Web Strategy and online business success

Web strategy is the road map to get a clear picture about online success or failure and coming up with solutions to address those root causes instead of superficial solutions in order to achieve the goals or target.  So it is like a business plan, but it is the plan for your website.

Do you think we really need to adopt a web strategy?

I would ask the question from another aspect ‘Why is planning important?‘ An ancient proverb states, “The plans of the diligent one surely make for advantage, but everyone that is hasty surely heads for want.” Good planning ultimately leads to business advantages. Similarly, good website planning ultimately leads to advantages for your website versus competing websites. Therefore we need to adopt a web strategy for any business website because the website should be more than just a custom design and dynamic page

But what types of questions are answered as a part of a web strategy?  Let me provide some examples of web strategy questions and see if this helps you to understand what web strategy is about:

 

• What are the segments of customers who use your website? Thinking of all your customers in one big group is an example of having no website strategy because customers are not all the same. For example, a website selling clothes such as Old Navy might group their customers into categories like as in their website so they know what the customers or the segment they would like to target

• Does your website address the needs of each category of customer in a satisfactory way? Many website owners think primarily about their own needs, for instance getting a sale, and thus the website reflects this. Just as we hate salesman that are only out for their commission, people hate websites that only sell and otherwise aren’t helpful at sincerely answering questions or concerns the potential buyer might have.

• What are the top 10 questions customers ask when they reach your website? How do you answer each of those top 10 questions? Websites that fail to answer the most important customer questions won’t get sales because it is guaranteed you have a competitor on the internet that does answer his questions. Since this is the case, why would he/she comes to your website and use the service?

• On each page of your website, what is step or the action you want the user should do it when he/she land on your page? If you don’t know this, how can you tell your customer what to do? If you can’t tell your customer what to do, how will he/she know what to do next? If he/she doesn’t know what to do next, he/she will just leave your website.

• What is considered a successful visit on your website? What are you doing to ensure that each visit to your website is successful? Are you trying to get a phone call, a newsletter subscription, a purchase? The answer to this question should greatly affect your entire website’s layout and design.

I would therefore say, Web Strategy is the stage of translating overall business goals into a successful online strategy. I believe this stage is an important to establish your business towards measurable performance and online success