Study your competitors online!
Does that sound like an invitation? Well, it is! Your site is out there for your competition to see. And their website is out there for you to see. So, when was the last time you took a look at it?
Don't get egg on you face
Well, here’s a long story made short. I knew an individual who thought he was hot stuff building websites for businesses in and around his local market area. He had been working on improving the search engine rankings for his own website for months. Then, one day he got the call from a company located half way across the country. They wanted him to build their website. He was thrilled. He checked out a few sites in the industry of his new customer and got an idea for a layout and design. He built the site and presented it to his customer. The customer was initially happy with the site. A few days later he got a call from the customer, who asked, “When is my site going to move like their sites do?” After some further conversation, my friend realized that his customer was talking about the FLASH presentations that were on his competitors websites. My friend had not studied the websites of his customer’s local competitors. In this case he had under built the site. The problem was resolved in a timely manner, but my “friend” had a little egg on his face. And I don’t like people to see me with egg on my face.
No excuse
There is no excuse for your website being under built. The competition’s website is right there in front of you. Study it! How elaborate are the graphics? Does it have a FLASH presentation? What does it link to? And you should study it on a regular basis. Websites age very quickly. They need to be spruced up on a regular basis and sometimes they simply need to be rebuilt.
We never need to reinvent the wheel. Get a wide range of ideas on what your website should look like. Study your own market first. Then study markets just outside of yours. Look for subtle ideas that may set your site above those in your market.
“I want the best website”
The best website, in the eyes of some business managers, is the one with the most elaborate presentation. If you put a 90 second FLASH presentation at the front of your website that sells used golf balls, then you will lose customers. They’ll go to another site before they click on “skip introduction.” For most businesses, the best site is the one that generates the most cash flow. Keep your focus on that!
Huck Huckabee
Small Business Website & Find Searchers
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