Websites – now a business tool !!

Earlier, keeping websites considered only for web presence, where interested people might visit and confirm with ones company’s credentials. Later on, even small and medium business also started keeping web sites for showing their presence over web. Dramatically now a days it has became a business tool more than just a display of one’s services and capabilities.

Based on my experience with the industries I would prefer to categorize it in two types:

a) Conventional

b) A business tool

Conventional websites are made for the purpose of display where an organization is willing to show its products, services, infrastructure and many other attributes. For this purpose one need to design the pages in an attractive way for visitors. Content should be kept in an arranged way keeping the visitor’s state in mind. A bit of flash work makes it elegant.

On the other hand, once websites are considered as a business tool; it becomes a complicated application which is developed considering entire internet environment. With the boost in internet availability and efficient search engines this approach is getting good kick. This category is more in demand in US and UK market where they clearly identified the benefits with web marketing and considering their websites as a part of marketing strategy rather than an infrastructural expense.

These sites are based on pull strategy where it attracts more and more visitors straightly from target market. It works in the following order:

1. Driving more clicks
2. Driving more clicks from target market
3. keeping it interactive and dynamic
4. Driving potential visitors
5. And finally converting the visitors as a prospect to the organization, through web to lead feature. Where the query of visitor is directly stored in the organization’s CRM and getting assigned to the concerned attendant.

With the dominant presence of internet search engines, Search Engine optimization has abruptly picked up the pace. It simply means optimizing the structure and contents of websites so that it can become search engine friendly and can come up in the priority (1st or 2nd) pages of the search result. Getting higher business from websites is directly proportional to the ranking of these websites on different search engines.

Perfect business websites are created to suit with on page SEO conventions and it directly drives the business toward its organization. Looking at the increasing number of internet users, websites also needs to socialize itself. In the new era of web2.0 technology, CMSs like Joomla and Wordpress are providing feasibility of integrating the websites with various internet communities like Linkedin, Facebook, Myspace etc. which has certainly gave these websites a new dimension.