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Make sure your website is a good one - Jerry Thompson, Director, BT Business Products and Online
Small businesses are embracing the Internet in increasing numbers. This year, a quarter of UK retail spend – £78 billion – is projected to come from online sales and there is clear opportunity to cash in on cost-conscious customers going online.
We are currently receiving 1,000 registrations a week for new domain names and websites as companies try to pocket a share of this.
However, many are still selling themselves short and squandering cash on sites that are effectively withering on the vine. A recent BT Business survey of more than 70,000 websites found alarming and damaging weaknesses in the websites of many UK SMEs. So much so that 13 per cent actually rated their own sites as “very poor”.
Only one in 3,000 were using keywords – relevant words or phrases that a customer might use to find a company’s products or services on the Internet. In addition, only one in 130 are using code in their site to make them visible to the search engine ‘robots’ that scan them, which can help enhance a website’s search engine ranking. The analysis also highlighted the fact that 42 per cent have websites with bad pages – containing broken or invalid links.
Just as surprising is that only one in ten (11 per cent) update their website every one to two days – even though regularly updated content is vital to securing a good search ranking.
This situation is comparable to buying a new car and then refusing to put fuel in it. The vehicle may look good on the drive, but it serves very little purpose.
Some businesses may feel they lack the technical ability, knowhow or resources to make the most of their websites and adopt search engine optimisation (SEO), increasingly seen as the ‘magic bullet’ of the e-tailing world. However, this would be a big mistake. There are simple measures that can breathe new life into sites.
Websites should be easy to navigate, contain relevant, well-written and updated content and precise descriptions of products and services. Having a Contact Us page, linking to partner websites and printing a company’s web and email address on printed material all help with building traffic.
Businesses can complement their sites by joining free business social networks which are not only tried and tested SEO tools but interactive communities that enable SMEs to trade, market themselves and engage with customers, suppliers, partners and like-minded enterprises.
Finally, businesses can also add extra value with cost-effective, tailored web-hosting products and packages that maximise a website’s full potential and make it easier for customers to find them. These offer domain names, secure web space, templates, e-marketing capabilities, online shopping features and ongoing support. These seemingly small and simple things to implement mean small companies can now perform as effectively as big corporations online.
Jerry Thompson
Director, BT Business Products and Online
We are currently receiving 1,000 registrations a week for new domain names and websites as companies try to pocket a share of this.
However, many are still selling themselves short and squandering cash on sites that are effectively withering on the vine. A recent BT Business survey of more than 70,000 websites found alarming and damaging weaknesses in the websites of many UK SMEs. So much so that 13 per cent actually rated their own sites as “very poor”.
Only one in 3,000 were using keywords – relevant words or phrases that a customer might use to find a company’s products or services on the Internet. In addition, only one in 130 are using code in their site to make them visible to the search engine ‘robots’ that scan them, which can help enhance a website’s search engine ranking. The analysis also highlighted the fact that 42 per cent have websites with bad pages – containing broken or invalid links.
Just as surprising is that only one in ten (11 per cent) update their website every one to two days – even though regularly updated content is vital to securing a good search ranking.
This situation is comparable to buying a new car and then refusing to put fuel in it. The vehicle may look good on the drive, but it serves very little purpose.
Some businesses may feel they lack the technical ability, knowhow or resources to make the most of their websites and adopt search engine optimisation (SEO), increasingly seen as the ‘magic bullet’ of the e-tailing world. However, this would be a big mistake. There are simple measures that can breathe new life into sites.
Websites should be easy to navigate, contain relevant, well-written and updated content and precise descriptions of products and services. Having a Contact Us page, linking to partner websites and printing a company’s web and email address on printed material all help with building traffic.
Businesses can complement their sites by joining free business social networks which are not only tried and tested SEO tools but interactive communities that enable SMEs to trade, market themselves and engage with customers, suppliers, partners and like-minded enterprises.
Finally, businesses can also add extra value with cost-effective, tailored web-hosting products and packages that maximise a website’s full potential and make it easier for customers to find them. These offer domain names, secure web space, templates, e-marketing capabilities, online shopping features and ongoing support. These seemingly small and simple things to implement mean small companies can now perform as effectively as big corporations online.
Jerry Thompson
Director, BT Business Products and Online
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