Migrating to a Dynamic Website

by Sherman Titens

Your website is not separate from your business; it is a part of your business, and, as you migrate to the use of a dynamic website, recognize and take advantage of the opportunity that expanding the communications reach of your organization can bring.

With the rapid advance in the development of applications programs for the operation of websites, more companies are beginning to look to the conversion of their websites from a “billboard” offering information only to “a dynamic” site which seeks to capture visitor information, establish and manage relationships, and sell or at least start the sales process.

First, you must have a plan. Why bother with the conversion? What do you hope to accomplish? Analyze competitive sites, and talk with your employees, customer/site users and prospects. What are they expecting from your site? What will it take to get them to visit your site and interact with you on line?

There are five major issues: 1) What functionality do you want to build into your site? Provide information, build relationships, offer sales and/or service? What need or want will it satisfy? 2) How do you propose to get people to visit and use your site? 3) What budget is available for the site development, maintenance, promotion and operation of the site? 4) Who will be in charge of the initiative? 5) And, what payback over how long a period of time do you expect?

Plan to quickly and easily give your visitor access to an immediate and clear understanding of what your site has to offer and how to easily navigate to the various sections of the site. Consider carefully before you force your visitor to watch a beautiful artistic introduction particularly where the visitor is coming for a business purpose and wants to get in and out quickly.

Once you identify (working with your site development people) the various functions that you want the site to offer, provide information, manage customer service or relationships or initiate the sales process, the next step is to develop a specific plan to communicate the availability of each of the functions. There are two objectives: 1) Get people to come to your site and 2) Allow the visitors to easily find, navigate and use the portions of the site most relevant to their interests.

You can’t rely on simply adding your website address to your literature. If you have been using your site to display your business locations, hours and days when you are open and information about your products, services or organization and you are now migrating to a site where the visitor can ask questions, get answers, select merchandise or services and actually purchase them on line or at least initiate the purchasing process, you will have to educate your site visitors to the new functions of the website.

Start with your employees. Introduce them to the new site before it is opened to the public. Make sure that employees have visited and navigated through the new website. Every time they talk with a customer or prospect, encourage them to add the thought that “you can now do business with us on line at www.buynow.com and reinforce that with a flyer, brochure or business card that prominently provides the website address. Include the web address with your address on your stationary and in every printed item you produce and distribute.

Consider adding an incentive for initially visiting and doing business on your website, perhaps a drawing for a trip, a car, a TV or movie tickets or something that will capture the attention and interest of your prospect. Encourage your visitor to return several times to qualify for the prize.

Once you build your traffic you can move to a segmented approach to your website with areas of interest and infor-mation and products broken down to appeal to various demographic groups. This often calls for intuitive website programs. For instance, when you look for a book or CD at Amazon.com, the site tells you what companion items others have purchased. Some sights have technology which will recognize you and present products or offer services based on your historic patterns. We’ll see more of this as time goes on.

Above all, remember that your website is not separate from your business; it is a part of your business, and, as you migrate to the use of a dynamic website, recognize and take advantage of the opportunity that expanding the communications reach of your organization can bring.

Sherman Titens is the Principal Consultant of The Titens Consulting Group. He may be reached at 913-593-6306 or via email at sherman.titens@gmail.com.