Top 10 Ideas to Incorporate Into Your Business Web Site

By Alissa Rothstein

A good web site is never finished – it is an ever-evolving entity that is constantly changing and growing with your business. Here are 10 ideas to incorporate into your business’ web site:

1. Update your content regularly. Give customers a reason to keep coming back to your web site with updated content. A site that never has anything new to say gets stale fast. You can add a new article, update your products/services offered or post regularly in your blog.  Ask your customers to bookmark your site and to keep checking back for updates.

2. Become an expert. No one knows you business better than you-become the self-professed expert in your field. Create an “Ask the Expert” area on your site so that questions can be submitted. Try to answer as many as you can, and create a  “Q & A” section on your site so that people can read them.  Potential customers will get to know you as a trusted source and value your advice.

3. Write and post industry articles. Free, concise info for your customers (and the press) is always recommended. Your customers may initially find your site for the information it provides, but they will be more inclined to return to buy from a source they trust.  Another plus is that you can turn those articles into press releases, and hopefully get some editorial press from outside publications. I don’t have to tell you that getting an article published is free publicity and gives your business some valuable street cred.

4. Offer some interactivity. Why not host a forum on your site where you are the moderator? That way, you get to know what’s on your customer’s minds and you can respond to them. Another activity that you may want to participate in is to post to a web blog. You can learn a lot about your customers from their responses. Surveys on your home page also offer another layer of interactivity. All of these things are free, and promote open communication between you and your customers.

5. Submit to search engines. Submit your site for inclusion in various search engines. Although most search engine spiders will have already found you, it doesn’t hurt to submit. If you are somewhat tech savvy, you can add meta tags and key words to your pages. This will be added insurance that you listing will appear closer to the top. If you don’t know how or don’t want to, many web companies do this for you. They can also tweak your tags and re-submit on a regular basis to ensure decent placement.

6. Give background information. Your customers want to know about you and your business before they part with their hard-earned cash for your product/service. Without getting too personal, inform them know about your education background, industry experience, awards and merits. Let them know how you keep current in your industry or how you volunteer in your community. Does your business donate any proceeds to charity? What is your business philosophy? Write a mission statement about your business.

7. Contact info. I can’t stress how important it is to have visible, easy-to-find contact information, preferably in a strategically placed location on every page. It would also be a good idea to set up a contact page with a contact form. You could also include some other fields on that form, including a “how did you find us” drop-down menu.  That alone can give you some valuable insight as to how you might want to tailor your marketing efforts.

8. Cross-promote your site. You can use another web site to promote yours by exchanging links. Link exchanges also help to improve your search engine rankings by helping your site to appear in more places, therefore appearing more “relevant” to the search engines. Another way you can promote your site is by participating in industry-related forums (just make sure that it is in fact okay to post as a business in the forum). Once posters start to know you and trust your opinion, they are more likely to buy from you.

9. Inform your customers with a newsletter. Keep your customers abreast of new happenings, updated content, specials and coupons with an HTML email newsletter. If you need to gather  email addresses, add a sign-up form to your web site. You can also ask customers for their email address when you send out invoices and other materials. You shouldn’t bombard people’s mailbox with a newsletter every week, but a frequency of once a month or once a quarter would be fine. There are plenty of mail services available that will help you create and send a newsletter.  Another good feature that these services provide is statistical information about your mailing. You can see who opened it, who clicked on which links and how many times. This information is valuable, and you can gauge your customers’ interests from this.

10. Show some appreciation for your customers. Entice new customers to buy or reward repeat customers with coupons. Create a “Customer of the Month” section either on your web site or in your newsletter. Offer a referral program for customers that refer other customers who make a purchase from your site.

About the Author
Alissa Rothstein is a marketing, graphic and web design expert who uses her expertise to effectively help people and small businesses market themselves more strategically by offering complete communication services that include, but are not limited to graphic design, web design, SEO/web marketing and Public Relations.