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THINK A WEBSITE IS MERELY A DIGITAL BROCHURE ?
By Nik Ellis
Think again . It ’ s a digital Swiss army knife . Leading companies leverage websites to solve ( or at least greatly assist ) with some of the most common problems encountered in business .
If you run a company you ’ ll probably recognise this common challenge ; The business seesaws between needing more sales , or more staff to cope with bountiful sales . It ’ s rare that sales and staff are in perfect balance , at least not in a growing company .
Sales It ’ s accepted that many sales are generated by a marketing strategy of which a website plays a big part , whether as a digital brochure , part of a sales funnel , lead generation or simply ecommerce .
Business owners have long recognised a website ’ s function as their online shop front , with a high percentage of customers visiting their site before making a purchase . However when it comes to the latter problem of too many sales & not enough staff to cope , companies tend to ignore their website & simply rush to the HR department who give a list of requirements to a recruitment company or job site . Two weeks later they wonder why they haven ’ t had many suitable applicants .
Recruitment Pre-pandemic employers had the upper hand but nowadays employees demand and indeed rightly deserve a greater freedom and say in their role . Supply & demand has allowed staff to be much more picky about who they work for and it ’ s not simply a case of paying more to attract talent , as people now value flexibility , progression , purpose , wellbeing etc in their career .
How do they work out whether they would like to work at a firm , how do they assess a potential employers ’ culture ? First and foremost , the company website . Does it have blogs and news about staff events , charity work , employee of the month , training days , social media links - the ‘ people ’ side of the business ? Is the ‘ About Us ’ an impersonal section or does it show who the owners and key people are , and what their philosophy is ? It is the easiest place to portray a business ’ ethos to prospective employees . Equally it ’ s easy to put someone off with an oldfashioned or faceless template site .
Service Websites are easily linked into back office software to allow customers to interact without the restrictions of traditional telephone receptions and all their frustrations . We can now book appointments , follow the progress of jobs , discuss problems or amendments with chatbots , pay invoices and so much more . Pretty much anything a human receptionist and administrator can do , a website can do 24 / 7 . The advantages of linking your website are widespread . The answers it gives , the information it shows to customers are consistent and logged . It allows for automation to be used in the customer facing roles ; when done right this significantly enhances the customer experience ( How much easier is it to stream film rather than wait for a DVD to arrive through the post ?) The result is significantly better customer service .
Marketing A good company website gives your company credibility . Indeed we ’ ve seen design briefs which have been solely to support off-line sales . 84 % of consumers consider a website makes a business more credible .
It allows a company to showcase their brand , establishing a clear identity . Smart copy can ensure the content is SEO friendly , ie relevant words & phrases that will attract Google searches . It will form an important part of a sales funnel , typically the initial awareness , interest & consideration phases but can also be used in the sales conversion stage and the often overlooked post-sale stages such as onboarding , loyalty & advocacy . A good marketing strategy equals more sales , up-selling and resales .
2023 Ready ? Remember when you first received your latest mobile phone ? The brand new , out of the box phone is the worst version of it you ’ ll own ; every so often it will be updated , sometimes minor tweaks & upgrades , occasionally a complete overhaul of the operating system . It gets better and better . Same principal with a website , yet many build & leave ; perhaps the odd blog now & again . From security to SEO visibility there are so many reasons to ensure a website is updated . If it was built pre-2022 then chances are it may have issues & in some cases these can restrict traffic to the site .
We offer a free website checking service here to assess opportunities for improvements ; well worth a go if your site is over 12 months old . For more information on getting the very best out of a website , please visit RevolutionFour . co . uk .
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