Provides simple advice for small businesses that are interested in establishing their own website. Talks through a logical website development methodology to ensure that the end product serves its purpose.
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Creating a Website For Your Business
1. Creating a Website for
Your Business
CLAYTON WEHNER
BLUE TRAIN ENTERPRISES
2. The Plan Today
40 mins
10 mins break
40 mins
30 mins – questions
Hold your questions for the end
You’ll need the worksheet for a few activities during the session
3. Some of the websites I’ve been involved
with…
Boomerang Books
DefenceJobs.gov.au
Rundle Mall
TAFE SA
City of Adelaide
6. Why websites are important…
Websites are cost-effective
Websites are your online ‘premises’, with a unique, memorable domain
name
Websites help to establish business credibility
Websites are open 24/7 – you never close
Websites are accessible all over the globe – you can access new markets
Websites are discoverable; most buying decisions start with a search
Websites are a self-service channel; can save your business resources
Websites are ‘owned’ – you control them, unlike other digital assets
Websites act as your central hub for other marketing activity
7. A little about search…
93% of consumers worldwide use search engines to locate web sites. (Forrester Research)
85% of qualified web traffic is driven through search engines. (WWW User Survey)
75% of search engine traffic never scroll past the first page of results. (WWW User Survey)
Google is the number one website in Australia (Hitwise)
8.
9. Websites are changing the commercial
landscape…
Greater consumer inclination to transact online
New online competition – Amazon to arrive
shortly…
New online markets – clothing, groceries, food
delivery, bulky goods
Bricks-and-mortal retail under threat – Borders, Dick
Smith, Masters, Pumpkin Patch, ABC Shops, David
Lawrence, Herringbone, Payless Shoes
Lots more growth in online to come!
How will your business compete?
11. The Process - BPADCOM
◦ 1- Business Requirements
◦ 2- Platform – the foundation stone
◦ 3- Architecture – how it all fits together
◦ 4- Design – what it looks like
◦ 5- Content – what users consume
◦ 6- Optimisation for Search – what search engines see
◦ 7- Management, maintenance, marketing and measurement
12. 1. Business Requirements
Frequently overlooked!
The mindset is ‘I’ve gotta get a website’, without really exploring the
needs of the business.
Typically a web designer is engaged and produces something pretty,
but often ineffective.
Doing some detailed thinking first and articulating your requirements
will ensure that you get a better result.
13. POST Analysis
People – who are you seeking to influence?
Objective – what do you want to them to do?
Strategies – how will you move them towards that objective?
Technologies – which technologies will you use to enact those strategies?
People Objective Strategies Technologies
14. The problem is…
We typically start our thinking with the technology.
We don’t really consider the people, objective or strategies…
Starting at ‘T’ generally doesn’t work too well…
People Objective Strategies Technologies
16. Same for websites…
‘Every other business has a website. We need a
website. Let’s get somebody to build us a website.’
17. People
Who are you seeking to influence?
Teenage females
Stay-at-home mums with discretionary income
Small business owners
Working parents with little time
Retirees who live less than 3km away
Americans who love Australian products
Pensioners with iPads
Migrants that don’t speak English
People Objective Strategies Technologies
18. Take 3 mins to write
down who you’re
intending to influence
WHO ARE THEY? WHERE ARE THEY? WHAT ARE THEIR SPECIFIC
CHARACTERISTICS? FEMALE? MALE? OLD? YOUNG? IN ADELAIDE?
ELSEWHERE? INTERESTS? WHERE DO THEY GO ON THE WEB?
19. Objective
What do you want those people to do?
Buy our product – the most obvious
Read our content
Submit an enquiry to us
Attend an event or activity
Remember our brand
Learn about a topic
Donate to our charity
Pass on a message to friends and family
People Objective Strategies Technologies
20. Take 3 mins to write
down your objective for
your chosen audience
BUY STUFF? READ STUFF? ATTEND SOMETHING? CHANGE
THINKING? REQUEST FURTHER INFO? JOIN A GROUP? WRITE
COMMENTS? INFLUENCE?
