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Step # 1 – Define a purpose for your site.
Every website needs to have a purpose behind it. The purpose of most commercial sites is
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to sell a product or service,
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provide information about a product or service that could lead to a sale or
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provide customer support to existing customers.
Identify your exact purpose for creating a
website.
Step # 2 – Define the target audience for your
website.
Can you clearly describe the ideal visitor to your site? What is his/her age group, gender, income, location, profession or interests? Your
website must focus on serving your target audience best.
They are the ones who will account for a bulk of
your revenues.
Step # 3 – Define the outcomes.
What actions do you expect from the visitors to your
website? Do you want them to order a product or service, request for more information, call you, sign up for your newsletter or ask for samples?
Step # 4 – Describe your business Information and
identify your USP.
How would you describe your business in 25 words or less to a person who does not have any idea about that you are doing? Be clear about what you have to offer visitors to your site and describe it in as few words as possible. Your focus should be how your product or service is going to benefit your customers or solve their problems.
A “USP” is a unique selling proposition. It’s the one line that states how you are different from your competition. Figure out the USP of your business and mention it clearly along with your business information at a prominent location on your home page.
Step # 5 – Decide strategies for web
marketing.
If you assume that once your site is published, visitors to your site will automatically follow, you are sadly mistaken. What
off-line strategies do you use and how can they tie into your
website? For example, if you attend local
events or networking events, you might consider
putting up some free content or discount coupons
on your site and tell people how they can get
them.
You also need to plan for online
marketing. Exchanging links with non competing
sites or partner businesses is always a good
idea to generate additional traffic. You should
also consider starting a newsletter to maintain
regular contact with visitors to your
site.
You cannot afford to ignore search engine
traffic. Over 80% of the traffic on the Internet
originates from search engines. What key search phrases do you think your target visitor would type into a search engine to find a business like yours?
Search engine optimization in it's simplest form
includes thinking of keywords and key phrases
and intelligently using them in your web copy
and Meta Tags.
Step # 6 – Develop a maintenance and
customer support systems plan.
To attract repeat visitors to your site you need to update it periodically. How often do you plan to update your site and who will make the updates? Create a system for
website maintenance and allocate responsibilities. You also need to plan for an e–mail response procedure to send out accurate and timely replies to the customer queries that will come in through your
website. Several companies now offer outsourced email
handling services for a small fee.
Implementing the strategy.
With these steps in place you are now ready to
design a website that meets your business
objectives. Remember to brief the web designer
and the web copy writer about the critical
issues in your strategy so that your plan gets
transformed into action.
Often things do not turn out exactly the way you
had planned them to be. Once your site is up and running, analyzing your site statistics will reveal what exactly visitors to your site are looking for and whether you are attracting the right kind of visitors. You need to make suitable modifications in your strategy based on this analysis. |
