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Strategies for web design Success in South Africa
Web design that works |
Whether you’re concerned with business-to- business, or
business to consumer, whether your organisation is large
or small, commercial or nonprofit, these are some
fundamental questions around your Website, design and
technology strategy that should be addressed.
Otherwise, you risk missing opportunities, and not
maximizing the return on your investment in your online
presence.
If you haven’t visited your own Website for a while,
look at it again in light of these questions: |
Our Services. EPNET Web design:
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Internet research
Website hosting
Domain name registration
Email services
Web design quotes
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1. Does your Website design and content present an
appropriate image of your company?
Marketers talk a lot about branding, and consistency of
message. Does your company site reflect how you’d like
your customers to feel about your business? Is it
sophisticated, and professional looking? Does it speak
directly to visitors in language that they’ll
understand, and in ways that relate to their issues and
needs?
Design image is also about public relations. Publicity
is a powerful marketing tool, and reporters are
increasingly looking for stories and information online.
Does your Website offer a media center? Does it offer
comment on current events in your industry? Do you face
up to the bad news, and spin it to your advantage?
2. Does your Website suggest potential for new or
currently untapped markets?
In almost all the sites that I’ve consulted for, we’ve
identified markets or audiences beyond the “real-world”
customer base of the business.
This may be because the site extends the geographic
reach of your marketing. If you have good content on
your site, it may also be because visitors looking for
your subject area find you in search engines, and come
to read your articles and white papers.
Either way, if you find many “non-traditional” visitors
to your site, you should assess whether they constitute
a possible new market area for your business.
3. Does your Website suggest potential for new
products or services?
A clear understanding of your visitor needs may also
encourage you to consider new products or services. On
the Web, bundling expertise into downloadable, for-sale
content provides valuable new revenue streams for many
businesses and non-profits.
You can find great clues for development ideas by
tracking the keywords entered into your own site search
engine. These show what visitors expect to find on your
site – and therefore what they expect your company to
offer.
4. Does your Website provide continuing added value
for existing customers?
Most site owners focus on acquiring new customers, and
fail to maximize the opportunities to support and
service existing ones.
These include password-protected areas where your
clients can follow the progress of their projects, share
documents with you, etc. Personalization and
pre-populated forms (i.e. which are automatically filled
in with the customer’s details) help to create a feeling
of value, and save time for your visitors.
Check the average response time for a contact from your
Website. One of the top complaints about major company
sites is that e-mails are not answered in a timely
(hopefully 24 hours or less) manner.
5. Does your Website support your internal operations
and employee needs?
This question relates to whether you’re making the best
use of all available technologies, and integrating them
with your online operations.
6. Does your Website integrate fully with your “real-
world” activities and processes?
One of the most frustrating visitor experiences is to
complete a form, an application, or to submit a search
on your Website, only to receive an error message.
Customers want the security of an e-mailed purchase
confirmation. They want to know that they’ll be taken
off your mailing list quickly and without the need for
multiple requests.
With the complexity of technology and programs today,
sometimes a change to a seemingly unrelated system can
wreak havoc. Do you regularly check all the input forms
and processes on your site to ensure that no unexpected
gremlins have crept in?
7. Does your Website provide you with a justifiable
return on investment?
This is probably the most important question of the
seven, and possibly also the most difficult.
That’s because the answer depends on a clear
understanding of the goals of your site, both in direct
financial terms, and in other less tangible benefits,
such as name recognition.
The keys to evaluating ROI, to improving your site, and
often to further business development ideas can be found
in your traffic reports. These show what visitors are
looking for, how long they spend on the site, where they
go, where they leave, and what rate of response you get
to the various calls to action.
These reports can be daunting – a mass of figures,
graphs and URL’s. EPNET display marketing reports in an
easy to understand format. We only give you information
like where the visitor came from (direct or search
engine), keywords people used to find your site and
other important demographic information like country and
town of the visitor etc. |
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Web design South Africa, Web Design Johannesburg, web design Sandton - African web design company
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