The companies need to propose new trends to make use of the recession
Yes indeed, the most developed countries – the United States and Germany, for quoting some example – came up already with what we call recession, very well know here in Argentina. Beyond the achievements obtained in this year, the general climate is not good, but nevertheless whenever a need appears there is an opportunity to offer a service or product, this is what I want to write about: the crisis is great to find new ways and forms. Crisis is business.
“Argentina is in an inertia of good times, but this inertia will be ended soon, this is the moment we should make the most of”
What to do to set trends?
There are many recommendations and keys we can offer, but one of the companies’ most important tasks, regardless of its size, is to make the most of its website.
The Web site
The website represents the company’s brand. New visitors will have their first impression of the services and products in a few seconds as soon as they go into the site where the visual and the facility of reading play a predominant role. That’s why the quality of the site has to be something very elegant and been made looking forwards to achieve a positive reaction of the persons who visit it.
This is only the beginning, to really make a website sell we have to take into consideration some very important items that will be useful when choosing the agency that will make the project:
Standard Design
The website should be done according to the web standards. this guarantee that the different navigators such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or Chrome will display the site correctly and in the same way.
Optimized design and programming for search engines (SEO)
SEO, means Search Engine Optimization, and as its name says, it is the optimization of the sites in order to be read and understood as much as possible by the different search engines such as Google or Yahoo!. Optimizing a site can be done after the site is finished, but it is recommendable to design and program having this in mind.
The aim of the SEO is to manage to be better located in searches results, that’s why the more optimized the site is the more chances you have to receive visitors searching for your services.
Attractive Design
An attractive design does not mean an overloaded design, full of flash elements moving through the whole site, this make the user’s experience very unpleasant and distracting.
Easy to use (usable)
A website’s design goes beyond the aesthetics we choose. Although it is necessary to pay attention to the colors, the texts and the images, we must attach importance to the way the visitors navigate our page, and make it easy for them to do so. If we want them to subscribe to our newsletters, we just not hide the subscription button. If the target is online shopping, the usability of the site is essential.
Blog Corporativo
The creation of a blog in a company can have different objectives, depending on the approach that we want to give.
The question that many businessmen do is: why does my company needs a blog? The direct and short answer is to show that there are persons behind the company. But this answer is very plain, since there are many more reasons to have a blog in the company, some of them are:
1. – It tends to look for a humanization of the company.
2. – It allows to share with others what the company knows, thinks and believes. Also, as knowledge is shared, ideas are indexed in the search engines, achieving a better position in them.
3. – It allows the readers to take part of it with comments. This way the company manages to have quick information about what people think or about different topics that can be useful, as well as detecting little issues before they turn into bigger problems. It helps the company positioning in the Internet as an expert in a certain matter.
4. – To have and share a clear point of view.
In CUOMA we believe that a corporate blog is one of the best promotional tools a company can have. Nevertheless, something to have in mind when choosing this way, is that we have to accept and value all kinds of comments, included the negative ones, this is a benefit for the blog, not accepting them is completely counterproductive.
Finally, it is important to keep the blog updated avoiding only publishing promotional content or just things about the company services.
Web 2.0 tools
Surely you have already listened about the web 2.0 or the tools that are a part of this culture (if it is that we can define it as a culture). Although it is difficult to give a definition, for us the Web 2.0 refers to a new generation of websites where the contents are shared and produced by the users.
In the Web 2.0 the information’s consumers have turned in “prosumers”, that is to say, into producers of the information that they will then consume. The Web 2.0 puts at the disposal of million persons tools of easy use for the publication of information. Nowadays all of us can create a blog and publish articles of opinion, photos, videos, etc.
The Web 2.0 has reduced considerably the diffusion of the information’s cost. Nowadays we can have our own free newspaper online, our videos channel, our radio online, etc.
The Web 2.0 allowed the viral marketing to grow exponentially, for example an opinion about a product in a blog can be seen and shared by thousands and perhaps millions of users in the whole world.
That’s why it’s very important, when designing your company’s website, taking into consideration the new technologies and the Web 2.0 tools. If you make the most of these new opportunities offered by the Web 2.0 you will surely have a successful website.
Marketing in the searchers (SEM)
SEM or Search Engine Marketing is how hiring advertising campaigns online in the searchers is know as, the advantage of this is that you can start with small budgets and pay only for the received visits generated by the ads. You can also hire advertising spaces in online newspapers, blogs, or forums. Generally you will be provided with the site’s visits statistics that will help you to decide if the site’s target is the ideal to put your company’s banner there.
Measurements and Statistics
They will not improve your websites directly, but having detailed statistics and knowing how to read them is very important to detect progress in your website. The statisticians allow us to analyze our website traffic, where does the visitors come from, what key words do they enter in the searchers, which is the most visited section, from which countries, etc.
The statistics shows us the effectiveness of the online advertising campaigns; it allows us to have information and take decisions on how to improve and have more visits on our website.
As a conclusion we can say that harming a website costs the same or more than doing it well. It is not the moment to lose opportunities and to “spend” in a website; it’s a great moment for “investing” in it to have better opportunities.
