June 19, 2014

Objectives and Risks of Owning a Small Business Website

website ideas
website ideas (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)
  Having a website is one thing, but marketing it is something completely different. There is no magic button, or special hidden secret to marketing your website. There are however a few things that must be done in order to market your website appropriately. There is no use in having a website if no one ever sees it!
According to Sutevski the most important objectives for a business website are:
  • Reaching the target market.
  • Attract visitors to your Website.
  • Encourage them to buy your products and services – to take action.
  • Make them to want to come back to your Website for free or paid content, products or services.
Creating a website that will appeal to your target market is important. Otherwise you will have a high bounce rate, which means that your potential customers are not staying on your site very long. People don't stay on websites very long because they are not finding what they are looking for. It's important to make it appealing to the eye as well as interesting to your niche.

Attracting visitors by submitting your URL to search engines and using meta tags is not enough. If you want traffic you have to use network marketing. That means Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr and so many more. Pick a few that you like and are comfortable with. Make sure when posting to your network that you are not bombarding your potential customers with ad after ad. Post original and premium content. Be creative and watch your followers grow.

No one is buying your products? Is your website set up for payments? How are your item descriptions? Do you have quality photos of your products or the work that you have done?

If you want your customers to come back you need to remind them. The easiest way to do this is with a mailing list. Set up a sign up box on your website with a short form your customers can fill out their personal information. Send out emails with promotions and special events.

As far as risks go, security is the top priority. According to The Startups Team "Credit card criminals are increasingly turning their attention to smaller e-commerce sites, using stolen credit cards to buy goods online, so you have to have the right level of security in place." If you are keeping this information in house on your own servers you need to make sure that it is protected. If you have contracted a separate entity to manage this information for you steps need to be taken to ensure the security of your customer's information.

The Startups Team. (2001, October 12) Running a website: The security risks. Retrieved from http://startups.co.uk/running-a-website-the-security-risks/
Sutevski, D. (2009, September 19). Online objectives for marketing your business. Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneurshipinabox.com/559/online-objectives-marketing-business/