Taking your Business Online

For many small businesses, the online space is unknown territory and far too daunting to tackle. You might believe that your customers aren’t internet users or wouldn’t use the internet to find your business. However, internet usage in Australia is said to be one of the highest in the world. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ findings (2007), 64% of Australian homes had internet access and about 73% of the residents had access to a home PC. So, when you add the internet access available in most workplaces, you’ll soon start to see that the internet is used by a large majority of people, which is where your target audience falls into.

When it comes to finding a product or service, many people who use the internet are “researchers” or “information seekers”. They are given the luxury of shopping from the comfort of their chair, with no time limit or pressure to buy. If they’re shopping for something that isn’t available online, they can simply fill in their details and wait for someone to contact them or take down the company phone number and call when ready.

However, what happens if you don’t have a web presence? The simple answer is, your business is missing out on a huge opportunity to attract more customers and make more sales.

So where to from here?

Building a Website

Think about what you want to achieve with your website. If it’s simply to have a presence on the web and provide information about what you do, there are some very cost effective web companies that provide web addresses, hosting and design templates for budget friendly prices. However, the amount of pages and design choices will be limited. The next step up is using a web design company. This is a more consultative process and you can be very specific with what you want the website to look like and how it is set out. But, like most things, the more complex, the more it will cost. And finally, if you want to sell products online, you will need to have shopping cart functionality on your website. Both of the abovementioned options allow for this feature, but again, if you choose an “off the shelf” shopping cart, it will be more cost effective when starting out.

Marketing Your Website

There are many different ways to get traffic to your website. A great way to start is by using your website address in all your communications. Whether it is business cards, signage, invoices, cars and trucks or even on your product packaging, it will all help in spreading the word about your company website. The next place to look is the Yellow Pages or the like (both in the physical book and online). Unlike the physical book, you can measure how many times your listing was shown and how many people actually visited your website as a result. This lets you determine how effective this form of advertising is for your business.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search engine marketing has grown in prominence over the years, with more and smaller businesses realising search engines are an important source of new customers. Most people now start an internet session at a search engine like Google or Yahoo. If your business is not present on these engines you reduce your ability to reach new customers.

The most common techniques used for SEM are ‘SEO’ (search engine optimisation) and ‘PPC’ (pay per click advertising). Both techniques help your business appear in the search engines for specific searches relevant to your products or services. SEO and PPC campaigns can be undertaken in house or with an agency and there is a host of information on these techniques on the web.

Measuring your Success

Investing time and resources in an online presence can be expensive, so you need to be able to track and measure the success of this investment. Knowing how many customers visited your website, where they came from and what they purchased is critical in determining to what extent the web is a profitable channel for you.

There are many analytics packages on the market that track website statistics and they range in price and complexity. Choosing the right one for your website depends on the size and range of things you want to track. Google offer an analytics package called ‘Google Analytics’ that is free to use and could act as a good starting point for many small businesses. This can measure the most important metrics such as visits and sales.

Because there is so much to learn, the best way to further your knowledge about taking your business online is to actually use the medium. The internet is full of information, tutorials, blogs, and forums just waiting to be utilised.

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