Why you need a website – what is the goal?
- Company information and customer trust (look legitimate) This includes the email address!
- Blog (disperse information)
- e-Commerce (make money in your sleep)
- Software Applications (customer portals, etc)
Each of the different goals can have very different time and commitment requirements!
Managing the planning and development of your website – what are the “hooks, gotcha’s”, things to avoid and “must haves” ?
At the bare minimum you need a website! Your customers and vendors will expect to see a website that conveys a professional and legitimate company that they can trust their business with. This can take as much time/money as you would like, but can be done relatively economically if desired as well.
Hiring experts or employees not in the budget? You can now create and build your own website without knowing any code or dealing with goofy FTP issues. There are many WYSIWYG editors that you can use to build and maintain your website with minimal time commitment and costs. This can be accomplished for as little as $5-10 per month plus $10-15 per year for the domain.
Hiring experts or employees not in the budget? You can now create and build your own website without knowing any code or dealing with goofy FTP issues. There are many WYSIWYG editors that you can use to build and maintain your website with minimal time commitment and costs. This can be accomplished for as little as $5-10 per month plus $10-15 per year for the domain.
Where to go and how to get started - Free and low cost tools
Where do I go to get the domain?
GoDaddy.com - Often has new customer specials including hosting packages and low cost domain registration
Register.com
How do I host my website?
There is a slew of hosting agencies and a quick google search can return many results with various benefits and costs. There are even many very economical hosting packages. Just make sure your selection matches your desired outcome.
One WYSIWYG I like to use for sites where SEO and Custom fit and function are not the most important aspects is:
Weebly.com - Very cost effective and very easy to use. Lots of drag and drop and detailed instructions to walk you through it all
Where do I go to get analytics?
Google Analytics - Free. It is also incredibly powerful. If you pay to have a website built insist that you get analytics scripts installed on your website. If you use a Weebly or other WYSIWYG builder, there are often placed where you can copy and paste the script to install Google analytics on your webpage.
Google Webmaster Tools - Free. This is a great free tool kit that helps analyze your website for coding errors and issues that Google has when crawling your site.
Where do I learn about SEO/ tools available?
Google Local for Businesses https://www.google.com/local/business/
Moz.com has created a phenomenal e-Book on the beginner's guide to SEO
SEMrush.com can be a great tool to benchmark with other websites. Be warned that the traffic estimations can be very wrong the smaller the traffic gets, so don't rely to heavily on the exact results, but the general idea can be very helpful.
Builtwith.com can be helpful in understanding what kind of tools and platforms other websites are using.
Marketing.grader.com Helpful tool to explore the strength of your website
GoDaddy.com - Often has new customer specials including hosting packages and low cost domain registration
Register.com
How do I host my website?
There is a slew of hosting agencies and a quick google search can return many results with various benefits and costs. There are even many very economical hosting packages. Just make sure your selection matches your desired outcome.
One WYSIWYG I like to use for sites where SEO and Custom fit and function are not the most important aspects is:
Weebly.com - Very cost effective and very easy to use. Lots of drag and drop and detailed instructions to walk you through it all
Where do I go to get analytics?
Google Analytics - Free. It is also incredibly powerful. If you pay to have a website built insist that you get analytics scripts installed on your website. If you use a Weebly or other WYSIWYG builder, there are often placed where you can copy and paste the script to install Google analytics on your webpage.
Google Webmaster Tools - Free. This is a great free tool kit that helps analyze your website for coding errors and issues that Google has when crawling your site.
Where do I learn about SEO/ tools available?
Google Local for Businesses https://www.google.com/local/business/
Moz.com has created a phenomenal e-Book on the beginner's guide to SEO
SEMrush.com can be a great tool to benchmark with other websites. Be warned that the traffic estimations can be very wrong the smaller the traffic gets, so don't rely to heavily on the exact results, but the general idea can be very helpful.
Builtwith.com can be helpful in understanding what kind of tools and platforms other websites are using.
Marketing.grader.com Helpful tool to explore the strength of your website
SEO and Analytics
In order to really delve into SEO and other internet marketing analytics is an absolute must have.
