First of all welcome to my new weekly blog. Over the past few months we have been fortunate to work on a number of projects that have expanded my knowledge of not only website development, but also the business side of the web.

Each week I will try and address a topic that will help your business get more out of the Internet.

This week we will start with the basics. As with anything in life failing to plan, is planning to fail – thanks Bill Phillips. Even if you are starting out with a one page splash page, you need to have some idea of what you want to achieve in the short, medium and long term.

With the pace of developments on the web, these terms will have a different time span to what you may expect. The short term can be defined as the next 3 months. This is the period during which your website is discovered by the Search Engines, and your direct customers. For this period the main aim should be to provide your customers with an overview of your products, and some detailed information on each of your products or services.

Make sure that during this time you keep updating your site. If your data becomes stale, visitors will stop coming back.

The medium term is 12 months from today. By now you should have established a solid foothold on the web. Your clients and hopefully a few potential clients should be keeping track of your site. The goal for this 9 month period should be to grow your websites market share.

There are a number of ways to achieve this. The best would be to undertake a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for a couple of key phrases that identify your product or service. Alternatively you can create reciprocal links with other websites that will channel some of their visitors to your site. The other option is to look into Pay-per-click options such as Google Ads. Your web developers should be able to help you choose a solution that works for your business.

The long term for web developers is 12-24 months down the line. This is the time when if all has gone according to plan, that your website should be evolving into a fully-fledged business tool. For some of us that may mean e-commerce, for others it will be a data gathering portal. The end point for all should be that your website should increase your sales.

To date the average breakeven point for our clients is about 3 months.

To find out more about our Web strategy services, please feel free to contact me on 0413737697 or mail me This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it