In 2009, it’s obvious you must have a web presence regardless of industry. The main thing to consider with having a Website is simple: does it accomplish your business goals and objectives or does it just exist out in cyber-space?

Business objectives?  Your Website should be directly in line with accomplishing your company’s objectives.  If you don’t have your business objectives for your Website clearly outlined, chances are you will be left twiddling your thumbs, wondering why no one is filling out your contact form or calling your phone! If your web site is more than a few years old, there’s a good chance that you’re not reaching these goals.  I would imagine that your business goals and objectives have changed in the last three years, and believe me, the Web has certainly changed in that time as well…A LOT!  So how do you know if your Website is accomplishing what you want it to?  The answer is simple: Web analytics.

Every time I hear people say ‘the web doesn’t work for me’, it’s usually for several reasons, one of them being that the site is designed so poorly, that it’s not user friendly and visitors end up leaving in a short amount of time.  If you’re tracking your web site with analytics you will show ‘real’ data such as how many people visited your site, where they came from, did they get to your contact form or make an on-line purchase.  If they did, great!  Improve it.  If they didn’t, why not?  Improve it.  Websites today must have analytics to be effective because you can’t know if you’ve achieved success without data.  And you can’t make improvements that will have an impact if you don’t have information.  Everything else is just a shot in the dark.

Are you ready to start generating measurable return from your web presence?  Then get Web analytics on your Website and begin reviewing the data on a monthly basis to see what your visitors are doing.  If you want help analyzing the data, BitWise has consultation services that can help get you on the right track to making your Website the revenue generator that you intended for it to be!

There is nothing as intimidating for most of us as staring at a blank piece of paper (or Word document) and knowing that it needs to be filled with luscious prose painting a compelling picture of who you are and why your potential customers should work with you. Creating Web site content for a Web site re-design seems to be a nerve-wracking task for many clients and can even bring a project to a screeching halt on some occasions. This doesn’t need to be the case. 

A few tips for writing Web content:

1. Let your site map be your guide. Your site map is the outline of all pages on your Web site. With it, you know exactly what content you need to pull together.
2. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Look to existing marketing and product collateral as sources of content. This will also ensure consistency of message throughout all of your mediums and save you a ton of work in the end.
3. Remember: Visitors don’t read. They skim until they find what they are looking for. Front load your content (most important information first), use chunking (short paragraphs), bullets and imagery as they make sense.
4. Write content for the Web that is rich with your keywords.  This is the best way to be found on search engines, so make sure to optimize your Web site for search engine rankings.
5. Know your visitors. Know who your primary audience is and why they are coming to the site. Speak to them.
6. Be concise. Enough said.

May 30^th – a special day all around for me.  Annual significant vacation and my anniversary!  Every year at this time, we are deliberate about experiencing God’s creation – first hand.  Cindy and I educate our two boys (Tanner  - 13 and Hudson – 11) at home.  We seize nearly every opportunity to “teach” them every step of the way.  As we are currently touring the west (New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota / Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Yellowstone, Black Hills, Badlands, etc.), you can imagine the endless opportunities for learning.  I am abundantly confident our boys are learning each and every hour of every day we are on our vacation.  Even with our intentionality for learning, we are cautious as to never declare “A Learning Moment”.  In doing so, we would rapidly diminish the depth and breadth of the opportunity to learn.  We call this experiential learning.  It is quite powerful.  The scary thing is, I get to learn the most!  Very exciting. 

So goes our upcoming Web Camp.  We have reformatted Web Camp and are calling it: “Get Your Hands Dirty”.  This new approach is not unlike our approach to education for our boys.  Okay, as much as we would like to, we cannot take all Web Campers to the Grand Canyon to get their hands dirty (although I could be persuaded to consider such if we have enough clients interested in doing so…?); however, we can most definitely provide a learning experience for our clients in a much more experiential fashion.  Listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher drone “wah wah wah” for hours on end just isn’t cutting it in today’s multi-media, multi-input, hyper-absorption culture.  Our minds simply wander too far afield within minutes of the traditional lecture-based education model. 

As I write this, we are on day 8 of our 19-day vacation.  I’ll admit, yes, I do have to work daily while traveling.  It’s just not an option; however, we have assembled the most talented staff imaginable and I can rest on vacation knowing our firm’s business is in great hands.  Day 8 is a “turn” in our vacation as we now leave northern Arizona / southern Utah and head north.  Our next stop is Bryce Canyon (www.nps.gov/brca).  We *will* be getting our hands dirty here – guaranteed!  The exploration is as much for me as it is for my boys and I would challenge you to, within your daily routine, find your own Bryce Canyon for exploration.  There truly are “learning opportunities” at every turn if we keep our eyes open

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