What’s the Point of Your Website?

This is the first of a six part series on how to get your small business website off the ground. Be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed and/or bookmark this website so that you can follow the series to conclusion.

There are a lot of people out there (you may be one of them) who have a website for their business but have no real traffic to speak of. Unfortunately, a majority of business websites are in this boat. They have a few pages up there (made by the small business owner in most cases) but nobody comes by the site (except for those who are directly told to go there). Essentially, the site is not achieving anything for your business.

Sound familiar? For many of you, it probably will. What I’m going to do is walk you through the basics of how to turn your site into something. After all, you didn’t invest all that time and (potentially) money into your website just so you can tell people you have a website, did you? When you created it, you probably had grand plans of getting a decent amount of traffic and actually having the website generate business (and hence revenue) for you. The good news is that that CAN happen. Its just a matter of doing those things that are needed to make your site compete with the larger ones out there that get most of the traffic.

The 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 Rule, technically known as the Pareto Principle, basically says that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This principle can be applied to all kinds of different scenarios. Perhaps you generate 80% of your business revenue from 20% of your (larger) clients. Well, this rule applies to what you’re up against online. 80% of the traffic on the internet is going to be visiting about 20% of the sites that are available on the internet. Depending on your market, you can shrink that down to this: 80% of your potential market is visiting about 20% of the sites that are out there that have to do with your business.

That means that 80% of the sites for your target market are failing and competing for a small (20%) share of the market. Obviously, then, the trick is to do one of two things (or both) :

• Put your site into that 20% which are competing for the 80% of the traffic.
• Get your name in front of the eyeballs of that 80%.

To do this, we need to lay down a foundation.

Getting To the Point

First things first. Before you sit down and start making a website, you need to decide what the point of the site is going to be. We’re talking about a business website here. Your business is obviously designed to do or sell something. Your aim is probably to make your website DO something that will help your business achieve it’s aims in some way.

Most small business websites are a horrible waste of space. They consist of a few pages that describe the business, the products, services, etc. The standard cookie cutter small business site will include the following:

• Homepage
• About Us
• Products / Services
• Contact Us

This type of site is probably better than nothing, however its also not that useful and is not likely to bring in any traffic. Most such sites are nothing but generic brochures for the business. They are not written with any specific POINT in mind. And they don’t provide any real value to a reader. In other words, the only person who is ever going to care about the site is somebody who probably already knows about you. If they know about your business already, you may not even need a website to tell them what you do.

Before creating the site, decide what the point is going to be. Do you want them to buy something on the website itself? Do you want the site to raise your online profile and enhance your reputation? Do you want the site to turn your business into an opinion leader in the field? Do you want the site to simply generate leads?

These are all very different points, and the sites are generally geared a little differently depending on what you’re trying to do. If you sell a product that can be bought online, perhaps you want to use the internet to expand your market and sell online. The classic e-commerce business. If your business is a service, you may want to generate leads. In that case, the site should be designed specifically to generate a lead and not confuse the reader away from that task.

Don’t spread your business site too thin by trying to be all things to all people. If you want a lead, do what you need to do to generate a lead. Make it easy and clear on how to do it. You will then judge the site based on the quantity of leads it brings to your business. You want to have ONE major purpose to your site and not overload it by trying to pull your visitor in multiple directions at once. That’s the online version of the Las Vegas strip, and it doesn’t work that well on a business website.

Either way, the classic brochure-style business site is just not going to get you all that far. These types of sites usually suffer from a complete lack of purpose. Let’s make your site DO something here.

Tomorrow we will discuss the strategy for making your website be part of your business sales process.

Other Parts of This Series:

1. What’s the Point of Your Website?
2. Sales Funnel - Business Website And Your Strategy
3. Getting Your Business Website Online
4. How To Draw in Visitors and Make Them Like You
5. Essential Steps to Web Traffic to Your Business
6. Summary and an Offer of Help

You Might Also Like:

1. Sales Funnel - Business Website And Your Strategy
2. Getting Your Business Website Online
3. Integrating a Website With Your Business
4. Essential Steps to Web Traffic to Your Business
5. Summary and an Offer of Help

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