No kidding, I was already thinking about how some people outwardly show what is important to them. It’s in the way they groom themselves, in the way they maintain their things and spaces.
I honestly don’t know why I was thinking about this, might have been a self assessment, might just have been what I was seeing out the window as I drove around Melbourne during morning peak hour.
After all I was driving in the “Paris” end of Collins Street in Melbourne, well groomed people no doubt going to an important job, meeting or interview. Or maybe it was just people taking pride in themselves.
Then I saw this:
Now seriously – do you think this van is owned by “Melbourne’s Premier Fruit & Vegetable Supplier”? Me either.
But what it did spark in my early-morning-pre-coffee-foggy mind was how many company and business websites are like this businesses van.
You know the ones I mean, we see them and get back to Google as soon as we can.
There are the company sites that were built back in the mid noughties, yet to be updated with new content or spruce up the design.
Then there are the sites that are kind of managed, where the updates have damaged the navigation, or made the content disjointed – kinda like that vans bumper bar.
Of course there are other examples of websites are so covered with navigation options and advertising that they look like an Aussie Ute with the last 15 years of Ute muster stickers and obnoxious “bogan” sayings covering the car.
Seriously through, the things carrying around the company name are representing that company. From road going vehicles, to baseball caps; the quality and care in the presentation of these items sends a message – a perception.
This is equally and arguably (and I will argue) more importantly goes for the company website.
5 Steps to Hiring You Most Reliable Employee
Step 1 – Give the website a Job.
If your website came to an interview for the position of representing your company online, would you hire it?
- The Company’s 24 hour online sales person, who deliverers each pitch perfectly every time.
- The Company’s online educator, presenting every piece of information to the right audience every time.
- The Company online relationship manager, diligently providing content to solve client issues, answer questions and provide advice around the clock.
Step 2 – Write the job description
Define what the role will do, what are the primary responsibilities, accountability and performance metrics.
- Leads captured on landing pages
- Sales conversions
- Relationship conversions
- Satisfaction from education or advice
With the tools available online to measure and report on all aspects of the site; come review time your online employee will be the easiest to measure up on their performance requirements and KPI’s.
Include in the job description who works for this position, for example:
- Who will support the site (technical)
- Who will write the content
- Traffic strategy implementation to ensure there is a job to full fill
- Marketing resources to manage initiatives from idea to review
- Sales resources to measure and improve performance and conversions
Step 3 – Give your new employee a Uniform
To ensure that the Company site turns up to work presentably each day, give the site a new uniform, one that matches the brand and accurately represents the business.
Step 4 – Train your new employee
We have all started a new job somewhere, to find that some places do a great job of induction, position familiarity and career training. Whilst others you don’t feel orientated for weeks as no one took the time and effort, leaving a feeling as though no one cares.
- what will be written
- what will take on a page versus a blog post on the corporate blog
- what should be a hosted video versus screen cast
Other questions will be to define the “landing pages”, what is the conversion goal (to capture lead/sale/feedback), what is freely available and what requires human interaction.
Step 5 – Review
As you do with human resources your online employee should have regular performance reviews to assess performance and adjust where necessary. Of course a website can be review in all the usual durations (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-annually and annually) and I would recommend that an graduated level of review is done over time.
With the review data it is important to distill the metrics into meaningful and readable data, but not get too caught up in all the numbers. The sheer amount of data that a website can generate through something like Google Analytics is impressive and can lead to analysis paralysis.
Mat Coolahan is the founder of the evimeira partnership
Posts By Mat Coolahan
evimeira partnership was founded by Mat Coolahan to pursue a vision of making a difference by creating a business that remarkably improves lives and circumstances toward a better world.