Get into the habit of regularly assessing your website.  Examine your web stats, sales, costs and competitors and keep a record of your findings, so that you can track trends and progress in reaching your goals (You do have goals for your website right?).

Ensure you make a note of dates when you make significant changes to your website as these will allow you to attribute changes in your traffic and visitor behaviour and you’ll know if the changes had a positive effect or not.

Use your web stats to understand:

• Who your audience is and where they live (What time zones are they in?)
• Why they are visiting your website (What search terms do your visitors arrive via)
• How long your visitors spend on your site (Do they only read one page and leave, or do they spend several minutes browsing your site?)
• What languages they speak (Are your users predominantly English speaking?)

Understand your audience by examining your web stats; never assume you know your audience or their reasons for visiting.

If your website stats do not answer all your questions, you may need to consider using a site survey or even adding your questions to your site registration form if you have one.

Create Goals

Decide what actions on your site constitute a conversion and create goals within Google Analytics to measure these conversions.
Conversions do not need to be sales, they could be user registrations, user enquiries or other actions that have some value to your business.

Easy Wins

After examining your site visitor behaviour, try to determine simple tweaks you can apply to your website to improve user experience and encourage more conversions.

Ascertain what sections/pages of your website are popular with your visitors and try to improve these pages so that visitors are greeted with a page more optimised to their needs, thereby increasing the chances of them converting.

Translations

If you discover a large percentage of visitors are from non-English speaking countries, consider adding a translation widget or getting a professional translation of certain pages/sections or even the whole website, don't take the British attitude and assume everyone speaks English!

Lead picture used under Creative Commons from somegeekintn

Frequently asked question:

I've just bought a domain name for my business and was offered a good deal on web hosting, should I buy it?

Our answer:
Before we answer this question, it would help if we understood a bit more about what web hosting actually is.

Web hosting is essentially a leased space where you can upload your website and make it accessible to users on the Internet.

Websites are hosted in data centres which have very fast connections to the internet, they essentially consist of many special computers called servers.  These servers can host anything from one to many hundreds of websites each.  “Web servers” as they are known can use different operating systems too, much the same way as desktop computers can run Windows Vista or Apple OSX, they can also come preinstalled with many different types of software that you can use for your website.

As you can begin to see web hosting from one company isn't necessarily comparable to web hosting from another.  There are lots of factors you need to look at to compare one service to another, and as with computer software, some packages are not compatible with different servers.

As a general rule, we ask customers to avoid purchasing web hosting because the package you purchase might not be suitable for your website.  The CMS (Content Management System) might not be compatible, the server might have too many other websites running on it which may make your website slow to load.  There can also be hidden charges such as extra bandwidth bills if your website becomes really popular or you have videos or other large files on your site.

Picture used under Creative Commons from cbowns

• Do you ever analyse your business?
• Do you know what your business strengths and weaknesses are?
• Do you know of any external threats to your business?
• Do you assess potential opportunities for your business?

If you answered no to any of these questions you should consider performing SWOT analysis on your business.

What is SWOT analysis?

SWOT analysis (Strength's, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) is a method of assessing a business.

By undertaking the SWOT process you'll have a better understanding of your business and your market place.

You'll discover what you do well, what you need to improve, whether there are potential opportunities you could take advantage of as well as potential external threats.

Start by using a grid with four columns, one each for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Objectively look at every aspect of your business and its products and services with your team, try to look at the big picture rather than concentrating on minutiae.  Encourage the team to analyse your business and categorise what you do into the four columns. 
Examples might include a poorly structured website, low ranking in search engines compared to your competitors and low profit margins.

Evaluate your strengths and compare them to your competitors.  Ask yourself whether there are improvements to be made.

Identify where expertise is lacking and what would be needed to fill the gap, also consider how you might turn your weaknesses around creating new opportunities.

Try to be totally honest and realistic. It sometimes helps to get an outsiders’ viewpoint on your business strengths and weaknesses.

Analyse the threats to your business.  Try to come up with a "what if" plan to deal with potential threats. This will mean you'll be able to react quicker should any of the threats become reality, since you would have already considered what you might do if such an outcome materialised.

Finally, try to learn from the outcome of your SWOT analysis, plan to build on your strengths, reduce your weaknesses and minimise the risks to your business.

Be proactive and plan to integrate SWOT analysis into your business strategy and perform it at regular intervals to react to changing business conditions.

Picture used under Creative Commons from jean-louis zimmermann

With both large and small organisations turning to open source content management solutions (CMS) including high profile websites like Whitehouse.gov, we look at the some of the benefits of using an open source CMS.

1. No propriety license fees - More development time and money can go on creating a beautiful website than on the CMS.
2. High quality and stable software - Many hours of development have gone into building open source software by a community of skilled and dedicated programmers.
3. Safe and secure - Generally if security holes are discovered software patches for open source software are released very quickly.
4. Customisable - Because the source code is accessible, there are always plenty of plug-ins contributed by the community to add functionality to open source CMS.
5. Large communities - Generally open source projects have a large active community who can help you solve problems.
6. Source code is freely available - Should you ever need to tinker with the core software you have access to the code.
7. Not locked into a single vendor - Other developers can easily extend or update your website should you ever need to.

Picture used under Creative Commons from Rob Hayes

In the UK it is unlawful to place a direct marketing call to an individual or organisation who has objected, either directly a company or with the central registration scheme - the TPS or CTPS.

The Telephone Preference Service enables individuals or organisations in the United Kingdom to register their objection to receiving direct marketing calls with a central service.

Telemarketing companies are able to receive a list of numbers that have been registered by subscribing to the TPS and or CTPS.

The regulations require that companies comply with an individual's request for suppression made to the central registration scheme within 28 days.

Who needs to comply with the regulations?

All businesses including charities and voluntary organisations who make direct marketing calls to both 'cold' lists and customer lists should be screened against the TPS data before telephone calls are made to ensure they comply with the regulations.

Does TPS apply to customers of a business?

The regulations cover all telephone calls whether they are customers or non-customers. If a customer has registered with TPS you can only call them if they have indicated that they do not object to you calling them.

What are the consequences of calling a number registered with the TPS/CTPS?

Should a subscriber registered with the TPS make a complaint about unsolicited direct marketing telephone calls from a business or other organisation, the Telephone Preference Service Limited (TPSL) will investigate the circumstances in which the call was made. A record of the complaint will be sent to the Information Commissioner's Office, who are responsible for enforcing the regulations.

A TPS subscriber can also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office directly to complain about an unsolicited direct marketing Telephone call which they have received.

How do I get the TPS/CTPS suppression list?

A number of options are available such as list cleaning services, call barring services along with services aimed at helping small companies comply with the regulations.
Visit the TPS website for further details www.TPSonline.org.uk

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