Having a well designed website can be a great enhancement to any business. Well maintained social media platforms can make it easy to spread the latest news too. SEO (search engine optimization) makes it easier for people to find your website. There are always things to add or enhance for your online business presence. It is important not to get swept away with all that the web has to offer and lose sight of what really makes your business successful. It is important not to get WETV – Web Enhancement Tunnel Vision.
Let’s take a look at an imaginary business “Jamaica Winter Clothing Inc.” (JWC) to see how it’s possible to get WETV. JWC sells winter clothing and accessories and are located in Jamaica. They have an online store that ships within the country as well as a ’brick and mortar’ store. Here are the main endeavours the owners are pursuing overall to increase sales:
A/B testing to optimize add on sales in checkout process
Experimenting with different callout language/displays to see what works best in generating the most sales.
Fine tuning of SEO
Trying to rank high for search terms like “jamaica clothing”, and “winter clothing jamaica”.
Emphasis on keeping social profiles up to date
A lot of time is spent staying active and posting new content on various social media platforms.
Always be sure to periodically take a thorough look at your business without the noise of web technology. Something critical may be overlooked, keeping your business locked in a certain tier of success or sliding away from success. A well designed website, A/B testing, SEO, and social media profiles won’t fix fundamental business problems. As you could probably tell right away, JWC has a major problem with it’s business: No one wants to buy winter clothing in Jamaica!
Now JWC is an extreme, imaginary example but maybe there are some adjustments you can make to your business outside of the world of web that can have a huge impact. Take a look at some possible examples:
- A store (either online or ‘brick and mortar’) or restaurant has rude or unfriendly staff, driving away customers
- A business sells software but is unaware that it does not work on certain devices, or certain versions of devices
- The products/services a business sells are of poor quality/value compared to competitors
A solid web and social media presence can be an excellent ‘cherry on top’ of your business sundae, but it is important not to forget the core reason why people would want to do business with you.