Archive for September, 2008

Building software or a website is an exciting process for any business. Dreaming up nifty features that will save you a ton of time and money and looking at other similar projects for inspiration get our creative juices flowing.

But that enthusiasm can quickly go cold if the website or software you end up with does not deliver the results you expect.  That’s why the first step in the website and software development process is one of the most important. Careful planning early on can often mean the difference between a software or a website that is a driving force of your company’s growth and one that needs to be redone one or more times shortly after its’ completion.

Good planning reaps benefits that are critical to any organization. It ensures that your project is on time and on budget and that the website or software you end up with not only is what you want but serves the needs of your organization better than any alternative.

The website and software development process is not a lot different than building a home. Knowing what kind of home you want is the first step. How will the floor be laid out? Where will each door go? How many bathrooms? Not knowing the answers to these questions before you start building guarantees trouble ahead. Realizing that you need a bay window when the house is nearly built will cost you much more time and money than if you had anticipated one from the start.

Likewise, the process of developing website and software begins with identifying what kind of website or software you need. A good development firm will not only listen to your needs but help you identify goals that you may not have realized were essential to your project’s success. Based on those needs, your developer will then draft a blueprint that lays out a design for your website or software and the steps required to achieve it.

Once you’ve seen the blueprint, you’ll then have a much clearer picture of the online “home” you’ve been working towards. A bit of tweaking here and there is normal, but now the process of actually building the website can begin on good footing.

It all begins with good planning. The process is a good one to become familiar with as you begin thinking about the website or software you want and searching for a design company that can get you to that point.

Technorati Tags: custom software development, planning, Software and Web Development, web site, Website Design

Blogs can be a valuable tool, but many businesses don’t understand their purpose. Simply copying your company’s marketing material to your blog will not do your company any good. Blogs that become successful among readers are blogs that express someone’s personal opinion (not their company’s opinion) and have valuable, funny or controversial information. There are plenty of blogs that are just popular personal blogs and there’s no company behind them. I am not talking about these blogs here. It is important to understand that a popular blog by itself will not do much for your business. To make sure that your popular blog also benefits your business the person who writes the blog has to be an expert in the field. Here is an example of a successful blog that benefits the business behind it:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/. This is a blog of the CEO of a company called Fog Creek Software that sells products to software developers. The CEO writing this blog is an expert software developer and provides interesting information with some humor on software development. Because of this software developers respect his opinion and want to try his company’s products. The main idea is that there’s never a mention of his products on the blog – it’s simply a blog of an expert software developer who happened to be running a company that sells to software developers.

Any business can replicate this model. You simply need to be an expert in what your clients do and write about it in your blog. Your potential clients will then start listening to you and will want to try your products or services.

Technorati Tags: blogs, Internet Marketing, promoting your business

Viral marketing uses people to spread your message like a virus from person to person, hence the name. If properly implemented it is much more cost effective than other forms of marketing because people do the work of spreading your message for you. At the core of the viral marketing campaign you need to have something that people will find valuable, interesting, or funny so that they are compelled to share it with their friends, coworkers, etc. A few of the popular choices are:
- Create a video that will be funny or controversial so that people will want to pass it on to their friends.
- Create something of value like valuable content or tool that people will find useful, funny or controversial.

The trick in both cases is to come up with something funny, useful or controversial that will help the message spread but also carries a message of your brand or is somehow associated with your products or services. There are a huge number of viral marketing campaigns that had success. For example you might have seen the OfficeMax Elf Yourself campaign. You can find more information on it here http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2007/12/officemaxs_viral_hit_elf_yours.html. I suggest you also check out the Dove viral video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U. Website design companies allow people to download free designs and other useful software for their website like a photo gallery http://www.flash-gallery.org/ or an mp3 player http://www.flashmp3player.org/demo.html. In all these cases people find the content funny, interesting or valuable and pass it along to others and the message spreads like a virus from one person to another, but most importantly it also carries the brand message or is associated with your service or product.

Technorati Tags: promoting your business, viral content, viral marketing, viral video, website promotion

Generating leads through your own website can be broken down into two basic steps: getting people to your website and converting them into a lead once they are on the website.

Step 1: There are many ways to attract people to your website: search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, cost-per-lead (CPL) advertising, banner ads, link ads, affiliate programs, link baits, etc. If you’re a smaller company I would only recommend using SEO, PPC and CPL.

Step 2: Convert your website visitors into leads. Depending on your sales cycle you can consider a lead to be someone who is interested in your product or service right now, someone who signs up for an e-newsletter or a webinar. In any case you want your website visitor to take a certain action on your website to become a lead. The percentage of visitors that become leads is called a conversion rate. To double your conversion rate on a certain page of your site you just need to make a 25% improvement to four things on that page like your introductory text, your guarantee, your “call to action”, and your page layout. You will need to test which one of these combinations works best. To do that you can use a free tool like Google Website Optimizer www.google.com/websiteoptimizer.

Technorati Tags: conversion rate, leads generation, ppc, seo, website traffic

Website is not a substitute for old fashioned foot traffic and many people still seek human help and customer service, but small business owners should use their website to complement their business. Here are a few reasons why:

• Easy website name is much easier to remember than a phone number. Imagine you are passing by one of those bench ads in your car and the ad is for a local plumber. At 60 km/h you are much more likely to remember www.torontoplumber.com than a 10 digit phone number. If your customer misplaces your business card or a brochure chances are you lost that customer, but with an easy to remember website name they can still find you.
• Your website can provide information about why people need to call your business instead of somebody else. If you advertise in other mediums like yellow pages, newspapers, tv, radio, etc. you are usually very limited in terms of how much information you can put in those ads. Your website on the other hand is not limited in terms of the amount of information you can provide your customers with. You can mention your website address in these other advertising mediums and “close the sale” with additional information about benefits of your products/services on your website.
• Properly managed website will generate online customers and regular foot traffic. Depending on the type of business you’re in you can either add to your sales by selling your products online or attract more foot traffic to your bricks and mortar business. In both cases you do need to promote your website to attract traffic to it. Just like with your regular business you need to think about who you are trying to attract to your website (location, interests, etc.) and promote your website to this audience.
• Today everyone expects a business to have a website and it just means that you are serious about your business. Today people expect to find information they need online. Many people research products and services online even if they buy them at local stores. Not having your information online will definitely harm your business in this day and age.

Technorati Tags: brick and mortar business, managing website, web site