Creating and promoting websites: why it is important for business
Today, almost every company has its own representation on the Internet. For the development and promotion of sites allocated funds from advertising budgets. But not always these funds pay off. And then the business is disappointed in investing in the Internet. But without this component today, business development is difficult to imagine. Let’s understand what causes problems, how to work with sites, and why it is actually important for different types of businesses.
Why do you need to create a site
The answer to this question must be clearly formulated at the stage of making a decision on the development of a web resource. If you are creating your own website simply because “everyone is doing it this way” or you want to write “www” beautifully on your business card, think well, maybe the funds should be better used for other purposes?
So, let’s consider the main types of sites and when they should be used to promote a business.
Business card
A small project consisting of several pages with information about the work of the company. Often, a section with articles (like a blog) is created for promotion. But by and large the business card can be viewed either as the company’s first steps on the Internet, or as a resource with information to help regular customers.
Benefits:
Low cost site creation. Business card sites can be ordered relatively cheaply or even created by yourself using the designer.
No need for ongoing maintenance of the project. Such sites are usually static. Sometimes you will post news or documents, in rare cases – update contact or other data. But, in general, there is no sense in allocating an employee for permanent work with the project and hiring technical specialists to support them.
Disadvantages:
Difficult website promotion. Projects of this kind are small, new materials rarely appear on them. As a result, the site may remain in the “tail” of search results for a very long time.
Almost no profit. From search results, such projects crowd out more powerful competitors. New visitors enter the site through a direct link or in the case of using contextual advertising or promotion through the social network.
Recommended:
As a “start”. It is difficult for a start-up business to invest large sums in the development of Internet sites at once But the creation and promotion of a site is a dynamic process. It is possible on the basis of a small and modest project to gradually make quite a solid corporate portal.
To work with regular customers. On the pages of “business cards” you can upload certificates, instructions, links to some documents, often necessary for your customers. This is convenient for buyers, while your employees will not be constantly distracted by sending certain files.
Corporate Portal
A powerful multipage resource that simultaneously performs two types of functions:
Advertising and brand awareness. The public part of the site, which combines the functions of business cards with useful publications, pages, alerts about promotions, etc. It differs from the business card in volume and complexity of the structure. A corporate portal can contain information about all activities, branches, contain some interactive sections (reviews, online chat with a consultant, feedback, public questions and answers, and much more). It features a unique design, always executed in a corporate style.
Non-public part for the interaction of employees and customers. “Inside” the corporate portal very often create special services that are available only to registered users with a certain level of access rights. There may be some variant of a CRM system or a project management service, a section for regular customers with the ability to control settlements, create orders, etc.
Creation and promotion of a site of this type requires large investments and ongoing support by specialists. But with the right approach, these funds pay off very well.
Pros:
The site is in the top search results. Attracts unique visitors, including a large percentage of potential customers of the company or end-users of promoted products. Projects of this type are large, funds for promotion are usually not spared, and therefore corporate portals are almost always on target requests – in the top ten, and often even in the top three.
Internal services help business automation. The transparency of work and the quality of customer service increases, the influence of the human factor on the work with documents and applications decreases, as a result the number of errors decreases. All this increases the profitability of the business, even without increasing sales.
Minuses:
High price. And the creation, and promotion, and maintenance require constant investment. This type of site is suitable mainly for big business.
The difficulty of creation and support.