You have finally came to the conclusion that you want a new website for your small business, you need to get in front of potential clients and the best way to to that is on the internet. Now all you need to do is find a great web designer or better yet, hire me 😉 and tell me to get going on the website, right? Wrong! We live in an ever growing digital world and an effective website is the cornerstone of any small or large business’s marketing strategy, so it’s imperative to start off on the right foot. Here are some key points to think about before talking with me. Don’t worry if you cant decide on something or you just don’t know, I can help point you in the right direction.

What the purpose of your website will be.

What do you want it to do? Is this going to be an online business card, with basic information on you and your offerings, along with a way to reach you or something bigger? Maybe you want to grab the names and email of prospective customers by having them sign up for a weekly email or free report. Or maybe you want to give out helpful tips through a blog, or even sell your products or services online. Whatever you want your website to do, it’s extremely important to determine all the features you’ll need before any of the work begins, or you may end up wasting a lot of valuable time (and money) adding functionality later on in the development process.

Hands off or Involved ?

Next, how hands-on will you be when it comes to maintaining the website? Are you going to need to bale to update the site daily, weekly, monthly ? Are you going to want to handle this yourself or you just want me to handle everything – even writing and posting to your blog – so that you can concentrate on other business tasks. On the other hand, you might want to be able to publish a blog post, change an image, or update your product or service offerings yourself without on waiting for someone else to do it. Your decision on this matter will affect the technology used in constructing the website, and so your level of involvement needs to be determined early in the process.

How is it going to be found.

Finally, how will people find your website? Putting your websites name on your business cards and marketing materials is a no-brainer, but ideally you’d like potential customers to be able to find it through other means, as well. Effective search engine optimization (SEO) can help your website rank highly in the search engines, thus increasing traffic. Integration with social media, email marketing, and other online and offline marketing methods can also help get more traffic to your website. Whatever methods you use to get viewers to check out your website, make sure it’s worth the visit by making it easy to use, up-to-date, and engaging.

Now you’re ready to schedule that meeting with your web designer or me 😉 and get cracking on your website!