Making your website work for you
October 8, 2007 by Jeff Adams
This article explains a couple of simple steps you can employ to make better use of your web presence.
Contact Forms
It is amazing how many fancy sites there are out there that don’t even have any form of contacting the very people whose site they are on. More often the case, the emphasis is more on a “sleek, fancy website that is better than our competitors”. Well, it may look fantastic but if your visitors have no way of contacting you then consider that customer gone.
The form itself can be quite complicated, especially if you have designed the site yourself or have done it in-house. But at the very least include your company’s e-mail address, a contact telephone number and information you would expect to see on a business card.
Of course, we don’t recommend you actually put your e-mail address on your website, because more often than not it will receive more spam mail than actual valuable enquires. One of the services we employ allows you to safely display your e-mail address without this risk.
Newsletters
Dependant on your business, you may want to consider having an option for the user to subscriber to an e-mail newsletter. This is especially useful for companies that have changing content, products or special offers as it is an effective way to reach out to people who have already willingly signed up to begin with. Think of it as a friendly “Hi, How are you? By they way we have some new products you may find interesting!” but without the stigma of being a spammer.
I used to work for a company that had the contract to sent out e-shots to medical professionals. It was an opt-in scheme to enable doctors, nurses and such to receive guidance related to their job via e-mail and was hugely successful. The main reason for its success was because it was designed simply, displayed exactly what they wanted and they knew who it was from because they’d signed up and because of the logo.
Other examples of what makes e-mail newsletters successful would be to have interesting content, useful information, a tidy design as well as money saving offers.