Watching baseball teaches me about business.

I love running my own business and being my own boss. I also love baseball.  Oh, I hate to play it (“Don’t hit it to me, please don’t hit it to me…”) but I truly love to watch the game.

From baseball, I’ve learned some excellent business practices:

Barry Zito taught me to consider one batter at a time. Barry’s doing well this year: I read that he’s taking a batter-by-batter approach,  rather than letting his mind wander to how badly the game is going, …

A couple of months ago I had the good fortune to attend a Learning Café lecture entitled, “Opening the Black Box of Marketing,” offered by Dennis Erokan and Barbara Irias of the Placemaking Group.

While they introduced the audience to their ABCs of Search Engine Optimization, the main thrust of the presentation was actually a reminder that online marketing is, indeed, marketing.  In order to do it right, you need to treat your online marketing as a tool, not an end in and of itself.

Isn’t all marketing supposed to be marketing?

Yes it is, but in the rush …

You invested on your website and are happy with the results. How long are you “done” for? The real answer is that a website is never done. You need to keep its content fresh on an on-going basis. But what about the larger overhauls? Assuming there have been no significant changes in your business or industry… how often should you re-design or re-build your website?

The answer will vary depending on what type of site you have. On average, though, we would recommend taking a serious look at your website every 18 - 24 months. Why?

Design trends change. As new technology …

Unfortunately it’s very common to hear from a website owner that his website is not bringing in business only to find out that the site’s traffic and performance is not even being tracked.

How do you know how your website is doing if you don’t put the right tracking mechanisms in place?

Many people know about tracking traffic by using Google Analytics. It is a free service and easy to install. Google analytics does tell you a lot about your visitors, traffic sources, and content… but there’s more than you can do.

For example, have a unique email address on your website that …

For a website to become a true marketing tool it must have a strategy behind it. To start designing or programming before having an agreed upon strategy usually ends up increasing the budget significantly, delaying the site’s launch, and making the development process frustrating and inefficient.

A true web developer… not a designer, not a programmer… but a developer who understands both business and the web will provide the guidance needed to develop such strategy.

A strategy should cover:

• Business research
• Market/industry research
• Competition research
• Website goals
• Tracking mechanisms
• Detailed scope specifications
• Site map
• Budget broken down by phases
• Time to launch
• Cash flow requirements plan
• Maintenance & marketing plan

The larger the business, …

As web developers we immediately get asked: 1. can you do what I need? and 2. how much is it going to cost? The first question is easy to answer. The second is not. Why? The cost of a website depends on what’s going to go in it and what it’s going to do. And there are a lot of variables involved in finding this out. We have to ask a lot of questions from each prospect in order to put an accurate estimate together.

We prefer to turn this question around and ask the prospect: what is your budget? We …

Whether you are thinking about developing a brand new site for your business, or considering updating your existing site, you need a plan. The success of your website, short-term and long-term, will depend on it. There are two parts to this plan. The first part revolves around functionality. The second part revolves around marketing.

Part 1: What is your site to do?
Don’t make the mistake of immediately thinking about deadlines and budgets. First, you have to decide what your website needs to do. Bring in your web developer at this stage. Explain your business, your internal processes, and your existing customer base. …

You did your homework of understanding your audience when planning your site. You looked at the demographics and at the needs of each audience that might end up browsing your pages: existing clients, prospects, partners, and internal staff. You organized your content to match those needs and came up with a suitable navigation menu. You even paid attention to their screen resolutions and most used browser versions. Is that it?

How about finding out your audience’s online behavior? What sites are these users browsing when they are NOT on your site?

Why would you want to know? Knowing where these visitors “hang out” online …

The days of the online brochures should really be gone now. Websites should be functional and even transactional. Visitors get more and more technically savvy and their expectations keep getting higher. So, what should your website do?

It helps to think in terms of three key audiences a website has.

1. Your existing customers.
How can your existing customers benefit from visiting your website and from coming back again and again? If your existing customers like your site and feel it makes their working with you–or even their lives–easier, they will spread the word. You can:

• Have a password protected area where they can …
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Many clients come to us having had a bad experience when trying to develop their site. When trying to choose the right web developer for your website, make sure you do your homework.

Hire professionals.
Yes, it’s true that sometimes friends or family members can create a simple website, or even a complicated one. But when it comes to your business, hire professionals. Your friends and family have the best intentions, but do they know the tricks, trends, usability guidelines, browser compatibility fixes, or search engine friendly rules needed to develop an effective website (just to name a few)? And, even if …