When reviewing your existing website or planning a new one, always conduct a Saratoga Website AUDIT.
Attract Visitors - Does your site attract visitors and encourage repeat visitors?
User Experience – Are visitors having a good experience when they visit your site?
DDA Compliance – Is the site DDA compliant?
Improve Business Processes – Is the site being used to save time or money?
Trust – Does your site convey how trustworthy your business is?
Attract visitors

• Make sure the domain is linked to your business name.
• Promote the website through existing marketing material
• Submit the site to search engine listings
• Flash websites are not ‘seen’ by search engines
• Use relevant newsgroups and forums to tell people about your site
• Ask suppliers, partners, customers, etc to create a link from their website to yours.

User experience

• The website must be quick or the visitor will go elsewhere.
• Remember: not everyone has high speed broadband!
• Keep the content up to date and relevant
• Tell visitors what you do on page 1
• Make it easy to navigate around the site. If products are difficult to find they will go elsewhere
• Use high quality content form your suppliers (get permission)
• Use RSS for pulling in latest content or pushing your content to other sites

DDA compliance

• It is your legal duty to ensure the site is accessible for people with disabilities
• Not complying with this could leave you open to legal action

Improve business processes

• Can you use the site to save time? E.g. submit enquiries online. Less time taking phone calls.
• Can you use the site to save money? E.g. provide PDF brochures instead of paper brochures.
• Allow visitors to register for email newsletters, special offers, etc.
• Always remember the purpose of the website: marketing your business and/or additional sales.

Trust

• Always include standard contact details
• Use a trusted payment method
• Give access to testimonials, references, etc
• Use emails that are linked to the domain name
• Show any affiliations, memberships and accreditations.

Hopefully these ideas will help you get more from your site.
Wayne