I've Been Put in Charge of the Website. But I Have No Idea What to Do…

‘I've been put in charge of the website. But I don't know what to do…’

Are you in that situation?

If so, take two or three minutes to read this article.

It mainly explains ‘common misconceptions about building and operating websites’ in detail.

Many people have actually wasted the time and money they invested in building and operating websites because of these misconceptions.

But you do not have to make those mistakes.

Even if this is your first time building or operating a website, or you do not know what to do, you can learn how to proceed with confidence, safely, and smoothly.

The First Website: Nine Out of Ten Fail

First, let us define a website as a site that comprehensively provides product and service information and accepts inquiries, reservations, and purchases...

To be blunt, most first websites fail.

The reason is that creating the website becomes the goal, or almost every measure taken misses the mark.

That happens because a fundamental prerequisite for building a website is ignored.

What is that prerequisite?

What to Prepare Before Building a Website

The thing you absolutely must do before building a website is decide its purpose.

You should be building a website as a tool to grow your business, specifically to attract customers or get them to make purchases online.

In other words, a website's greatest purpose comes down to ‘getting target customers to take actions such as making inquiries, reservations, or purchases on the website’ and that alone.

Therefore, the website and every associated measure must be rigorously focused on target customers, down to the smallest detail.

Always Return to the Website's Main Purpose

This is truly important.

That is because, as work progresses, people almost invariably start departing from this main purpose.

These are common mistakes, and naturally they will not produce the results you seek.

Remember to focus, almost obsessively, on getting target customers to take action on the website.

Conversely, you must also research in as much detail as possible what habits target customers have and what actions they prefer. If you get this wrong, your measures will miss the mark.

A clearly defined description of this is called a persona.

A Website Is Just an Entrance

Pouring your heart and soul into simply building a website will not make anything happen.

Think about it calmly and it is clear: a website is, in a sense, equivalent to your office or shop.

Customers only come to your website once you have prepared a way to bring them there.

These ways of bringing customers in are called channels (media).

Examples of channels include

Choose several of these that seem likely to bring in plenty of target customers.

Nine Out of Ten Choose the Wrong Channels…

Now let me explain a very common mistake in choosing channels.

It is trying to choose free channels rather than channels that match target customers.

That is why SEO and social media customer acquisition are popular.

‘For now, let's start with what we can do for free…’

That tends to become the stock phrase.

In another pattern, people receive sales calls from website builders, online advertising agencies, or SEO consultants and hand control to those companies, leading to
the means becoming the goal.

Of course, even if being free is the reason you try SEO or social media, it may turn out to be effective for attracting customers.

Following the proposals from a sales call may also work out.

However, that is not strategic at all, so the chance of a major failure sooner or later becomes high.

You still need to carefully model whether you can bring target customers to your website and properly recover your effort and money.

Also, the idea that SEO and social media are free only describes the surface fact that you do not pay much to the platform; you should consider the return on your effort.

For reference, as of April 2021, Facebook ads (Instagram ads) and YouTube ads are cost-effective channels.

Of course, that is a general observation; whether it applies to your business is another matter.

What Deserves More Attention Than Your Website?

So far I have assumed you will operate a website, but there is actually something you should build before one.

That is a landing page (LP).

A landing page is a long, vertical page dedicated to selling.

This is because a general website often cannot appropriately address visitors arriving from a particular channel.

For example, imagine a customer coming to a hamburger shop.

If you already know the customer wants a cheeseburger, handing them a flyer exclusively about cheeseburgers is more likely to lead to a purchase.

Show customers who want a particular product or service a page dedicated to it and offer attractive terms, and target customers will respond better than they would to a website that tends to resemble a catalog.

Especially for small and medium businesses or new initiatives, you need to generate sales quickly.

Could you build a landing page before a website? Be sure to consider that question.

Careless Website Copy…

Sometimes website text becomes an offhand introduction to services.

This is another result of treating finishing the website as the goal, and it will never get target customers to act as it stands.

What should you do instead?

In fact, just as expert salespeople have sales pitches that sell, excellent pages have writing that sells.

Writing that sells requires honing your skills while understanding behavioral economics, cognitive science, neuroscience, and more, so it is not something you can immediately master.

However, I will share one technique you can use right now.

It is to base your writing on the other person's fundamental desires that can be satisfied (called benefits).

That alone will produce a completely different response.

People unconsciously process information by filtering it according to ‘what advantage does this offer me?’.

This applies beyond writing, but every business in the world currently deals with people, so you need to understand when people take action and design your approach accordingly.

An Experienced External Mentor Is Another Option

Doing business online is now normal, and corporate websites are as numerous as the stars, yet many still fail.

Referring to this article should make it easier to avoid failure, but of course this is not everything.

Technology and the times also change rapidly, making it difficult to keep up.

Companies with nobody internally who understands the internet must feel particularly anxious.

One solution is ‘contracting a remote IT strategy consultant’.
It is well worth considering.

IT personnel are currently in short supply and have high average salaries, so hiring them full time can be difficult.

Resident IT strategy consultants are also scarce, and their monthly fees exceed one million yen.

However, contracting a remote IT strategy mentor can support business growth at a far lower cost than a resident consultant.