According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Business Use of IT report of June 2012, only 44.6 percent of businesses had a web presence, be it an online store or an official webpage.
The study revealed that although small businesses were least likely to have a website, only 75.7 percent of larger companies with up to 199 employees had a web presence.
Without an effective website how can a business – large or small – hope to be a player let alone a market leader in the highly competitive digital space? And not even just a website for the desktop but nowadays it has to be mobile and tablet friendly too.
AdNews earlier this year found that more than three-quarters of Australian’s access the internet through a mobile device - a staggering growth of 208% since 2010.
So if you do have a website, how does it perform on a mobile device? Probably not that good according to a crawl of the top 5,000 Web sites by modern.IE which found that only about 14 percent of sites have some form of responsive design.
Google recommends building your website using responsive design – which basically means it will automatically re-package the content to fit the device viewing it.
So number one on the list of must-do’s for your website is to make it responsive.
Now that doesn’t mean a complete re-design of your current site – using new technology like Bootstrap, an open-source framework developed by the guys at Twitter, your site can be repurposed for the mobile experience.
So talk to your web designer on how to get responsive. An 87-page report by Morgan Stanley analysts says mobile web will be bigger than desktop Internet use by 2015.
Next your home page because let’s face it, if that’s not right your web visitors won’t stay long.
The first question people want to know when they land on your website is what do you do?. Most people use the net for information or entertainment so they have a need and they want to know if your company’s services are in line with this need.
You only have a few seconds to say what you do and then convey your value proposition, why they should care about you over others.
Now once you have their attention you need to engage them. Avoid stock images – use real pictures of your product or your projects taken professionally by a photographer.
They say a picture says a thousand words so if you’ve just used a common, free Google image what’s that saying about your company?
Your home page and indeed your entire website should include video content. Did you know that using video on your website will keep prospects on your page an average tw minutes longer?
20% of people will read text while 80% will watch a short video of the same content and websites with videos are 50 times more likely to be ranked better by Google’s first page.
So video is a must on your website. A university lecturer from Perth told me once that Google prefers sites that contain six videos – not five or seven, just six.
So start with a short one to two minute welcome video on your home page from your CEO telling people who you are and what you can do for them.
Then embed your site with product demo videos and a corporate profile video showcasing your business and your people.
Studies show that consumers who view a product video are up to 144% more likely to buy the product than those who don’t.
Next to that wonderful term called SEO or Search Engine Optimisation.
Whatever you knew about SEO has all been turned on its head in September when Google launched its new algorithm called ‘Hummingbird’.
Now rather than the old notion of focusing just on keywords, Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a search query, ensuring that the whole query – that’s the whole sentence or comment – is taken into account, rather than particular keywords.
The goal here is that pages matching the meaning are better than pages matching just a few of words used in the search. So what does that all mean to your website?
Well basically it’s back to good, clean and targeted content. Each landing page should have more than 250 words and the keywords for the page appear in the URL, the h1 or main header tag and throughout the copy - preferably within the first and last sentences.
Finally – interaction! What good is a website doing all the right things if no-one interacts with it?
Your website should be lead generation enabled to capture opportunities when people are looking for your service.
Request a free consultation box throughout the site – not just on the home page, informative blog articles that help solve the customer’s pain points, FAQ’s and engaging video showcasing your real life customer experiences.
There is no better resource than a company’s clients. A recent study by the New York Times found that 65% of new business comes from referrals.
To find out more about technology for your business join us for a Business Breakfast how to truly benefit from the latest innovative changes in IT, Wednesday, November 13 from 7.00 AM at Castle Hill RSL.
Then on Wednesday, November 27 technology success story, ResMed’s Innovation Centre plays host to a Business After Five from 5.30pm.
For more details and to register for these and other upcoming events visit the Chamber website at http://www.sydneyhillsbusiness.com.au
