How's Your Website?

Everyone has a website these days. For businesses, having a clear web presence is becoming more critical than ever. The good (and potentially bad) news? This trend it not going away anytime soon. That means, in order to survive, businesses will need to earmark marketing dollars in order to stay competitive on the web.

I spend the majority of my day online and so naturally, I visit hundreds of sites each week. When I visit any site, I always look to the bottom of the page to find the most recent publish date.

There tends to be a pretty wide gap in terms of the quality of websites that have been revisited in 2006 and 2007, and those that were last touched in 2005 and before.

You don't have to be a developer to know that both the landscape of the web as well as best practices associated with web design and SEO are two areas that constantly change.

With that in mind, here's a list of questions that I suggest you ask yourself when looking at your own business's website:

1. What is my website really doing for my business today? What should it be doing?
   
2. How is my website helping my bottom line?
   
3. How does my website work to enforce my brand?
   
4. Does my website help generate leads/sales/contacts/subscribers? How? Could it be doing more?
   
5. Do my visitors have a reason to come back and visit my site again? What is it?
   
6. What is my website doing to support my business's operations?
7. Does my website tell a story about my business? Does that story match the rest of my business's communications?
8. Do I have the control to change or update my website as my business grows and changes? If not, how much will it cost me to have someone else do it when I need to?
   
9. Can my visitors easily navigate my website? How do I know for sure?
   
10. Do I have access to my website analytics? What are analytics and why are they important?

If you've racked your brain and still can't answer these questions, or are not confident in your answers, then you're probably BeFUDdled (stricken with Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt).

When was the last time you sat down, revisited your business goals, and looked closely at your web presence?

(warning: shameless self-promotion below)

If you are BeFUDdled about your website, contact me. My firm, Young Isaac, can help.