Before any website work starts, be clear on what the business needs the site to do: who your customers are, what you want them to do when they arrive, and what currently stops them. A website built without those answers tends to look fine and convert badly, which is the single most common problem we are asked to fix.
A website is often the first thing a customer sees of your business, and increasingly it is also what an AI search tool reads before it recommends anyone. Small differences in how a site is set up make a big difference to the result: if a competitor’s site answers people’s questions more clearly than yours, they will usually get the enquiry.
Start with four questions
- What does the business do, and which products or services matter most?
- Who are your customers: businesses, consumers or both?
- What do you want visitors to do: buy online, book, find a stockist, fill in a form or call you?
- What stops them doing it at the moment?
Then think about the questions you answer again and again by phone and email. Putting those answers on the website (FAQs, downloadable brochures and price lists, directions, delivery information, terms and conditions) saves admin time. It is also exactly the kind of clear, specific content that Google and AI search tools such as ChatGPT pick up and quote, and it gives an AI chat assistant something reliable to answer from.
Once the site is right, tried and tested site marketing methods (search engine optimisation, Google Ads, social media and regular articles) bring more people to it, and what you learn from that traffic shows you what to improve next.
At the very least, every business needs a professional, responsive website that works properly on phones, is easy to find your way around, gives visitors the information they need, is kept up to date, can be found in search, and tells visitors clearly what to do next. In our experience every successful website, however simple or complex, gets four things across:
- This is us.
- This is what we do.
- This is who we do it for.
- This is what we want you to do next.
Beyond that there are a number of key fundamentals to get right. We get as involved as you need us to: we explain what is holding your site back, why it matters and how to fix it.
To talk it through, call us on 01526 352919 or use our enquiry form.
Typical objectives
- To be found more easily, in Google and in AI search tools, and get more visitors who stay longer, come back and tell others.
- To turn more visitors into enquiries, and more enquiries into sales.
- To cut admin time and costs by putting useful, up to date information online instead of answering the same questions by hand or posting it out.
- To answer customers’ questions at any time of day, for example with an AI chat assistant trained on your own business information.
- To build the confidence and loyalty of customers and suppliers.
A typical plan of action
- We talk to you about your business, your market and what you want to achieve. We normally do this over the phone, or you can make an appointment to see us.
- If you already have a website, an AI Website Health Check (£50 plus VAT) sets out what it needs, page by page, and prices the work it recommends.
- We give you objective advice and agree a plan of action and a budget.
- We register a domain if you do not have one, or tell you how to point your existing domain to our servers.
- We set up and manage DNS hosting for your domain.
- We set up as many cloud hosted mailboxes as you need and show you how to use them.
- We build or restructure your website on our fully managed WordPress platform, including a customised AI chat assistant, and show you how to edit it yourself.
- We set the site up to be found in search, including AI search. After launch it is kept updated and backed up and gets an AI Health Check every month, and advice, practical help and training are there when you need them. A person answers the phone.