Determine Your Website's Chief Purpose

Websites are much like books. Readers are searching for information so you will need to clearly define the information you intend to provide. Sometimes you may find yourself stressed on this issue but it is the most important part of your site.

So often I look at a site and find that I must search for the real intentions of the author. The tendency at this point is to move on to another site. Unless the content is something I want to read, that is exactly what happens. If you want to keep your readers, you need to engage them with a clear path. People will follow if you let them know you know where they are going.

To build an effective website you need to look at the organizational needs and make them primary. Some of the common website purposes would be:

• Brand building by creating an online brochure to help potential clients or customers learn and understand your company and how really good it is.
• Provide product information and why it may be better than alternative products. This would include testimonials on products.
• Listing the location or locations of your business. This should really be done often, how can you be of service if you cannot be found. Your visitors need to know how to contact you.
• Perhaps you may wish to sell your products on line or you may wish to monetize your site by using affiliate sites that sell to your visitors.

These are just a few of the many. Your website is your business card and it should reflect the nature of your business and provide content that your readers want. Sit down with a notepad and list as many of the concepts you want to build into your site. Some ideas may be better than others but you need the ideas. Do this as an activity without any judgment or evaluation. Keep the list and add to it whenever a new idea strikes you.

Once you have a list take just one idea and work through all the possible ways you might present it. Work on only that one idea until it is fully developed. Branding for example helps you manage and monitor your on line reputation. This has become so important in the last few years that it has given rise to businesses that cater to the concept so you can outsource this function in part or in whole.

Developing a brand strategy can be one of the most difficult steps in the marketing plan process. It's often the element that causes most businesses the biggest challenge, but it's a vital step in creating the company identity.To begin the development of your brand strategy you must have an understanding of four marketing components:

• Primary Target Customer and/or Client
• Competition
• Product and Service Mix
• Unique Selling Proposition

With these components of your marketing plan you have created the basis for crafting a brand strategy. An effective branding process will create a unique identity that differentiates you from the competition. That is why it's often deemed as the heart of a competitive strategy.

Please realize the objective here is to develop a thought pattern for the purpose of your website rather than on branding. Branding here is simply an example of starting to drill down within one of the components. Take each item in your list and break it into specific parts for development and then start your website with a clearly defined purpose.

Next time we will consider outsourcing and wheather or not you want to do it yourself.