A recent CBI survey highlighted the substantial difference between expectation and reality in the web experiences of UK industry. While 93% of businesses had been involved in the creation of an e-business strategy only around 25% had seen any impact on their business as a result of their online presence. The reason for this difference? Quite bluntly, the failure of businesses to understand the internet medium and the failure of web developers to understand the businesses and their customers.

The vast majority of web projects have been ill conceived, incomplete and often a complete waste of the clients money.

A contributory factor to the poor standard of services provided to date by developers has been the ease of entry into our business, akin to the Klondike in 1897 so called “web designers” have been rushing to dig in the internet goldfields with PC’s and Front Page replacing the shovel and pan.

Good internet strategy is about much more than design and requires real expertise to get it right. 90% of the work of lawyers and accountants is straightforward enough to be carried out by the competent layman however it’s the missing 10% that saves on your tax bill or keeps you out of jail! Similarly for a web developer its this extra knowledge, experience and appreciation of the “whole story” that will make the difference for a client between success and failure.

What do we mean by the whole story? Essentially it’s down to old-fashioned business savvy. Understanding customer needs and expectations, communicating with customers in a timely and appropriate manner, having “products” that customers want to buy, bringing benefits to customers and providing good service and support. From a web development perspective this means fundamentally understanding the clients business objectives and perhaps even more importantly being able to appreciate the needs of the clients client, the end user.

Once this is appreciated the process of building a coherent and profitable web strategy can begin. The process starts with consultancy to deepen the understanding of clients business objectives and how these might realistically be met through a web presence. Design and Development follow with the key issue being the user experience, providing the right functionality and making it easy to use. Finally we must Market effectively. As any businessman or woman will appreciate without the right marketing any business plan is doomed to failure.

All of this is done in an environment of a fast changing business climate and even more rapidly changing technology, so any chosen solution must be changeable and scalable to cope.

The important point here? Each element of a web strategy like any business strategy is dependant on the success of the other. You can have the best most exiting web site in the world but without good marketing you may as well build a “neon sign in the desert” to promote your business. Conversely driving lots of traffic to a poorly conceived site could actually increase the harm to your business rather than promote it. The lesson? Your approach to a web strategy must be business focused and if you need advice try and make sure that your chosen developer appreciates not just the technology of the web but also the needs of your business and your customers, the whole story.
 

Advice
Bringing traffic is only part of on line success. Retaining visitors and converting them into customers is just as important. {More}

Development
If your site doesn’t do what your customers need it to, then we can develop the content and functionality to improve stickiness and increase conversion rates. {More}