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Everybody knows that the Internet is here to stay. The question is what goal or strategy do we want to adopt to make use of it. This article suggests that you take a realistic approach to using the Internet and avoid being sucked into the theory that you must be there to survive.
There are four general goals that you might want to consider:
Finding new customers is the first priority of most businesses. However, the Internet is not likely to do it for you without an appreciable investment. How can this be when your local phone company gives you a web site for $15 a month that is visible around the world?
The fact is that most strangers find particular sites by doing a search for key words using a web site designed for that purpose. These web sites, such as yahoo.com or google.com have an incredibly huge listing of sites. To be in the top-ten web site listed for each of your key words takes an absurd amount of effort and expertise. You can easily spend thousands of dollars on consultants to help you get your site to the top of the list. However, there are no guarantees and it will take months to get there. Even if you get to the top-ten, its takes regular monitoring and work to stay there. That $15 a month account that is a page on a larger site does not have a chance of showing up on the lists at even position 500 and not many people are going to go past position number 20.
There is currently a change in how the search engines are charging for their services. A few years ago, it was all pretty much free, except for the bucks you had to pay a programmer to get to any reasonable position on the lists. Search engines are now starting to charge for a place on their index. The value of a top listing is significant and in the next few years, I expect these charges to be in line with the cost of national advertising. Too rich for most small business owners making this goal not a good bet for most of us.
The strategy that may work here is to sign up for a portal site that either links to your site or gives you a page on their site. The portal site management is responsible for getting it to the top of the search engine list and directing people down to your site. Realtor.com for example has articles and real estate listings to draw buyers and sellers to their site. They then provide easy look-ups for realtors in the area with information about them and their business. Sites like this are becoming more prevalent for most of the professions.
A second strategy here would be to steer potential customers directly to your web site without using a search engine. Direct mail postcards, for example, could provide some special offer if they will visit your site. In effect, you are using your marketing dollars to entice customers to do business with you through your web site. Obviously, your site must be set up to do business in this manner before adopting this strategy.
Adding credibility to your business image is a reasonable and cost effective goal. This one works because you are directing prospects and customers to go directly to your site without using a search engine. The amount of credibility you generate depends upon the content of the site. Volume counts here as well as a professional look. The more stuff you put on it, the more established you look.
The cost of producing a site can be small. I do recommend that you buy your own domain name and use a professional hosting company. I am not impressed by those addresses that are simply pages on a bigger companies site, such as the newspaper or phone company. You can recognize these "vanity" sites easy when you see their address as: //phonecompany.net/littleguysname. The cost of getting your own site is only a little more and has much better potential as web users become more sophisticated.
Here is a great goal for most small businesses. Helping your current customers by providing useful information and the ability to query gives them a reason to stay with you. Anybody has done the analysis of what it costs to get new customers will easily come to the conclusion that spending some money here is very worthwhile.
Many things that you can do in this area are basic, but save the customer a call or a wasted trip.
The communication goal is probably were most worthwhile one for small businesses to adopt.
This is the place for any business with multiple locations and for single sites with a large number of employees and managers. My biggest success story in the last few years was designing an Internet based ordering system for a retailer with stores in three states. Store managers were able to go to the Internet using their regular Internet Browser, select the items and quantities needed, and click a button to submit it. The Purchasing Department received an email notice within minutes and could view a log of orders and their details using their web browser. Before this system, the number one complaint was lost orders with the store manager insisting he had faxed it and the purchasing agent insisting he never received it. Posted to the web site, the information was available to all, along with accountability if the ball was dropped.
Other applications that will save time and money include posting the company policies and procedure manual. Make all the changes in one place and avoid the issue of whose book is up-to-date. Eliminate distributing memo and policies on paper and the excuse that they had not received the latest update.
There are now reasonably priced options that can allow you to put your entire accounting system on the web. This allows more people to input the transactions from remote locations, such as your CPA who can make corrections without going to your office. Reports can be made available without the problem of paper distribution, which always seems to be breaking down.
Adopting the Internet to improve your credibility and communication capability with your customers are the most effective goals for small businesses. The cost of a domain name is less than $50 and my web hosting company (www.daysite.net) only charges me $20 per month to maintain my site. The web hosting company provides the technical expertise and I provide the articles and content that I want on my site.
Companies on the growth path should definitely consider setting up a site for only their employees internal use. This intra-company site should become your main communication channel for all of your general and accounting information.
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