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1. Plan Your Goals
Any business will
benefit from a good business plan. To learn how to plan your business goals,
outline your site, and prepare for success, read "How
to Plan and Prepare to Build Your Online Business."
2. Build and Publish Your Initial Site
Take
action on your plan. Customize your site's appearance, build the basic pages of
your site, and publish your work to make it visible on the Web.
Let friends and customers know that your site is up
and running, and begin to collect their feedback on your work.
3. Learn What's Working and What Needs
Improvement
The online world provides many feedback sources, and we've
incorporated them into our service. For example, you can
study
reporting data to learn how your online business is doing. Want to know
what your web site visitors think? Ask them. Bigstep's communications tools
provide many ways to get to know your customers. You can build a survey page,
read customer feedback sent through a Contact Us page, or study your audience's
responses to a newsletter you send. If you sell items or services online,
review your order history to learn what's popular and what's not.
Collect this information in a central place where you
can review it and begin to plan small changes to address what you've
learned.
For example, you may find that certain pages or
products aren't getting the attention they need or that a lot of your traffic
is coming from one source. You might learn that customers are confused by the
description of one of the products on your site, or need more frequent
reminders about sales and promotions. You might learn that you're simply not
reaching as many customers as you want to, and that you need to
step
up your marketing efforts.
4. Fix It!
Now that you have an idea of
what's working and what isn't, make some incremental changes to your site. You
don't have to do an overhaul, but consider making small changes to see how they
do. Also, don't make changes in the dark: Ask friends, colleagues, and your
site visitors what they think. Send out an email newsletter letting folks know
that some changes are coming; then collect their reactions.
5. Plan Your Next Steps
After going through
a cycle of planning, building, studying feedback, and making changes, you'll
start the cycle again. Consider how you'd like your business to grow, and begin
to plan and outline those changes. Then take action on those plans, collect
feedback, evaluate your efforts, and again incorporate your learning into your
site. This successful formula will guide you as you build, manage, and grow
your online business.
Remember, a web business is a work in progress. It
constantly evolves to respond to the needs of its visitors. Think of your
online business like a garden that thrives with attention, careful watering,
and pruning! |