Analytics allow you to see:
If you have more time, watch this intro to Google Analytics Webinar, or read about analytics on the Google Analytics Blog
SEO - Search Engine Optimization (organic growth)
If you haven't gone to Google's Local for Businesses, DROP EVERYTHING and go to https://www.google.com/local/business/ NOW!!! Google has actually moved paid search traffic to return local results higher on the search results page and it is FREE. You will register with your company location and info and Google will verify it. Once this is done you will have an advantage for local search traffic.
Read the moz.com e-Book on the beginner's guide to SEO. It is a great way to understand the principles of SEO along with how to start, and defining best practices.
SEM - Search Engine Marketing (pay for placement)
Adwords - There are some great tools like keyword planning with this, but be careful to spend your money wisely.
Remarketing - This is when you visit a website and then it seems to follow you around the internet. It can be great but also must be targeted and measured to bring the desired results.
Social
Where are your customers? What do they naturally share about your service or products? How do they share it?
Claim your spaces on the various networks, but invest as you see a return and benefit. There will be some SEO benefits, but it can also be a black hole of time. In my opinion, you need to have a plan and be very disciplined to be successful on social media.
Google+
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
Etc.
Start simple and invest wisely. Watch the metrics and let that assist you in determining your investment strategy!
Analytics allow you to see:
- How many people are visiting your website
- Where they are coming from
- What terms they are using to find you
- How long they are staying
- What they are looking at on your site
- Where they are located
- When they are viewing your site
- If they call you on the phone
- If they send an email
- If they work with you in person
- Other non website based interaction - make sure you define other metrics that you want to track, and come up with ways to track them. This is important when figuring out conversion ratios and other analysis in calculating ROI.
If you have more time, watch this intro to Google Analytics Webinar, or read about analytics on the Google Analytics Blog
SEO - Search Engine Optimization (organic growth)
If you haven't gone to Google's Local for Businesses, DROP EVERYTHING and go to https://www.google.com/local/business/ NOW!!! Google has actually moved paid search traffic to return local results higher on the search results page and it is FREE. You will register with your company location and info and Google will verify it. Once this is done you will have an advantage for local search traffic.
Read the moz.com e-Book on the beginner's guide to SEO. It is a great way to understand the principles of SEO along with how to start, and defining best practices.
SEM - Search Engine Marketing (pay for placement)
Adwords - There are some great tools like keyword planning with this, but be careful to spend your money wisely.
Remarketing - This is when you visit a website and then it seems to follow you around the internet. It can be great but also must be targeted and measured to bring the desired results.
Social
Where are your customers? What do they naturally share about your service or products? How do they share it?
Claim your spaces on the various networks, but invest as you see a return and benefit. There will be some SEO benefits, but it can also be a black hole of time. In my opinion, you need to have a plan and be very disciplined to be successful on social media.
Google+
Etc.
Start simple and invest wisely. Watch the metrics and let that assist you in determining your investment strategy!
Do you need a transactional e-commerce website?
It depends! What are your goals?
Do you have products that are very unique on a national or international level?
What level of traffic/sales will you need to operate profitably?
Who will answer the phones, qualify the opportunities, and make the sales?
Who will maintain the database, inventory, and code?
There is definitely money to be made in e-commerce, but make sure to think through the questions carefully it is also very easy to throw away significant amounts of money if you are not careful to follow the data and stay up-to-date and on budget.
The more unique your products are, the less competition and ease you will have in search placement.
Do you have products that are very unique on a national or international level?
What level of traffic/sales will you need to operate profitably?
Who will answer the phones, qualify the opportunities, and make the sales?
Who will maintain the database, inventory, and code?
There is definitely money to be made in e-commerce, but make sure to think through the questions carefully it is also very easy to throw away significant amounts of money if you are not careful to follow the data and stay up-to-date and on budget.
The more unique your products are, the less competition and ease you will have in search placement.
Examples of good websites in our industry?
This is so difficult to say!
EASA websites vary largely depending on size of the service shop, location of the service shop, and level of investment in the website.
Quick Stats:
EASA websites vary largely depending on size of the service shop, location of the service shop, and level of investment in the website.
Quick Stats:
- Just over 50% have a website listed on EASA.com (If you have a website that is not listed fill it in on your membership survey. Links help create traffic and credibility to your website)
- Random sample of 50 websites the average page rank was 2.5
- Of this sample the Large EASA shops has