Many people think that a website comes in only one flavor and serves only one need. This assumption is incorrect. Selecting the kind of website that you need is a lot like selecting the type of house that you need.
The Mobile Home website:
You can start your website with some information about your company - this is the basic website, much like a mobile home is basic shelter. It doesn't have many features, but it is a roof over your head, and provides people a way to gain information about your company.
The Starter Home
The Starter Home is a more functional website. It provides information on products or services that your company offers, and has basic interaction with the visitor. This website begins to focus on not just providing information, but interacting and converting the visitor.
The Moderate Home
This is the type of website that begins to bring in it's own traffic. Quality content, articles, and product information make this site a destination rather than just another company website. Much like the moderate home, it looks good from the curb, but as the visitor takes a look around it provides multiple paths to the information they are looking for, and provides conversion opportunities along the way. This website also provides functionality like the Intelligent FAQ or a Complex Product Selector to begin to interact further with the user, and to start moving some of your customer service functions onto the website thus freeing up man-hours in the office.
The Estate:
This website brings the visitor experience to the next level. It combines the technologies of the other packages and adds e-commerce to it. By doing this we can bring a customer from a search on the Internet through all the shopping stages, and to the final purchase point. If you offer services that can't be easily priced online, you can use the e-commerce system as an advanced RFQ solution so that the customer can indicate directly to you what they are looking for.
The Estate also incorporates advanced tracking of visitors, providing the owner with information on which pages the users visit, much like a security system would in a home. By tracking visitors and knowing, for example, what search term a user came in on for a visit that ended in a conversion, or sale, your company can target that type of visitor in the future, and tweak things so that you can increase the conversion rate for that visitor path. It is this advanced analysis and tracking that will reveal how your visitors interact with your website, and allow you to improve that experience. If you have a page that your typical visitor only spends seconds on before going to another specific page, you have identified a problem area of your website. Perhaps the link into this page is unclear, or the page itself contains little information. By tweaking this you may be able to convert more visitors. A user typically expects to find what they are looking for in less than three clicks, so if you can make that journey easier for the visitor then you will improve your conversion rate, and increase ROI!
Appearance / Curb Appeal
A visitor to your website, much like a visitor to your house, makes assumptions as soon as they see your website and as they look around the different pages. Browsing the web is a very personal experience for each visitor, and they are looking to fulfill the needs that they have. Does your website address the needs of each individual person? This is much like a person looking for a home. Home shoppers have a list of things they are looking for that will influence the home that they purchase. Some people will look for a large garage, others will look for a versatile kitchen, and others will look for storage space. Your website visitors will also have diverse needs, and if you are truly committed to using the Internet to improve your business then you should address these needs sooner rather than later. |
