Website for Business
Being involved in websites since 1995 and business experiences, I’ve consolidated some of my understanding about how websites can benefit businesses. For newbies, they may find it difficult to grasp the idea. Not to mention trying to explain it to them.
However, I’ve come up with a simple mind map about how website technologies can benefit businesses from all walks. You may not need all the items in the diagram, you can mix and match to your needs.
Note that this is the first version (after a few drafts) of the diagram. I will be adding more to it when applicable.
[Updated 25 Aug 2009: Diagram v.1.1]
You can expect the following benefits…
General – This is the usual area when people refer to a website. It has basic information, literatures of the company, products & services and other related information.
Benefits of General Website – informative, exposure, visitors will get to know you / your business.
List Building – The important part of a marketing is to have a database. Implement a list building part in your website and attract visitors to give them their contact information.
Benefits of List Building Website – build your contacts database for follow-ups section below.
Follow-Ups – It is imperative that you should keep in touch with your contacts, whether you know them or not. Cheapest and effective way is to send email to them. You may want to call them one by one if that is more effective in generating business.
Benefits of Follow-Ups – Build relationship, build trust, attract revisits, call to action.
Sales – I believe this is what every business is aiming for. Getting more sales. If the products are easy to order, you can automate them. Let your customers do a self-service ordering and you just need to fulfill the orders.
Note: The sales website can be private. Meaning that only qualified prospects or existing customers can only buy from your website. This is something that you may want to explore.
Benefits of Sales Website – Increase Sales! Money! Profit! 🙂
Service & Support – This area is equally important as many buyers would look at the level of support for a product or service that they are getting.
Note: Some may create an online community out of their customers, which allow them to network with one another and create magic. This will increase confidence in prospects as they can ‘feel’ that they are the customers too.
Benefits of Service & Support – improve sales conversion rate, improve company image, reputation.
What to do next?
The above is just a glimpse of what is possible and you can strategically planned for your next website. Each area will need more details than what I have mentioned. You should understand and plan for each area so you can create a business that ultimately runs without you.
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