The common problem is that there is no real, structured, short or long term plan in place for the company’s website. In every other aspect of the business there will be process, planning and allocating of resources to ensure the desired outcome, when it comes to the website; this is not always the case. Without a clear strategy and a process for measuring the results, it is impossible to make the right decisions.

In attempt to help more readers get a hold on their website and internet strategy, I have put together the first 3 of 7 core (4-7 will follow in a later post) considerations before you begin. These focus points may seem obvious to some but it is surprising how many businesses do not take them into account.

1. Define your websites primary business goal

Every site has a primary business goal, more often than not there will be secondary and tertiary goals too. It is only with a set goals that you can begin to measure whether your site is succeeding or not. Is your websites business goal to;

Complete an online transaction?

Encourage customer contact or interaction?

To generate new business leads?

Deliver information?

2. Define the target audience

Consider who your potential audience is, or who you would like them to be. The design and content of a website usually dictates the kind of audience it will attract, the most common mistake is that more visitors to the site is proof of achieving a suitable goal. In truth it would be better to have a lower number of visitors which all fit your desired customer profile, than to have a high number of visitors that don’t.

3. Produce suitable content for your website audience

Having up to date, relevant and useful content on your website is of utmost importance. For all the trickery you may hear about, what visitors and search engines alike both want to see is good quality content. We have already discovered who your audience are in step 2, now we should develop the website content in a way that will best satisfy that target audience. Your website should be viewed as organic, by keeping your website regularly updated with new and changing content; you will increase the value to both the visitor and the search engines.

That’s all for now, I’ll come back with the second part of this post soon.

Social Media - Dont Ignore It

This is a question that I am asked on a more and more consistent basis. In the week that saw Facebook announce they now have 350 million registered users, it seemed appropriate time to discuss it on the DV8 blog. Indeed, the Facebook user list is quite staggering, even if we were to assume (and we should never do that. ed.) half of all accounts are inactive. It took radio almost 40 years to reach 50 million users and TV almost 30 years to reach the same figure, Facebook have achieved their current goal in a considerably smaller time frame.
So, with Facebook as just one example, it is clear that ignoring social media is a blinkered head in the sand approach, when we consider the audiences involved. Where social media is key for me, is creating very well targeted links to resources and information. Inbound links are one of the biggest factors taken into consideration by Google’s ranking algorithm, the more presence the provider of the inbound link has, the more weight it carries with Google. In the past website owners have always looked to maintain reciprocal links with other website owners, in the interest of boosting their appeal. Social media opens up the gates and provides endless possibilities for well targetted inbound links to your web pages from user generated content in blogs, profiles and other articles. Every time your web page is linked to, someone is saying “this is a good resource, I found what I need and I recommend it”. By carefully targeting your audience and ensuring your site contains up to date relevant content, your chances of these kinds of “votes of confidence” increases considerably.

This is just one identifiable way of taking a pro active approach to social media, we would love to hear how you use it within your own business or personal life.