Business Online Checkup & 5 Ways to Move to Web 2.0

Often I visit web sites that seem to be out of date. I have a friend who is downsizing her business location, so I took a quick look at the site to see if it reflected the new status. It did now, which is excellent. As the old saying goes, “on the Internet, no one knows you are a dog.”*

I did notice that the site has a copyright date of 2008. I know this site has been live since at least 1999. It is a static site, so no way to tell if content is current. If I did not know this site and the owner, I might well assume, correctly, the site is not up to date. When was the last time you gave your site a basic checkup? And are you moving your business from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and beyond? It is critical in this social web era, especially as we move from the semantic web to the streaming web, to update your online presence. Here are 5 things to consider upgrading.

1.     Site logs. Check these regularly (at least monthly). Using Google Analytics makes this simple, although your web hosting company should provide some site logging tools. If they don’t, switch! Your logs will help direct your aim at the people who are visiting your site. You can design landing pages that give them what they are looking to find. You can use the logs to see from where they are coming, then use that information to get more interactive on your end.

2.    Change the content. If you have not updated your site’s content in the past year, your site is losing touch with the changing web. Fresh and relevant content is where it’s at with Web 2.0.

3.    Web 2.0 interaction. Your business is no longer in control of its own products, much less its branding. Customers are now in charge. If you are not talking about why your product is of value to me, your customer, I am probably doing my purchasing elsewhere.

4.    Social or Wallflower? If you’ve joined social networks, great. If you are not participating, you are losing customers, the opportunity to control the buzz about your company or product, and track, at the least, your company’s name using Google Alerts or some other such tool. Twitter may seem to be too futuristic and up your daily noise level, but your business is reaping the rewards or not if you are just sitting against the wall.

5.    Unsolicited Email. If you are sending emails to customers and potential customers without permission, you may be in violation of federal law. The Can-Spam Act of 2003 has 4 main provisions. The most important for your customers is providing them a way to easily opt-out of your solicitations. If you don’t have a business system for handling this, and are still emailing from your personal copy of Outlook, Eudora, Gmail or Hotmail, you are probably not following the law. Time to purchase a proper email handling program such as Constant Contact.

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* http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.html

Posted from Broadside: Taking Aim at the Social Revolution