No need to tell a Trini company or consumer that websites are essential for today’s business. What makes one company more successful over the other is its ability to use available tools effectively to achieve business goals. A website however, puts the control of a company’s destiny in their own hands much more than any other marketing medium.

Let me start with Happy New Year to all my readers and clients. Year after year of Happy New Years, we all have the drill down to a T, and that is: Hot & Heavy, then Boil Dong like Bhagi. Fortunately, we all start optimistic and hopeful, and do put our best foot forward, and no good effort is ever wasted. Let’s take the New Year out for a spin shall we?

Of course I’m not talking about eating healthy, losing that pot belly, or trying for boy child you always wanted. You know me, I’m a broken record about WEBSITES, and yes, now is the best time…again.

Start by stopping: Stop treating it as an expense

I know it’s hard because the cheque you write for website design is no different from the other cheques you write- it’s still money out the door. And I know no matter how you appreciate the investment mindset in theory, you still have doubts on actually seeing the returns in real life.

Get your site done by a professional

Gone are the days when a website was just static info. You can’t put yours in the hands of just anyone, especially the lowest bidder. If your site is to have a fighting chance, big guns cost money.

Focus on your site first

Your website is the horse and the other online tools make up the cart. Your website is the dog and the other online tools make up the tail. When we put the cart before the horse and have the tail wagging the dog, we wind up being the jack… er… donkey.

I need you to be clear on this. Whatever your contrary notions are, get them out of your head, you’ll be doing yourself a huge favor. Listen to me when I say, put ALL your efforts into your website first and FORGET any other online marketing for a while.

Pay for the BIG GUNS

This is Trinidad, and in Trini parlance, ‘you eh come out here to play dollycook’. You’re not paying a guy to put up a shelf to pack your products. There are some instances a fairly well job will work, but this isn’t one. Visitors don’t ever come back to a bad website. Get someone who know what he’s doing.

The proof is in the pudding

The web design business is one of the few industries where ‘the carpenter has the worst house’ syndrome is UNACCEPTABLE. Your accountant pays his own taxes late? No problem. Your carpenter really does have the worst house? No problem. They can both get away with it without a doubt on their abilities to do your work top notch… but not so with web design.

In web design if you’re selling good web design then your site has to be stellar and so too your portfolio. Selling search engine optimization (SEO) services? Where does your web designer rank? Can he look you in the eye and convince you he knows what he’s doing?

Start with the basics: Best Practices

In anything there’s good practice, doing the right things and doing things right. It doesn’t matter how well you’re doing things right if they’re the wrong things to begin with. Online marketing is a good example and I see it all the time- like great Facebook ads that lead to a website that’s clearly not ready for prime time.

1. Optimize your Homepage

Your website’s homepage needs the greatest creative thought. It’s usually the first page your visitor sees and it should go BAM! These days we use templates for a good website start but switching out demo information and calling it a day is not maximizing, it’s minimum wage. Your homepage should be screaming your strengths.

2. Use your own content

All your images, write-ups should be yours. Some stock photography is okay if used judiciously and provided they’ll be replaced as soon as possible. But for heaven’s sake please don’t use only stock photos. Today’s cellphone cameras take superb pictures, so take out yours start snapping.

Can’t write to save your life? I ask clients to tell me what makes them better than their competitors and you should hear how eloquent and passionate they sound. Then I tell them to write down exactly what they just said, which leads to the next point.

3. Let your site SPEAK

I see many sites look nice but devoid a voice. There’s no ‘real’ company behind them as everything sounds contrived and artificial. It looks like a duck but doesn’t quack like one, the quack sounds fake.

On a website this ‘essence’ is real and palpable and makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE and creates an EMOTIONAL connection between your site and your visitor. I wish you only knew how important this alone is.

Content can’t create itself out of thin air

So you call me in, we discuss your business, I evaluate, make recommendations, and I try to ‘see’ the site I think you need using my expertise and experience.

There are some basic housekeeping items I’ll need from you to configure your site to make it look like your own- logo, company profile, products, services, contact info, past project details, images and so on. This isn’t your optimal site yet, just skeletal. Now who’s responsible for organizing that info, me or you? Hint, not me…

4. Position for Inbound Marketing

Every page, paragraph, image, illustration, sidebar, callout, tab, accordion, list- whatever the content and how it’s presented, should be crafted for the sole purpose of capturing a lead and converting it.

Who obtains the content and who decides how it’s presented? This is what separates Forward Multimedia from the other web designers in Trinidad & Tobago, even those on the first page of Google (where I’m at the first spot almost ALL the time for 4 major keywords).

I’ll put it this way, with the same brush and paint, not all artists could paint the Mona Lisa.

It’s also E-Commerce time baby!

Finally I’m not the last sane man on the face of the earth, because Trinis are getting aboard the E-Commerce train. We have everything we need to make an online store work in Trinidad & Tobago except enough online stores.

TT Dollar payment gateway- All moving parts are available

I’ve observed both bold and tentative as this is still uncharted territory. Yes Trini’s are shopping online but at US sites, and local retailers were feeling the effects this past Christmas 2014 and complaining about it.

With the availability of the TT Dollar payment gateway (via FCB) in 2014, this past shopping season was just too close to take advantage, but this year (2015) will be the first real test.

Need for more online stores

In my experience this is a big ask, as it’s not easy to duplicate the US online shopping experience here. Why? Because we can’t even duplicate the US brick and mortar shopping experience in T&T, which is much easier but still eludes us.

What is the US brick and mortar shopping experience? If you have to ask, lord put ah hand…

Invest in an online store

The market is wide open for every possible niche- clothes, baby items, cosmetics, sports, tools, office supplies, technology…EVERYTHING. What we need is our own local AMAZON-type online store or department store, but again, you need to step up.

Conclusion

Like any investment, the returns accrue over time. Forward Multimedia wasn’t an overnight success because overnight success doesn’t happen overnight. Believe if you do the work, the results will follow. The good thing is that I do the work for you, but you have to listen to me.

You’re in more control than you think.