p-tech

p-tech ltd

using technology to grow your business

The Internet has become an important tool for communicating information, news, and pictures to a global audience. It has developed into a resource that has immense global implications on the way we interact, sell our services and promote our businesses. The search engine Google currently indexes around 9 billion websites and research carried out by the Guardian newspaper in June 2005 states that 49% of the UK's small and medium businesses have a website.

A large percentage of small businesses developed a website because of a "knee jerk" reaction during the .dot com boom, 'I haven't got one, but I think I need one and Fred has one'. It was like the BMW to the 'yuppie' in the 1980's, or the MP3 to the youth of today, everyone wanted / wants one. The disappointment has been in that the majority of sites stay unchanged, unvisited and unprofitable. The return on investment has been very small and in some cases zero.

So how do we create websites that are useful, promote our business and have a return on investment? Here are 5 steps to help you get started:

• Plan the Website
  As with any project inside your business, you don't just start, well I hope you don't. Planning is the most important stage. If you spend the time here, the rest of the process is easier to complete. You need to think about what your company does and the services you provide. It's your way of defining, from a business perspective, what your website needs to reflect about your company. Planning the site will provide you with a skeleton structure of the pages required and their relationship to each other. It will highlight the need for pages such as contact details, direction pages and on-line forms.
  
• Understand the Possibilities
  Have a look at what your competitors do. You can use a search engine like Google to do this. Ask yourself the following questions: What type of pages do they have on their websites? How do they sell themselves? This will help you with creating the content. Remember, your role is to understand the business requirements for the website so do not get lost in the technical aspects of how it's done. If you find something you like, take a note of the website and tell your developer you want your site to work in a similar way.
  
• Develop the Content
  To have a website you must have content. The best person to create this is you – you know your business best. Create pages that are jargon free and use simple English. Remember a website is not just a reproduction of the company brochure. You only have a few seconds to capture the web user, so it must be compelling and get to the point quickly. Think about what you wish the web user to do when he is on that page as this will help with developing the page message and the words. Don't give the user too much in one go, so keep pages short and focused on one service / one product.
  
• Identify a Developer
  By this point you should have: 1. A plan for your website. 2. An idea of what you like and what you don't like. 3. All your pages defined, and 4. What you wish the visitor to do on each page. You can now look for a developer to build the site. You should be clear on your requirements, this will make the developers' job easier. The developer is responsible for providing a technology solution that meets your business needs. A good developer will provide advice and tips on what you need to improve. There are lots of companies who build websites so always ask for client references that you can contact. Look for a developer that gives you control of the site by using a CMS (Content Management System) as this provides you with the ability to easily modify and add pages to the site. This will save you time and money in the long term.
  
• Maintain and Monitor
  A website can be a successful marketing tool if used correctly. If you have put the time into creating good, focused content on a 'page by page' basis, then your site should begin to reap you rewards. Search Engine rankings are dependent on the quality of your page content and the titles you give to each page. You should review your website statistics to check what phrases are being used to locate your site on the Search Engines. Once you start, you have to keep going. It's not a one off process.