Redbox Biz Blog

Remember last week I promised to share with you some ideas on how to build a better business website?

Building a business website takes planning and this planning happens before you even source a web designer or a web design firm.

Without planning, your business website is not going to work the way you want it to.

First, what are your objectives for the website?

*Do you want to get more prospects?
*Do you want to get more sales?
*Do you want to promote your services, if you are not selling products?
*What type of customers are you targeting?
*How would you measure the success of your website?
*What does a successful website look like to you?
*How does this website integrate into your overall business strategy?
*Do you have a dedicated team/staff to reply emails promptly?
*Do you have an ongoing interest in building an online extension of your offline and existing brick-and-mortar business?

These are just some questions you need to ask yourself BEFORE you pick up the phone to talk to a web design firm.

Once you have these answered, and know how you are going to utilise your website, you can start talking to a designer or a design firm.

A key point to note: do not say that you want a website because your business rivals have theirs. It won’t work if you want a website for the wrong reasons.

You must want a website for the right reasons, example:

* to create more awareness about your business
* to sell your products/services as a complementary stream of income to your brick-and-mortar business
* to reach out to businesses/distributors in other places such as Europe and US
* to cut through the middlemen and go straight to your pool of customers etc.

Getting a serious business website forces you to think about your business in a way you’ve never thought of before.

A website is not an add-on to your business; it is not just a website address on your business card. If designed with proper business objectives in mind, it can be a rewarding business tool with much more potential than you could have ever imagined.

With a brick-and-mortar or physical store, you are limited to your area of business. Say you have a shop in Georgetown, Penang. Your customers come from the surrounding areas, and perhaps, from Seberang Perai, Kulim, Sungai Petani, Bukit Mertajam and Ipoh, if you’re really famous.

With a website, you have the world in your hands! You are now literally ‘opening’ your shop in every continent, every place where the Internet is available. You are not limited by geography, by the high seas, or by the availability of shop space or price of retail space.

Your website is always on. It is always there, working for you, ushering prospects and customers into your ’shop’ even if you’re on holiday or asleep.

That’s the incredible magic of having a well-designed website. It filters out those who truly want to buy from those who are just looking or browsing.

And of course, the faster you get a piece of the Internet ‘real estate’ of a website, the better off you will be. After all, this is the age of the World Wide Web.

But all these can only happen IF you start your website right, right from the beginning.

Next week, I’ll provide you a checklist of what makes a good business website.

Have a fabulous week and of course, enjoy the Malaysia-wide public holiday this Thursday! It is, after all, the installation the 13th Yang Dipertuan Agong, His Majesty Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin.

To your web success,
Nic

I always believe that if you have plans for a website, please start right.

Starting right is important because you don’t want to waste your money, time and effort. You should spend time investigating your aims in starting a website, and not just get one just because the rest of your competitors have theirs.

I say this because of late, I am playing the part of a firefighter for many people. These people are not my clients but they’ve reached the end of their patience with their existing websites.

Things are not happening. They don’t know why. Their website attracts very little traffic, if any. The words on their website are dull and dreary, even dreadfully cliche. They cannot understand it.

They turn to me for help.

(At a meeting recently with a client, I told him that he was paying us primarily not for what we do but for what we know. Due to our interest in all things internet-related, technical know-how plus our interest in business and marketing, what we know is more important. Anyone can learn HTML and design a website easily. But not everyone can propose solutions, ideas and tell you what works, and why. That’s where our research background and our interest in web usability helps us to help clients - by designing websites right, starting from the beginning.)

And I blame their web designers.

Many web designers think they’re artists and creative persons and they know best. The fact is, a web designer is a web designer. The typical designer whips up a website for his client without even knowing what the client’s aims are! A website should not be an afterthought. It needs to be worked into the client’s overall business strategy. How will the client use the website? And for what reasons?

When the client does not know, the web designer should GUIDE the client.

But that can only happen if the web designer is a business person, first and foremost. Many web designers use their clients’ websites as canvases for their artistic licence. If the client is not savvy or astute enough to realise this, the website won’t perform because it wasn’t designed to perform at all.

And then they come and ask me to look at their website and tell them what’s wrong.

When I tell them what’s wrong, the oddest thing is: they won’t change things! This means they won’t re-design the website although the website is flawed and skewed! They don’t even know if they’re getting traffic but not getting conversions, or that they’re not getting traffic at all.

Having a flawed website is like getting a visitor to come to your house but he cannot find the entrance to come in. After some futile attempts, he leaves. That’s how many of these websites are.

And don’t even get me started on the need for Flash animation.

Do you see any Flash animation on this business website of mine? If you have substantial information, people will come again and again to visit your website, with or without flying chickens, rotating photos and flashing words. Flash is a tool to enhance websites, not the ONLY thing you see on a website. Like all tools, it is easily misused. And you can see lots of evidence of this misuse online.

So my 64-million dollar answer is this: if you are thinking of getting your business a serious business website, please start right. Otherwise, you will pay more to get it rectified later on. And that’s just a waste of good money.

OK, enough for this week.

Come back next week and I will share with you how you can start right.

To your web success,
Nic