it never to be delivered.  While this might be slightly acceptable for personal use think about what it means to your business if an email doesn’t get through.  It could mean the loss of a sale or a business deal.

There is another social aspect to think about too when using these free services.  Recently I read an article about “Email Domain Shame”.  People are starting to judge based on your email domain, and again not such an issue for personal email, but can any business afford to be judged on such a small thing?

The solution?  Well registering a domain name for your business and setting up email will only cost a couple of hundred dollars a year.  For this you can also have multiple email accounts, for example, fred@ info@ accounts@ sales@.  While ultimately these additional email addresses may end up in the one mail box, checked by the same person, it does give potential customers the impression that you are bigger then you actually are, and there is nothing wrong with that!

Is your website fresh and up-to-date?

Having just launched our fresh new website I thought it a perfect opportunity to talk about the importance of keeping your own website fresh and up-to-date.

With so much competition out there on the Internet are you aware of what your competitors are doing online? Have you sat down recently and had a good look at your own website and compared it to others?

With Australia having one of the highest levels of Internet usage in the world many of us turn to online sources to look for, research and compare products and services. With so many choices available to us at the click of a mouse the old saying "you can't judge a book by it's cover" doesn't apply online. You have seconds to get the attention of visitors to your site before the lose interest and go somewhere else.

Things you should be looking at when review your website are:

• does it look visually appealing?
• does it accurately represent your brand?
• does it match all of your other branded material (letterhead, business cards, brochures)?
• does it look professional?
• does it provide the information that your potential customes will want?

Answer these questions about your own website and then do the same with some of your competitors. Review their sites as a consumer, and when looking at their site ask yourself:

• do they seem like a serious business?
• can you find the information about their products and services that you want?
• if you were in the market for their product or service would be make contact with them?

If you answered yes to the first lot of questions about your site then fantastic you've got a great website. If you answered no then perhaps it is time to review, refresh and update.

If you answered yes to the second set of questions then how does that compare to your site? Are you in the same league?

Websites, like all aspects of your business, are not a develop and forget kind of thing. They need attention, updating and reviewing constantly. We're no longer in the time where simply having a website meant you were ahead of your competitors - these days you need to have the best website you can.

Article: How to Make the Web Work for Your Business in 5 Steps

I was reading an article this morning on one of my favourite small business websites about making your website work for you in 5 steps. Most of what is talked about in this article is what I say to my clients, so there is nothing new, but it does a great job of outlining the step you can take to make your site work for you, and well worth a read. Pop over to Freelance Switch to read in detail about their 5 steps:

• Get a Decent Website
• Stick to the Message
• Embrace Keyword Advertising
• Learn About Social Networking
• Track Your Results
• Have Fun With It