Internet marketing: Creating an effective business website

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An effective business website lets you communicate with prospects to a degree that no print publication can match. Why have a static brochure website when you could be using Internet marketing to your advantage?

Whether you have an effective business website already or if it’s still on your to-do list, at some point every solo and small business will go through through this process:

Decide you need a business website.
Surf around the web looking at other sites, especially competitors, and note what elements you want in your site.
Search your contacts for a web designer, if you can’t find one, search the web for one and hire her to build your site.

This is a recipe for disaster! Here are the reasons that why a successful business website built this way won't work:

Personal preference decision-making is flawed

Without online marketing skills, poor decisions are inevitable. You might want certain graphic elements on your website just because you like the way they look, are convinced you have to have an “about us” page because every other site does and demand a certain colour because you think it “looks professional”. While these ideas aren’t inherently wrong they are symptomatic of a common problem - too much focus on design and decisions which lack practical justification.

You can’t expect your web designer to provide all the answers

You may think your web designer should help you establish a successful online presence. That’s what you hired her for, right? Unfortunately most web designers are not online marketers. They will be good technically and creatively - a great one will be able to create anything you ask - unfortunately that’s like buying a sports car and not knowing how to drive.

The usual result of this combination is a beautiful website that doesn’t do anything. Yes, you are proud of it, you eagerly parade it around to all your friends and family but unfortunately no one else knows about it. It doesn’t bring you any new business – the reason you built the site in the first place!

Copying those that “seem to know what they’re doing” doesn't work

Most other solo business website owners don’t know how to market online so you will repeat what doesn’t work. The few that do have successful sites know the ‘secret sauce’ when it comes to online marketing, and you can’t replicate that because it’s unique to each business.

Websites are not brochures

Most people think of a website as an online pamphlet, whereas it should be viewed as a dynamic customer relationship building tool. Your aim is to build a website that can convert prospects without you personally selling at all.

But you need to understand the mechanics of how your website can help build customer relationships.

How to build customer relationships through your website

Marketing 101 tells us you need to make between three and seven contacts with a person before they will buy from you. It’s not a perfect rule but does demonstrate the importance of ongoing communication with your potential customers. Relationship-building is vital for success.

If you stick a sign in front of a person proclaiming they should buy your product, very few will. Even if your sign is in front of people who actually need it, still very few will buy because you have not established trust with them. Relationship building establishes trust which leads to sales, and the same applies to online selling.

Internet marketing strategies often involve giving away a sample of what you offer to demonstrate value, putting your expertise on display and starting a communication dialogue with potential customers. The beauty of the Internet is that your website system can handle this process for you automatically, once you set-up it will keep working hard to bring you new customers.

The free samples must be genuine resources, something that teaches or solves a problem. You don’t have to give away all your secrets, but you must demonstrate you know what you are doing. Examples include free downloadable reports, e-courses delivered via email, articles, whitepapers, subscriptions services, newsletters - anything that provides genuine value to your website visitors.

This starts trust-building with your website visitors, validates your credibility (you’re not all talk) and importantly, gives you a mechanism to create a link with your prospects – they give you their email address. With communication channels open you can continue to soft-sell yourself, build more trust and keep your business fresh in the mind of your target market.

In part three of this series I will introduce you to the most important tool of the trade that automates the relationship building process for you and can be seamlessly integrated with any website – email autoresponders.

This article is part 2 of a series on Internet Marketing. Below are links to all 8 articles in the series:

Internet Marketing Part 1 - Its use as a business growth strategy
Internet Marketing Part 2 - Creating an effective business website
Internet Marketing Part 3 - Using email autoresponders
Internet Marketing Part 4 - How to use pay-per-click advertising
Internet Marketing Part 5 - Introduction to search engine optimisation (SEO)
Internet Marketing Part 6 - Search engine optimisation part 2
Internet Marketing Part 7 - The basics of blogging for business
Internet Marketing Part 8 - Breaking down technical skills barriers

Yaro Starak is an online marketing and Internet business specialist. He enjoys working with and teaching other soloists how to use the Internet as a business tool.

8 comments | Add your own 1 2 | Next» View all»

Hi Yaro, great stuff - keep going ! Thanks, Grant Hyman. Grant Hyman from Sydney | Read my articles
Excellent Stuff...and I look forward to more. Perhaps we can get into the world of adsense and of course search engine optimisation during Yaros' course?. The main thing is to keep your web site simple, easy and quick to load, easy to get around and GIVE LOTS AWAY! By doing this you'll create a huge opt-in mailing list and that's a great way of reaching people...but another art in itself!! Geoff Roberts from Port Macquarie
Yes this sounds great, I am currently searching for ideas on how to put a great web site on but how do I know if who does my web site design if they really know how to aquire the leads that I am hoping for. Lisa Nankervis from Bendigo, Vic.
Hi Yaro, great article! I think it is important to separate website 'design' from 'content'. Businesses should use a website developer to give them the design, but the content needs to be developed by the business, which is reinforced by your article. I would like to see one of your future articles address HOW businesses put content on their website to keep it informative, interesting and up to date. Yep, I am talking CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, which I believe to be very useful, easy-to-use tools but many soloists have never heard of them. Lisa Wiese from West Perth, Australia
Lisa - one of the later topics in this series covers blogs, which are certainly one of the most popular and I believe most effective content management systems available. Stay tuned to flying solo! Yaro from Brisbane
The possibilities are overwhelming and so are all the things we should investigate or aquire.
My website is a brochure at this stage, I'm in the process of learning how to get my cartoon gallery up there. There is a market for an online tutor for people who need everything broken down into small, chewable chunks! Brigitte Heyer from Queanbeyan, NSW

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