Grow your Business with a Concise Web Presence | dotSquared Web Design | Sussex | New Business Growth

Your Web Site is Your Best Friend!

July 27th, 2010

Clients often confess their true thoughts on the necessity of a web site for their business growth half way through a project. The boss of a Brighton-based management training consultancy recently admitted: “To be honest, I get most of my work through word of mouth so I’m just having this site made as something for my clients to look at”. Well congratulations! You are clearly doing your job well and using your client chain efficiently.

However, nobody likes to miss a trick and neither should you. Why not build a web site to include users from all angles; the unknowns? The entirely new business who may just need your services. It could be a company/individual who finds your services via SEO or who picks up your business card/flyer/print brochure and wants reassurance that you are the company for them. This is when your web site needs to sing your praises in the same way perhaps your past clients might or you yourself would. And, importantly, it needs to do it FAST!

Web copy is not the Sunday papers, it must be succinct and to the point. One of my first jobs from Uni was an arts publicist where I soon learnt the 5 Ws – who, what, where, when, why? Get these questions answered in the first paragraph or two of a press release or in this case the primary landing pages of your web site and the user knows immediately if they’ve found the right place and can then spend their valuable time looking a little closer. As Steve Krug would say – don’t make me think!

So you’ve provided the answers now you need to back them up. This is where case studies, examples of past work and testimonials are crucial – again they need to be easily accessible – dot them around your site where appropriate, link your pages together with keywords that your users are scanning for and keep it visual. Also use shorthand such as bullets to emphasise your specialism, experience and work ethos. You can go into greater depth at a later stage.

Only when you’ve ticked these boxes do you have a web site that is as strong as your past client’s appraisal and this could well turn a new business opportunity into a project’s beginnings.