Recently, I was privileged to speak on the subject “So, Ive got a website…now what?” at the monthly Columbia Falls Chamber of Commerce meeting.
While it’s a valid question, this is not how I want you to be thinking about your site.
A fair number of business owners think about their site as “Something I gotta do” rather than something that is part of their strategic efforts to win business.
Please don’t do that. It’s not a one-time effort. Instead, it’s more like a garden.
When you have a garden; you till, you plant, you water, you weed, and you chase off deer and rabbits.
You don’t plant a garden, walk away from it for months and come back expecting it to feed you. Likewise, you shouldn’t expect that of a website. Both require strategic thought and upkeep.
You plant after the last frost. You harvest before the first one (mostly). You water every day or as needed. All of these things happen on a schedule.
Your business is no different. You perform various activities on a schedule because it’s strategically wise to do so. Your website deserves the same consideration.
What to plant?
Let’s back up a little… In your website garden, what do you plant?
How about the roles you want your site to serve?
- Brochure
- Greeter
- Customer service
- Order processing
- PR person
- News source
- 24 hour answering service
- Reservations agent
- Waiter
- Maitre D
- Trade show booth
How well does your site fill these roles? Did I miss any?
Depending on what you do, your website may carry a heavy burden. You might have to start small and incrementally expand its role. Don’t let that stop you from starting a site.
The toughest question facing many small business owners is “What should I put on my site?”
If you look at the roles your site serves, the questions and answers become obvious.
Weeds
Just like an ignored garden, an ignored website is going to grow some weeds. If you were a vegetable, how would you care for your garden?
For a customer, these weeds plague websites:
- Outdated info signals “we don’t care about this site”
- A site that offers no way to interact with a visitor.
- A site that fails to give visitors a reason to come back regularly.
- A site that doesn’t offer information to help the customer get more out of their investment at that business.
Curb appeal
Most people don’t care so much about their garden’s curb appeal, unless it’s a flower garden.
How are you presenting the information your site’s visitors want?
Think about describing Glacier National Park to an out-of-town friend.
- You can write a description.
- You can talk about it.
- You can show them photos.
- You can show them videos.
- Or you can take them there.
It’ll depend on what info you are trying to convey, but short online videos have proven very powerful.
The difference between text, photos and video is substantial. You don’t have to invest in a fancy camera and software since most new phones will capture photos and/or HD video. Some of them will upload directly to YouTube (etc).
Critters who visit
Mobile browser use continues to grow quickly. How does your site look in a mobile browser?
For some, it doesn’t matter much. Our chamber website has had only 150 visits by mobile browser users in the last 10 months. The reasons are obvious (think about when people visit a chamber site), but your site might be just the opposite.
If I had a restaurant, motel or tourist attraction, I’d be sure my site worked well from mobile browsers so that people could use it from their phone while traveling. If your site is one that would be used frequently by a person on the go, failing to have a mobile-friendly site is like fencing out the bees during the bloom.
Location, location, location
Location-sensitive mobile web applications (Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places, et al) are growing like mad.
Taking advantage of them is a great idea…unless your garden has been neglected and overrun with weeds. Until the site is in tip top shape, your time is best spent on making the best possible content available to your visitors given the roles it serves.
How’s your garden?
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a business, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site or contact him via email at mriffey at flatheadbeacon.com.