Is Your Website Working For Your Company, Or Hurting It?

The Internet has become part of the way we do business today. You need email and a website or you don't exist too much of your target market. A flashy website is not needed to be successful on the Internet. Consumers are researching products and services online before they make a purchase; they would appreciate any site that is easy to navigate and provides the information they are looking for. Is your website working for you? Seriously, go to your type in your web address and make sure your still online. How many times have you clicked to visit a website and found it "temporarily unavailable"? Worst-case scenario, your domain name was never renewed by your company, registered by someone else, and is now being held for ransom or used to redirect your customers to someone else's website.

Once you have checked to make sure your online presence is secured, look again at the first page. Not everyone can acquire the same fast access to the Internet you have at work. Is your site loading fast enough for someone at home using a dial-up connection? Most of the time, a large image file is the problem behind a slow loading page. If you hired professionals to design your website, you should not have this problem. They would know how to minimize your image files and achieve faster loading pages, making sure your customers don't grow impatient and leave your website.

Updated Website Content

As mentioned earlier, a visitor to your website is there to research a product or service so they can make a decision. What are you giving them to look at? Have you updated your website content since going online, or are you providing visitor's with outdated content? Don't take this valuable space for granted. You need to update site content on a regular basis; keep it fresh. At the very least, keep your main page updated with current information. A link to a non-existent website or an outdated copyright date hurts your online credibility.

Online Credibility

A visitor to your site is making a decision whether or not to purchase from you. They are about to hand over private information, including credit card numbers. They can't see, and may have never heard of your company. Your site needs to portray a sense of security, confidentiality and trust. Don't hide your contact information. Make sure you respond quickly to emails, and that your phone number is prominently displayed on your website if not on every page. What about a physical mailing address? So you already have your phone number, email, and postal address listed on every page... are they correct? A typo in one of these areas would not allow the customer to contact you and could kill the sale.

Online Trust and Security

If you are taking credit card information online, you must provide a secured area of your website to process this information. Are your secured pages using a valid secure certificate? Just as with your domain name, make sure your secure certificates are promptly renewed each year. Have a privacy policy posted somewhere on your site. Reassure your customers that you will not sell the information you are collecting, and how you will be using this information.

Customer Database and Feedback

Are you collecting postal and email addresses after a purchase is made? Are you keeping an updated customer database? Use this information to follow up after each sale or run a direct mail campaign. Sending out a weekly or monthly email newsletter offering special promotions to customers who would like to receive them is also a good way to stay in touch with your customer base. Make sure to include your website address on everything you do. Ask for your customer's feedback, but keep it short. Don't expect people to answer more than what is necessary. Ask how your customers were referred to you so you know what is working. If you are using an online form to collect feedback, test it... make sure it works correctly.

In short, keep your customers coming back to your site by making sure you stay in touch and offer something new each time they visit. As long as you portray the same sense of professionalism online as you would in person, your customers will be assured there is a "real" business behind your online storefront. If you don't have the time to keep your site updated, assign these tasks to someone else. Your website can be a major investment of time and money, so make sure you are getting the most out of it.

Jeffrey Florida is the owner and president of ZeroLevity Inc, a website design and hosting company.