Before beginning to strategize, you need to create goals for your business. In order to create goals you need a solid grasp of your current situation on the Internet (your current web presence). To get an idea of your current internet situation take a look at:
Website – Ideally your website is the hub of your Internet presence with customer-centric design and content.
- Analytics – How well is your website performing? Basic statistics such as page views, visits and uniques are useful. But more importantly, how many leads and conversions are you getting? Where is your traffic coming from? How useable is your website? Are people getting frustrated?
- Usability – Can visitors find what they are looking for on your website? Is it easy to use? What could be improved?
- Content – Great content provides your customers with the information they need to succeed. Creating content should be a continual process. What content do your customers want to see? What expertise can you provide?
- Design – Your website needs to be easy to use (usability), but also should be eye-catching and professional. Are the fonts need to be easy to read and does the layout should draw visitors into your message?
Community & Brand Reputation– Your customers are talking about you both online and offline. Find where your customers are and join the conversation to get key insights into improving your business.
- Blog – If you have a blog, what feedback have your readers given you? What are other bloggers saying? Who has linked to your blog and what have they said?
- Forum / Discussion Boards – If you don’t have discussion boards on your website, find places where your customers frequent. Listen to concerns and join the conversation with suggestions for improvement.
- Social Networks – Your customers are probably on social networks already (if they aren’t they probably will be soon). Find social networks where your customers frequent and see what they are saying. Join the social networks to give them an opportunity to connect.
- Reviews – Have there been any reviews of your products and services? What can be improved?
Search Engines – Many potential customers will find your website through search engines so it is important to understand how search engines currently crawl and index your site.
- Keywords – What keywords do the search engines see on your site? Where does your site rank for various keywords? It can be helpful to pick the top 100 to monitor at first. There are a number of free tools available to help (Google Webmaster tools, Rank Checker for Firefox, SEO Quake for Firefox and Internet Explorer).
- Indexed Pages – How many pages on your website (and blog) do the search engines include in their indices? (SEO Quake and Website Grader can help).
- Incoming Links – How many other sites are linking to your website? What are they linking to? What are they saying? (SEO Quake and Website Grader).
- Outgoing Links – What other websites are you linking to? (Google Webmaster tools, SEO Quake).
- Cache – What pages are the search engines displaying in their results? What do they have saved that may be old content? (Google Webmaster Tools).
Marketing – What is your company trying to say to customers and potential customers? What are the current marketing messages your company is using? What is the status of any advertising or sales campaigns? What is the return on investment (ROI) of any campaigns?
- Advertising – It is important to understand how any advertising is impacting your bottom line and helping to reach your goals. Besides budgets, clicks, and impressions, it is important to measure leads, conversions, or sales – what return you are getting on your investment (ROI).
- Competitors – Who are your competitors? What are their web presences? What marketing and advertising are they doing? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What opportunities and threats exist?
There is quite a bit of information to gather, but once you have it you’ll be able to get a good overview of what your current Internet presence is. You should be able to find opportunities to improve and be able to formulate some business goals. As you can see, Internet business strategy merges into traditional business strategy by using the Internet to collect information and feedback and to further business goals. Next we’ll talk about vision and goals.
(photo by argenberg @ Flickr CC)
Related Posts:
- How to Create an Internet Business Strategy – Introduction
- How to Create an Internet Business Strategy – Methodologies
- Vision & Goals for your Internet Business Strategy
- What are the Requirements for your Internet Business Strategy to Succeed?
- Creating an Internet Business Strategy – Implementation
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