Probably the most critical part of Internet marketing for your business is organizing your website so it will achieve your overall goals. Yet, most people completely bypass this important step or, worse, just turn the whole project over to a website designer to handle.
The process of carefully planning the outline of a new website or upgrade to an existing website will secure for you not only a vehicle to show off your business in the best light, but also one that you are able to control the process of updating content, and, most importantly, achieve your business goals. Here are a few steps to use in the planning process:
1. List all the information about your product or service that a visitor to your website might be interested in knowing. If you are planning a website for a school, for example, the visitors would be interested in how man students attend, classroom sizes, staff information and sports offered. Take the time to brainstorm as many areas related to your product, service or industry that someone might be interested in when visiting the website.
2. Put yourself into the visitor’s shoes. Visit and review some websites similar to the one you will offer as if you were a potential customer. As a visitor, what do you like and dislike about each site? Does the website inspire you to take further action? Can you find what you are looking for fast? Are there a lot of pages to navigate through to get to what you are looking for? Note all this data down with the intent of making your new website as easy for your visitors to use as possible.
3. Do keyword research to find out what visitors will be searching for. You don’t need to invest in expensive search tools, Google has a free keyword tool that is adequate for this purpose. Enter a general phrase related to your product or service, such as “coffee filters” and other related keywords will appear. Your visitors already have questions about these things. With this information in hand, you can plan your website to feature content that answers people’s questions.
4. Make sure to plan your website to grow. Stay away from website formats that can’t be expanded easily to add products and new pages. A good website is a constant work in process.
5. The final thing to keep in mind is that you want to be able to control your new website, rather than be at the mercy of your web designer to make even the simplest of changes. Successful Internet marketing today relies on a dynamic website with fresh content added often, and having an antiquated website that only your designer can change will just not work anymore. You need a website platform that will allow you to add website content fast and simply.
Your website is most often one of the biggest marketing expenses your business will encounter. It is critical to take the time to plan a new website that is compatible with your business goals.
Marty Dickinson is the founder of HereNextYear, Inc., a full service Internet marketing company in business for over 10 years. His specialty is Internet marketing solutions for the small business owner, speakers and authors. Visit to see what HereNextYear has to offer and to learn more about their innovative new website packages fully integrated for ease with social networking and other Internet marketing strategies.