Over the past few months we’ve been talking about the same subject again and again to clients – that is viewing their online presence as a strategic business asset.

If you look up the definition it says

An asset is a resource controlled by the entity as a result of past events and from which future economic benefits are expected to flow to the entity

We’re not accountants so why are we talking about assets?!

…because we think there’s a lot to be learnt from thinking about your online presence precisely as one:

1. Your online presence needs to work for you

Firstly it needs to work for you in terms of bringing in sales or bookings or whatever your business is about – if it isn’t, why isn’t it? There should be no such thing as a business card-only website – it must be doing something.

Secondly it needs to work for you by working with you – it should be easy to use and update – it should be making you efficient, not sapping your time.

2. It needs regular care

For a moment think about another business or personal asset – a company vehicle or your own car.

Benefit – you use it to get from one place to another, sometimes with a passenger or carrying goods.

Each day you use it you should check the tyres are ok and headlights are working
Every week you may fill it with fuel – to help you get to places.
Once or twice a year you get it serviced
Every year you get it taxed and insured against accidents and theft.
And once in a while you might wash it!

Your website or online presence really isn’t much different is it…?

3. It needs to be safeguarded

A few months ago the internet was hit by a hacker exploit that affected literally millions of websites across the world.

We got lots of calls…

Why? Because a lot of websites hadn’t been updated regularly. A small amount of people were just unlucky but for most their website hadn’t received regular care…

It was a wakeup call for us here too – we’re being more pushy with clients to make sure either we or they are actually taking care of it, because there is no point having spent money on a new website or online marketing campaign to find it in tatters a few months later…

4. You need to keep track of it

So many people don’t monitor what’s happening with their various online activities – but then how can you tell whether your investment in your website, email campaign, twitter stream or online advertising is working for you?

How many visitors are you getting? Where are they coming from? What are they interested in? How many people opened a particular email? What is your conversion rate?

Conclusion

In times of austerity its a timely reminder to look after our assets and make our investments work for us.

For your website

• Make sure it is bringing in business: more leads, more bookings, better awareness… something!
• Make sure you have control of your assets and it’s easy to use.
• Invest something in regular care: site content updates, new images, database and source code backups
• Get it secured.  Monitor for changes.  Don’t get caught out…
• Monitor progress and performance, make changes – improve.

If you’d like to talk about your business asset schedule a free consultation with us.

So here’s announcing that we will be giving our own website a bit of a re-vamp plus other exciting developments.

In the meantime you can find us on Facebook and Twitter where we have details of some of our latest clients websites – please follow/like us as you see fit!

With a very cold start to the new year, warm up your business opportunities with a new look, fully featured website – and do it in a low-carbon, green way to help the environment with solar powered hosting!

Whether you are a B&B, hotel, holiday cottage, restaurant, food producer, shop, activity centre or any small business choose from a wide range of website design and hosting packages that have been put together with every size of budget in mind.

Our top 10 New Year ideas

Developing your online presence doesn’t have to mean a complete rewrite – here are some ideas for the New Year:

• Improve your visual image and get a new logo designed by an experienced graphic designer – for as little as £75
• Add a gallery of beautiful photos to your website – this creates interest and with the right SEO tags, adds image search to your site
• Create new marketing opportunities using no-cost online tools and applications
• Track your website visitors to measure the impact of traditional advertising in newspapers
• Make your website interactive through web polls or customer feedback forms
• Embrace ‘social media’ tools such as Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook to improve business connections and communication
• Run an email marketing campaign or simply an email newsletter using reputable, proven and often no-cost technology
• Encourage and track ‘subscribers’ to your site using no-cost online tools
• Add Paypal ‘buy-now’ buttons and start trading without a huge investment
• Go green – run your existing website on solar power

Naturally we can help with all of these – contact us to discuss your business plans and ideas this year and get some open, honest advice about the online opportunities that exist for your business.

To take advantage of the offer, just quote GREENSKYE10 when placing your order. Valid until 28 Feb 2010.

Businesses (small or large) can use Twitter in many ways:

• As a marketing tool to tell customers about your product/service e.g. by making regular pictures of your B&B / surrounding views available for holidaymakers to see
• To provide an additional way for potential customers to get in touch e.g. putting a link on your website
• To link up with possible clients who talk about your business area e.g. searching for holidaymakers who talk about visiting a specific area of Skye or enjoying a specific activity such as walking or kayaking
• To create a community of like-minded businesses / business owners e.g. a horticultural society

Keeping your twitter stream updated and fresh is important but due to the 140 character limit of messages it is very easy and not at all a burden on anyones busy schedule.

From a personal point of view it can be used to:

• keep in regular contact with friends and family (a bit like sending a text message to all)
• make new friends in your area, who are also on twitter
• keep in touch with news about your hobbies and interests
• get up-to-date news from credible sources

Go look for yourself – registration is easy and doesn’t require you to input lots of personal information.

p.s. don’t forget to ‘follow’ skyewebsites !

Our ‘green hosting’ is powered 100% by solar energy – so it is true green hosting rather than carbon offsetting (where CO2 has already been emitted).

We’ve put together a set of website design and hosting packages that we feel offer quality and value for a wide range of budgets and requirements.

Let us know what you think of the new website and our packages:

Email us at hello@skyewebsites.com

Send us a tweet – follow skyewebsites on twitter

Call us on 01470 511709

or leave us a comment below!