Friday, December 5, 2008
Time Saving Tips For Harried Website Owners (or, Going Online While Simplifying Your Life)
It's a situation many entrepreneurs inevitably find
themselves in, after the first few months of doing business
online.
First they build a website designed to attract the attention
of millions of people. But when the first of the millions
start coming in, these same business owners often feel like
turning them away.
And it's not that they don't want new business.
It's just that they have a difficult time meeting the
demands of existing clients, responding to the inquiries of
potential customers, AND keeping their website as updated as
they promised, all at the same time.
If you're one of these entrepreneurs, don't pull your hair
out just yet.
Here are 4 time saving options you can use to keep old
business alive, attract new ones regularly - and still keep
looking good on & off the web.
1) Outsource or Delegate
If you find that online activities are taking up too much of
your time - time you feel you could better use for other
aspects of your business - then you should decide to either
hire a skilled employee, or outsource the tasks to the
experts.
The most common - and most time-consuming - web-related
activities that most business owners have to attend to are:
- reading & responding to email
- creating & uploading new content for your website, and
- managing & moderating your mailing lists
The good news is that these things can be performed by
anyone with a computer & internet access, and therefore CAN
be delegated to people with the proper skills.
In fact, many skilled editorial, administrative, and web
development professionals are already offering their
services on the web. To find them online, just go to any
search engine and use the following key words:
- editorial services
- ghostwriting
- virtual secretary, and
- web development
2) Plan for A Low-Maintenance Website
Not all websites are created for the same purpose; it only
follows that different websites would need different amounts
of maintenance.
The following 3 website types are the ones that require the
least:
a) The Press Kit
Designed to encourage the press to write (good) stories
about you & your company, this type only needs a few
regular pages to do its job:
- your latest press release
- background information on you & your company
- biographies of key members of your staff
- downloadable photographs of your people & products
- downloadable & printable brochure
- magazine articles written by you or about you & your
company
- downloadable video & audio files of your interviews
- downloadable promotional items or product samples
The only time you need to update this kind of site is when
you have a new press release out for distribution
(monthly), or if any major changes have happened among
your staff or company that need to be included in the
background information (quarterly).
b) The Catalog
This site shows off the different products & services you
have to offer, and the only things you really need to
update here are the price tags - which are easily
manageable on a quarterly basis.
c) The Brochure
Like the catalog site, the brochure site showcases
everything you have to offer... except that you don't
reveal the prices just yet.
Although this type is the easiest to maintain (i.e.,
quarterly or semi-annually), the trick is to make it so
compelling that interested customers will immediately
contact you after viewing the site... and not get turned
off by the lack of information, forcing them to continue
their search elsewhere.
3) Use Automating Scripts & Programs
The interactive nature of the internet makes it very easy
for surfers to instantly "interact" with you.
Although this is the major appeal of every website, it's
also practical to make the internet work FOR YOU, too.
Use these same automating programs to save you time, while
keeping your surfers satisfied with the amount of
interaction you can reasonably offer.
a) Autoresponders
Internet business gurus hold that every email inquiry
should be answered within 24 hours or less.
Although that makes perfect business sense, there WILL be
days when it would be close to impossible to do -
especially if you're holding down 3 or more positions in
your company.
The best way to keep to this business practice (while
still managing to get some sleep each day) is to set up an
autoresponder system for your email.
These systems send out an automatic response to each
email, providing your interested client with a prompt
reply and an assurance that you will attend to his
specific request as soon as possible.
b) Form Messages
Form messages are pre-written responses to the most
common inquiries about you & your business. It's best to
draft them long before you expect to get a deluge of
emails, and save them in an easy-to access file in your
computer.
This way, you don't have to think long & hard about the
same questions over and over again, or spend countless
minutes answering a simple email.
Just make sure to modify the names & details in your form
messages, to avoid any embarrassing situations with new &
regular clients.
c) Automatic Processes
Mailing list & ezine subscriptions. Updating of your
client database. Credit card processing. Username &
password generation.
Whenever possible, use available services & programs to
automate these common processes on your website, requiring
the least possible amount of input from you.
If you decide to manually manage these things now because
you can "still handle them," you might find yourself
struggling later when your website becomes as successful
as you want it to be.
d) Web Templates
If you find it necessary to your business to maintain a
regularly-updated website, then ask your web developer to
create web templates that you can use for easier updates.
Ideally, these should be the kind where you can type in
(or copy-and-paste in) your most current article or
editorial, and then have it automatically uploaded to the
proper page at the click of a mouse-button, without having
to rename/rearrange directory files or deal with file
transfer protocol (FTP).
Yes, it may be true that conducting business in a fast-paced
generation could leave you feeling winded.
But if you aim to keep your business fit right from the
start, then running your own company should be good not just
for your pockets... but also for your heart.
© Tatiana Velitchkov
Tatiana Is The Publisher Of: Www.TheFortunesEzine.com, The FortunesEzineWeekly At Www.TakeYourFortune.com, And Owner Of The Traffic-solution Slam Advertising Sites Www.Guaranteed-Hits.com And Www.Guaranteed-Hits.net