Website Marketing Blunders

The website is the focal point of every business online. Find out how to avoid making mistakes and bring customers to your online doorstep.

Without a doubt a web site is the online hub of any business today. Whether you have a bricks-and- mortar company, an online business or a combination of the two, most people will use the web to search, verify, learn more, understand and interact with you and your business. Without a web site you are practically non-existent to the virtual, yet very real online world.

Having your web presence in top notch condition should be of primary importance to anybody who cares about their business and how their web site can positively or negatively affect it.  So how do you ensure that you are getting the most out of your website?  First you must learn what not to do.

Here are the most common web site blunders that you should avoid to ensure that your web site is maximizing your online potential:

Avoid:

1.     Domain names that don’t match your business name

Having a different URL than your actual business name or product is confusing and harder for people to remember.  It can be challenging for people to find your site especially if the URL for your business name is taken by another company, thus sending your traffic elsewhere.  The faster and simpler you can get people to your site, the better.

Extra tips: 

- Even if you get your URL to match your business name, buy variations that people may misspell or hyphenate to avoid competitors that may want to take advantage of your marketing efforts.

- Avoid using hyphens in your main web address as it’s hard for people to remember the hyphen, thus you’ll be sending people elsewhere or doing free marketing for somebody else’s web site.

2.     Template sites that don’t reflect your company’s image

Template sites may be good for start-ups that have low marketing budgets and need to have some basic level of web representation.  However web site templates, especially the free or cheap ones may be very limiting in design and overall interface capabilities, as well as limited functionality.

If your business has been around for years and you have any marketing budget at all, it would be wise to design a site that truly reflects your brand, company image and quality of products or services you provide.

First impression of a web site says a lot about a business in a visitor’s mind, so make sure that you don’t cheap-out on your web site design and image.  Make sure it truly represents your business in every way. 

Read more: http://www.businessreviewcanada.ca/marketing/web/website-marketing-blunders

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UK retailers up e-commerce investments

UK retailers plan to spend almost a quarter of IT budgets on implementing and improving e-commerce and mobile commerce platforms, reports ComputerWeekly.

The latest annual IT in Retail report by Martec International, sponsored by BT Expedite, shows the UK’s top 100 retailers’ IT investment in e-commerce and m-commerce has grown from 17% last year to 23% in 2011.

Brian Hume, MD at Martec International, says spending on new commerce platforms has overtaken spending on in-store systems, which has dominated retail investment for the past nine years.

“Many retailers are struggling to keep pace with the rapidly changing requirements of multi-channel operations with legacy systems slowing them down.  Replacing these systems is vital for gaining competitive advantage,” Hume said.

According to TMCnet, e-commerce represents the only growth in sales for many and so it makes sense to invest in expanding their Web sites, adding m-commerce and improving multi-channel business. In fact, 16% of the retailers already use m-commerce, a significant increase from 5% last year, with a further 12% planning to take it up.

For some of the leading 100 retailers, the investment is in setting up a transactional Web site for the first time – 24% of the top 100 do not have one, although 5% are planning to set one up.

For others, e-commerce is an investment priority to improve the customer experience, add more products, ranges or brands, internationalise their Web site and improve multi-channel integration.

Investment in new or replacement head office systems is also up, with 25% of retailers planning to replace merchandise management systems, an increase of 8% over last year, 15% intend to replace their merchandise planning systems and 6% are implementing one for the first time.