What's the Purpose of Your Website Anyway?

by Steve E. Moore

The mere fact that you have a website hasn't been a differentiating factor for small businesses for many years. So is your website serving your business needs like it really should? Are you getting more customers from it? Are you transacting business on your website? Is your site promoting your products/services and encouraging visitors to take action?

Take another look at your site and see if it falls into one (or more) of the following types.

Business Card Websites - display basic text and graphics (similar to a business card) that highlights what the business does.

Educational Websites - try to educate the viewer using extensive text, videos and down-loadable reference documents.

Creative Websites - leave a distinct impression or branding by the use of highly-creative graphics, animations or flash videos.

Lead Capture Websites - entice the viewer with free items in exchange for their name and e-mail address (for future marketing efforts).

Store-Front Business Websites - highlight the business product/service but redirect the customer to the store-front for purchasing.

E-Commerce Websites - generate an on-line shopping experience from product information all the way to shopping-cart checkout.

Community Websites - are social websites that encourage viewers to participate in generating and/or commenting on website content.

Now think about all the different ways your website can better serve your business and share them with your business coach or web-master. While you are at it you should write down the specific goals you would like to achieve.

Some examples might be;

>10% traffic growth per month
<20% bounce rate (visitors who immediately leave)
eNewsletter sign-up rate of >30%
>$2000/month of on-line business transactions
>10 document downloads per week
>20 new in-store customers who visited your site

To realize the full potential from your website requires that you have interesting and valuable content, that you market and promote your website, and that you keep score of how your site is actually being used by visitors (i.e. using Google Analytics, etc). If you aren't achieving your website goals then you need to change things. Otherwise your website ends up sitting there serving no real purpose. Creating a productive website that takes advantage of the many internet marketing strategies doesn't have to be expensive and can be one of your most productive marketing strategies!