{"id":484,"date":"2010-12-02T11:39:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-02T11:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=484"},"modified":"2023-01-31T10:48:07","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T16:48:07","slug":"what-is-your-website-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2010\/12\/what-is-your-website-for.html","title":{"rendered":"What is your website for?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>[Andy Hayes is someone I&#8217;m thrilled to have made friends with. He is scary smart, very business savvy, and also just a fun guy. He&#8217;s done lots of work and research about making websites work better, so I welcomed his guest post on small business websites. -Becky]<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Last week Becky ranted about the <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2010\/11\/solving-small-business-website-problem.html\">classic small business website problem<\/a>. She highlighted the number of options and opportunities for small businesses to get a website online, and the pitfalls therein. The whole thing really is enough to give one a headache.<\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"what is your website for?\" src=\"https:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2280\/2363551736_94b986bff6.jpg\" alt=\"cars in head-on collision\" width=\"500\" height=\"422\" \/><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Photo Credit:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/tm-tm\/2363551736\/sizes\/m\/in\/photostream\/\">tm-tm<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Websites are a really thorny issue. I deal with it every day because that&#8217;s where most of my business comes from. And many of my customers struggle with this question too.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve got the one single question you need to answer that will start to help you solve all that confusion and ikky feelings in your stomach about your online presence: <strong>What is Your Website For?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Most business folks have no answer to this question. It&#8217;s important though, because knowing this drives all of your other online activities.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Maybe your site is your commerce platform<\/em> &#8211; you&#8217;ll actually sell\/deliver goods on it. Sounds like it&#8217;s kind of important, eh?<\/li>\n<li><em>Maybe your site is just an extension of your sales team<\/em> &#8211; guess you better focus on what it says, no?<\/li>\n<li><em>Maybe your site is where many people first hear about you<\/em> &#8211; I hope they like what they see, don&#8217;t you?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Businesess exist for many reasons, but the primary one is simple: to make money which puts food on your table. How, exactly, does your website contribute to that goal? If it were a member of your staff, would it be earning its salary?<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Andy Hayes by bjmccray, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bjmccray\/4434840572\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2791\/4434840572_2d09b8dc60_t.jpg\" alt=\"Andy Hayes\" width=\"75\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a>\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.andyhayes.com\/\">Andy Hayes<\/a> is a travel and tourism entrepreneur and social media geek. He&#8217;s also the author of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.travelonlinepartners.com\/resources\/by-product-line\/mastery-guides\/why-your-website-sucks\/\">Why Your Website Sucks<\/a>, which helps small businesses answer the tough questions about their own websites. Does your website&#8230;suck?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/guided-tour.html\"> Guided Tour<\/a>. Like what you see? <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/get-updates.html\">Get our updates<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Andy Hayes is someone I&#8217;m thrilled to have made friends with. He is scary smart, very business savvy, and also just a fun guy. He&#8217;s done lots of work and research about making websites work better, so I welcomed his guest post on small business websites. -Becky] Last week Becky ranted about the classic small [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[259,38],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14783,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions\/14783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}