With so many people purporting to be expert in business websites, but so little hard evidence on best practices, I've been spending some time looking for a way to improve the situation. 

My first steps are probably much like my peers, in that I'm searching for articles that represent pragmatic best practice.  I'm not interested in theoretical best practice, or solutions that include steak knives.  We need real world steps that every day businesses can take to improve their business returns.

I'm including a couple of URL's below that cover some of the key topics for business websites today, and we'll fine tune this over time.  There are also other articles on this website that provide information on website standards and information resources to assist with business websites.

How to Promote and Optimise Your Business Website

There are thousands and thousands of websites and businesses promoting Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) these days (which indicates how popular it is and how easy it is to do).  I've found though that too many of these websites talk a story of mystery and complexity.  I found that the page at SiteSuite was right inline with the way that we need to explain SEO to every day business owners:

http://www.sitesuite.com.au/page/site_promotion_and_seo.html

Business blogs: Can a blog help your solo business? 

When I explain blogging to business owners, I describe it as a newsletter that contains just a single article and that allows the reader to comment on what you've written.  It's much much easier to produce than a newsletter, because the reader expects you to write honestly and openly, and it's quicker to write because you focus on a single content item instead of trying to layout an entire brochure of content.  A blog once a week is easier to do than a newsletter, and over the course of a year, will add much more value to your customers and marketplace.  Newsletters still have their place, but they can saved for when you want to make an investment in more formal structured marketplace communications.

The Flying Solo website has a nice article on business blogs:

http://www.flyingsolo.com.au/p234918034_Business-blogging-can-a-blog-help-your-business.html

Also, there is a book Uses of Blogs that I can recommend if you want to look into blogging even further:

http://www.amazon.com/Uses-Blogs-Digital-Formations-Bruns/dp/0820481246

http://www.joannejacobs.net/

Questions and Thoughts in Creating a Business Website

Building and maintaining a business website can be daunting for business owners, as you've somehow got to find some time to do it amidst all the other important things you do in your day.  With very little in terms of industry specific and business size best practice guideslines around, you're often left to come up with your website strategy yourself.  It's probably on your todo list right beside your advertising strategy, sales strategy, funding strategy, employee retention strategy...  You know the drill.

Leah, from the Working Solo website, addresses aspects of this in the following article:

http://workingsolo.com.au/2007/questions-and-thoughts-in-creating-a-small-business-website/

The next step in this journey is to create some industry and size of business best practice benchmarks that we can all use to more quickly build a business website that suits our needs.

Tips for Making the Most of Your Business Website

Getting a good result out of your business website is suprising straight forward, but again, there are so many recommened approaches out there on the Internet it can be hard to work out what applies to your business.  At the most fundamental level, just remember that your website is like an ad you place in a paper or a direct mail piece you post out to your customers.  Tell them what you can do for them, why they should buy from you, and how to make contact with you, and you're off to a flying start.  It's surpising how many busines websites don't get these simple things right.  Of course, you can and should do a lot more than that, and that is where identifying best practices is quite difficult.

Peter Dowse has put together some practical tips for making the most of your website: 

http://www.aussieweb.com.au/blog/default.aspx?id=54&t=10-Tips-for-Making-the-Most-of-Your-Smal 

Peter provides ten really appropriate tips for businesses to adopt on their business websites.

Related links:

Setting Up A Website For Your New Business

http://www.realmsurfer.com.au/online-business/setting-up-a-website-for-your-new-business

Real-World Internet Marketing of Your Business

http://articles.bplans.com/index.php/business-articles/running-an-online-business/real-world-internet-marketing-of-your-business/

Website Valuation: Learn how to price a website

http://www.prowebvalue.com/

Four sources of traffic to your blog site

http://smallbusinessinspiration.com.au/four-sources-of-traffic/

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