One of the most difficult, but key components of the Internet marketing process is to design your website to achieve the goals you have set for your business. However, most business people ignore this critical step, or leave it to their web designer to take care of, which can often be even worse.
When you take the time to strategically plan the outline of your new website or an upgrade of your current one, not only will you achieve a website that will show off your business in the best way, but one you will be able to add and edit content easily, and probably most important will help to achieve your overall business goals. Below are a number of steps to follow while planning your new website:
1. Write down on a piece of paper everything you think the visitors to your web site might want to know about your product or service. If you are planning a website for a school, for example, the visitors would be interested in how man students attend, classroom sizes, staff information and sports offered. Brainstorm every possible topic someone might want to know related to the industry, product or service your website will be offering.
2. Imagine for a short time that you are a potential website customer. Visit and review some websites similar to the one you will offer as if you were a potential customer. As a visitor who is genuinely interested in your product or service, what are the good things and bad things about each site you visit? Are you driven to take action? How easily can you find what you are looking for? How many times do you have to click to find what you are looking for? Take notes on all this information with the purpose of making your own website as visitor friendly as possible.
3. Research to find out what keywords your visitors might search for. Google has a free keyword research tool that will work fine for this purpose. Enter a general phrase related to your product or service, such as “coffee filters” and other related keywords will appear. These are the topics that people are searching for already. With this information in hand, you can plan your website to feature content that answers people’s questions.
4. Make sure to plan your website to grow. Stay away from website formats that can’t be expanded easily to add products and new pages. You will find that building a great website is a constant work in progress.
5. Plan a website that you can control, rather than be at the mercy of a web designer to make even small changes to your website. Old fashioned websites that only a web developer can change do not work in today’s dynamic Internet marketing environment that demands new content added regularly. It is to your advantage to plan a website platform that will allow you to add content quickly and simply.
Your website is most often one of the biggest marketing expenses your business will encounter. Don’t waste it with an inferior website that doesn’t support your business objectives.
Marty Dickinson is the founder of HereNextYear, Inc., a full service Internet marketing company in business for over 10 years. His specialty is Internet marketing solutions for the small business owner, speakers and authors. Visit to see what HereNextYear has to offer and to learn more about their innovative new website packages fully integrated for ease with social networking and other Internet marketing strategies.
