Why have a website?

Most medium to large companies, charities and societies have recognised the need for, and benefits of, a professionally designed and regularly updated website, yet amongst smaller organisations the message seems to be taking longer to get through.

Fifty-four small businesses advertised in our village magazine this month, of which only twelve appear to have websites. Why is this? Do they have enough repeat business to feel they don’t need one? If so, good for them. Do they think it’s too expensive to have a site professionally designed, and are they too scared of the technology to design a site themselves? Many small organisations do have a web presence, but it looks like it was hastily knocked together by an employee or member and hasn’t been updated since 2005 – this can often be worse than having no website at all.

This article spells out the many advantages of having a professionally designed, and regularly updated, website, and why no small business, charity or community organisation can afford to be without one.

1. Increase competitiveness. Your customers, or potential customers, are almost certainly looking for companies like yours on the internet. If you don’t have a website, or have a poorly designed or out-dated website, then you shouldn’t be surprised if they go to the competitor who has bothered having a web presence and keeping it updated

2. Size doesn’t matter. The beauty of a website is that your customers and competitors don’t need to know how big your organisation is. You can have a professional-looking site that gives the look of a large company, when in fact you are a sole trader working from the spare bedroom. This means the playing field is levelled and that opportunities can arise in areas where they may not always have done so

3. Always open. Unlike a traditional business your website never closes, so can be providing information or selling products at any time of day or night

4. Increase target audience. A community or regional magazine inevitably has a limited target audience, whereas the internet is global – anyone, anywhere in the world, could find your website and buy your services

5. Cost-effective and quantifiable marketing. Contrary to popular belief, setting up a website does not need to cost a huge amount – we can build a website for you for a similar amount to what it might cost to advertise once in a monthly regional magazine. In print magazines you would usually have to advertise several times before you began see a return on your investment, whereas with a website, once it’s up, it’s up. This, together with how easy it is to monitor the number of visitors a website receives, the potentially global audience and the fact that your website will probably still be going strong long after a magazine has been consigned to the recycling bin, means that having a well-designed website is one of the most cost-effective marketing mediums there is

6. Business branding. Another disadvantage of traditional advertising methods is that the space (or time) available is often very limited - you may need to fit your message into an 8cm by 8cm space or twenty second radio advert. On a website you can have as much space as you need to develop your brand and get your message across, and if either change you can quickly amend them

7. Money saving. As well as saving you money on advertising, a good website can also reduce the costs in almost any other area of your business. One example would be that you no longer necessarily need to spend a fortune on stamps and envelopes for mail shots when you can now simply send your customers an email directing them to your website

8. Improved customer service. If your customers often ask the same questions, you can add a “Frequently Asked Questions” section to your website. The advantages of having this include saving your customers money (they don’t need to phone you any more to ask their questions), allowing your customers to get the answers they need whenever they want and allowing you more time to concentrate on your business

With these points in mind, can a small business reasonably argue that they don’t need a website?

If you run a small business that needs a website, or you know one that does, we would love to work with you to develop a professional and effective online presence. To get things moving, please visit the Coates Designs website, drop us a line and we will get back to you as quickly as possible!

New Coates Designs site launched

A new version of the Coates Designs website was launched today, incorporating our Blogger and Twitter feeds and including the latest site in our portfolio, the Abingdon Museum Friends. The new site can be found at http://www.coatesdesigns.co.uk

Writing for the Internet

Writing for the Internet is harder than it sounds. You want to tell your website’s visitors all about you, but always try to put yourself in your visitors’ shoes – they want to know quickly and clearly what you do, and if they can’t establish this within seconds they’ll be gone, probably for good.

Therefore, when writing for your website, you should think about the following:

1. Salient. Get to the main points at the top of the page.
2. Paragraphs. Try not to exceed thirty words per paragraph.
3. Sentences. Use one idea per sentence, and try not to exceed seventeen words per sentence.
4. Critical. Make sure every word needs to be there. A good rule is to write what you want to say, cut it in half, then half again. Be brutal.
5. Tense. Write in the present or present perfect tense.
6. Language. Use language your visitors would use instead of language (abbreviations etc) your organisation may use internally.
7. Direct. Use “we” and “you” rather than “the company”, “the customer” etc.
8. Positive. Use “glass half full” rather than “glass half empty” language.
9. Honest. You might think your company is the best, but unless you can back your claims up with solid evidence, avoid hype and superlatives.
10. Keywords. With your web designer establish a list of keywords important to your organisation, and incorporate as many as possible into your text. Search engines like this. Aim for up to 5% of this text being keywords – you can check this at http://www.live-keyword-analysis.com/.
11. Humans. Whilst it’s important to cater for search engines, your customers are human. Ensure your sentences make sense.
12. Proof. Carefully read your text to ensure spelling and grammar mistakes are corrected. Bad spelling and grammar might not matter to you but it could do to your customers. And it looks unprofessional.
13. Interest. Above all, make sure your content is interesting for your visitors. You might find your subject fascinating, but if your visitors don't agree you won't see them for dust.
    

This is a lot to keep in mind, but gets easier with practice. If you need help or advice, let us know!

Long tail search engine optimisation

As mentioned in my previous post, I recently attended a very useful event teaching techniques to improve your business. Luckily for me, many of the courses that were offered were directly relevant to my business - writing for the internet, search engine optimisation (SEO), pay per click marketing (PPC) and social media, to name just a few. It was interesting hearing what other professionals had to say on the subject and to have my current techniques affirmed, whilst also introducing a few new ideas. It was also very handy to know that the other people in the courses were also interested in the subject, so a few potential new clients were met!

I was especially interested in long-tail search engine optimisation, a comparatively new SEO technique particularly useful for websites in very competitive industries. Since the course I have been looking into the techniques and will soon be implementing them on the new Coates Designs website as well as rolling them out with my clients. It'll be interesting to see if there's a dramatic increase in traffic.

Building a Better Business Event

Yesterday I attended an excellent all-day event on Milton Park all about developing your business, organised by The Late Breakfast . It was a very interesting and encouraging event, with quite a few new sales, marketing and networking tips, affirmation that many of my web techniques were spot on and several potentially interesting new business leads.

Today I'm mostly going to be following up with the contacts from yesterday and looking through my notes to see what I can do to improve my services and systems.

Roll on the long weekend, especially if the snow stays away!

New website

Morning all

It definitely feels as if Spring is on the way - definitely getting lighter earlier and darker later, though the temperature doesn't seem to have caught on.

A few days ago I launched another site for an Oxfordshire-based payroll and bookkeeping company - Oxpay.co.uk - the portfolio's slowly growing.

Now working on websites for a charity beer festival and an antiquarian bookseller; I'm keeping things eclectic!

Have good weekends.

SC

New site launch

Afternoon all

Today I launched the new website for 2 Seaview House (www.2seaviewhouse.co.uk), a holiday apartment on the beautiful Isle of Wight. The flat is available for hire throughout the year - for more information on the accommodation, booking and things to do, visit the website.

SC