21. Strategies
How do we get the people moving towards the objective?
If ‘buy our products’ is our objective…
◦ Produce online content that showcases our products
◦ Run a ‘product of the month’ special
◦ Inform prospective customers about new release products via a mailing list
◦ Discount products so they are cheaper than our competitors
◦ Operate a loyalty program for return customers
◦ Offer gift cards and promotional codes
◦ Offer free shipping for buying more than $100
◦ Deliver brilliant after-sales support
◦ Operate an affiliate/referral program People Objective Strategies Technologies
22. Take 3 mins to write
down some strategies to
achieve your objective
DISCOUNTING? MAILING LISTS? VIP CLUB? CONTENT STRATEGY?
COMPETITIONS? LOYALTY PROGRAM? REFERRAL INCENTIVES?
INFORMATION NIGHTS?
23. Technologies
Which technologies will enable you to enact the strategies?
◦ Content website or blog
◦ eCommerce website
◦ Social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.
◦ Email marketing – Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor
◦ Google My Business
Do we even need a website?
If yes, what does it need to do for us?
How will it help our business?
People Objective Strategies Technologies
25. Google My Business
All businesses who want to be found in Google MUST complete a Google My
Business profile
Go to business.google.com
Manage how your business looks in local search
results
Contact details, opening hours, website address,
map location
Advertise using Google Adwords
It even has its own inbuilt website builder!
27. 2. Platform – the foundation stone
Like building a house, it’s necessary to build a strong foundation for your web
presence.
If you get the foundation wrong, then it’s mighty hard to dig it all up and start
again.
Things to consider here:
◦ Domain name – important to consider up front because it’s hard to change it
later on. The domain also has implications for search engine optimisation.
◦ Software – eg. A content management system, ecommerce software
◦ Website hosting – fast and reliable? Can it cater for the software required?
28. Domain Names 101
.com.au is the best option for Australian businesses - infers
Your business name should be in the domain name
There are search engine benefits if you include keywords in the domain – eg.
bobsplumbing.com.au
Shorter is better – more memorable
If you can get the .com equivalent of your domain, that’s worthwhile
29. Some options for your software platform
Website ‘builders’ – Wix.com, Squarespace, Google Sites
Hosted online blog software – Wordpress.com, Blogger.com, TypePad, Tumblr
Hosted eCommerce websites – Shopify, BigCommerce
Other – Drupal, Joomla, Magento and hundreds of other content management
systems
But the best solution for most small businesses is: a self-hosted Wordpress
website
30. Why a self-hosted Wordpress site?
Software is free – it’s open source
Easy-to-use for novices
A high percentage of the world’s websites use Wordpress
Active community of developers means that the software is constantly getting
better
Every web developer knows how to install it and use it
Heaps of templates, themes, plugins, extensions, widgets and integrations with
other software – it can be extended to do almost anything!
You can use your own domain name
You can get free hosting for 12 months on Amazon Web Services
31. 3. Architecture – how it all fits together
Now that we have our foundation stone in place, it’s necessary to build the
‘bones’ of the website.
These are fundamental to the user experience or UX – a science in its own right
these days
Two main things to consider:
Information architecture (IA) – the hierarchical page structure of the website;
how users will navigate the site to find what they are looking for.
Page architecture – how the individual pages are structured, particularly the
common page elements that appear globally across the site – the header/footer,
sidebars, columns, search function, navigation bars, social buttons
32.
