Building A Business Website: Step 2
Step 2 in Building A Business Website:
Performing a SWOT analysis
Once you’ve decided upon a GOAL for your website, (Step 1 in Building a Business Website), then it’s time to perform a little further analysis before you begin Business Website Design Preparation.
Prior to beginning the design process of your business website, it’s best to perform a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
- Strengths - this one is usually pretty easy for most entrepreneurs. Where is your business strong?
- Weaknesses - this one is usually more difficult for most entrepreneurs. We’d all like to think we don’t have any weaknesses, however it’s very possible that the website will be the “answer” to an identified weakness.
- Opportunities - we’ve all heard the saying about opportunity knocking. What opportunities are knocking on your business’ door? Can your website be the answer?
- Threats - did your competitors hear opportunity knocking before you did? Did they act more quickly? What threats to they pose?
If you have trouble making this analysis, ask yourself the following questions:
- Who is number 1 in your industry? Number 2? Number 3?
- What are each of these competitors doing that you’re not?
Perhaps your competitors are providing free tools to prospective customers via their website. Maybe they’re offering discounts to customers via the web or they are offering better customer support as a result of their website.
Try to look BEYOND the visual impression your competitor’s website makes. A beautiful site which isn’t functional is NOT an asset. You’re asking these questions now so your website can be professional AND functional!
Finally, perform an in depth analysis of your competitors’ websites. See what content they’re providing. You’ll also want to look at which keywords they focus on and who’s linking to their site.
You might think you’re finished with your competitive analysis but you’re not because what if your competitor is in the middle of their own website re-design because the current version isn’t working for their business at all!
So, in order to tell if your primary analysis is a road map you should take (or a warning to the direction you don’t want to take) , take a look at their website via one of the “traffic spying” sites such as Compete and Alexa.
However, low traffic numbers may not mean an unsuccessful web site, so the best “test” of a competitor’s website is to create a free email account and contact your competitor via their website. How long does it take to get a reply? A reply that comes in within 24 hours means that your competitor is serious about their website. If a week or more has passed without a response, consider their website to be a WARNING to your business on how NOT to run a website.
Far too often, business owners play the “me too” game when developing their website. I once had a client who INSISTED upon copying a competitor’s site. Six weeks later, the competitor launched his new redesigned website. Turned out my client had unknowingly been emulating a website that wasn’t working for her competitor.
An essential key to website success is to rerform a SWOT analysis before you begin building your business website. It’s a key to creating a website strategy that works!
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