Is your website working for you or against you?

Written on July 24, 2009

Evaluating your current website in a recession can make you money

During an economic slowdown it’s essential that businesses maximise their sales and marketing potential as well as ensuring that expenditure is monitored closely.  Usually in a recession one of the first budgets to be cut is the marketing budget when, theoretically, that should be one of the budgets that is maintained or increased. The real question is, are your marketing tools effective?

In this digital age your website should be seen as the major advertising tool at your company’s disposal and ensuring your website works for your business is critical to the overall success and well being of the business. You should be asking yourself the following questions:

• Are customers finding our website? – If your website is not search engine optimised then potential customers may never find you. It’s no good thinking that because you have a website that you will come top of the search engine rankings – you have to make it easy for the search engines to find you and help you up the rankings
• Is our website putting people off buying our products or services? – It is important that your website’s information is up to date and it’s design is user-friendly.  If you have an outdated website, potential customers may be put off from doing business with you, as this is seen as a reflection of your company. A site that leads users down blind alleys can also be taking your customers away or leaving them frustrated. For these reasons, and others, it is best to keep your content fresh, check that your site is helping to sell your products and services and updated  at least every 2-3 years to ensure it stays modern looking
• Are we missing sales opportunities through our website? – An e-commerce site means that customers can buy your products 24/7 – not just during your opening hours – potentially increasing your sales with no extra drain on resources. Also, you could be missing out on advertising opportunities for companies you supply to, for instance. This could be a crucial revenue generator
• Am I spending excessive money on website maintenance? – In these tough times every penny counts. Having a built-in Content Management System on your website means you can update your site to reflect the current issues within your company – making it more relevant to your customers as well as being a cost saving
• Do we provide new services that aren’t detailed on our website? - It’s surprising how businesses change; new skills sets within the business, new business services and products provided, a change in focus of the company: all things that should be shown on your website. But not only for potential customers to read, for the search engines too, so your search engine optimisation needs to reflect these changes

At NECSES Webdesign we have solutions to all these questions, including content management systems that allow you to update the content of your website yourself, search engine optimisation services, web development services and unique web designs that reflect your company in the best possible light. So, give us a call at let us analyse your website and see where we can help make your business more profitable.