33. Do a card sort…
A great way to settle on your information architecture is to do a card sort. Here’s how:
1. Brainstorm all of the possible pages that your website should have (important: think
about it from a customer perspective)
2. Get yourself a PostIT note pad and write down each page title on a separate note
3. Order the notes into a logical hierarchy
4. Take a photo of the final product!
TIP: One page = one discrete topic
34. Take 3 mins to write down
a list of pages that you will
have on your site
HOME – SERVICES – PROFILE – ABOUT US – PRIVACY – TERMS AND
CONDITIONS – CONTACT US – TESTIMONIALS – CASE STUDIES –
PRODUCTS – SEARCH – JOBS – OUR CUSTOMERS – WHAT WE DO
36. 4. Design – what it looks like
This is the traditional domain of the web designer.
Important: Pretty does not equal good. Beware form over substance.
Design incorporates:
◦ Corporate logo, colours, fonts and styles
◦ HTML/CSS templates – the ‘look and feel’ of the pages, on desktop, tablet and mobile
◦ Fixed graphical elements – banners, images, buttons, bullets, dividers
◦ Rich and dynamic media – video, sliders, dynamic menus, marquees, rotating banners
39. With Wordpress, you can take advantage of
1000s of pre-built responsive themes…
40. 5. Content – what users consume
One thing that web designers aren’t typically very good at...
Compelling copy (text) is critically important for your website. And not just for
human visitors, but also to ensure that your website figures prominently in the
search engines…more on that shortly…
Images – pictures tell a thousand words
Dynamic content - video
Content is the reason why people visit your site – it must be good!
41. Copywriting 101
KISS – keep it simple stupid!
One page = one topic
Simple words, short sentences and short paragraphs
Err on the side of minimalism – descriptive, but not wordy
Use headings and sub-headings to break up the text
Lots of white space
Use bullets, but don’t bullet everything
Use keywords that people would search for in Google
42. 6. Optimisation for search – what search
engines see
Websites need to serve two masters: humans…..and ‘robots’ or ‘spiders’
You can have the most attractive website in the world – but looks won’t
guarantee visitors to your site. Google doesn’t see prettiness.
Websites need to be optimised for search engines so that your site can be
discovered by customers:
◦ Keyword analysis – working out which keyword combinations people should use to find your
site
◦ On-page optimisation – tweaking the page content and metadata to ensure keyword
relevancy
◦ Inbound link building – obtaining links from other high quality websites
◦ Technical optimisation – geekery!
43. SEO 101
For each individual page:
◦ What is the keyword combination that a person would type into Google to find this page? Eg.
Men’s basketball shoes
◦ Include that keyword combination in the page TITLE tag
◦ Include that keyword combination in the page DESCRIPTION tag
◦ Include that keyword combination in the top page heading (the H1 tag)
◦ Include that keyword combination in other headings on the page
◦ Include that keyword combination in the page copy
◦ Include that keyword combination in the alternate text tags for images on that page (ALT
tags)
◦ When linking to this page from other pages on your site, use the keyword combination in the
hyperlink anchor text
44. 7. Management, maintenance,
measurement, marketing and more!
A website is never finished!
Not enough to simply publish a site on the web and just let it sit there.
The best websites constantly add new content and update existing content –
start blogging!
Measurement – set up Google Analytics and get an understanding of your
website traffic
Marketing – consider an active social media presence and paid marketing to
drive traffic to your site – eg. Facebook Page, Twitter feed, Google Adwords
45.
46. Outsourcing a Website Project
Use BPADCOM to frame your requirements in writing
Provide a written brief to 2-3 website developers and run a mini-tender – you
might consider using an online freelancer network like Upwork, Toptal or
Freelancer.com
Ask the developers to respond in writing, providing information about their
‘approach’ to your requirements and a project schedule
Choose the developer based on their response – they need to know about
everything we’ve covered today.
Insist upon weekly telephone/in-person reports and hold them to the project
schedule!
47. Dealing with geeks
Always opt for a system that you can maintain yourself – eg. A content
management system, rather than a ‘static’ website
Geeks often have no sense of time or deadlines – keep on their back, but be
gentle
Geeks often don’t document things – make them write things down, including
an instruction booklet so you can administer your new site
When you find a good geek, stick with them; don’t take them for granted