Web Site Blitz – 8 steps to rebuild a business

Well the hard lessons continue this week. As you may know, we have been flat out for the last few weeks totally rebuilding our main income-producing web sites from scratch. If this is news to you, you can hear all about it over here.

It’s like Backyard Blitz but with a computer

Have you ever seen the “reality” TV show Backyard Blitz? Maybe in your country they have something similar but under a different name.  You know the drill…A family or similar are sent away for a weekend on some pretence while a cast of attractive and resourceful workers move in to totally make-over their backyard (or home or similar).

The tension mounts towards the end of the show because the team (the attractive and resourceful ones) are running out of time and the unsuspecting home owners are letting themselves in through the front door while the last pallet load of pavers is unloaded out the back.

How awful would it be if the truck with the last pavers didn’t turn up and the cast had the embarrassment of showing the returning tenants a half-finished job with a pile of mess in the yard? The suspense builds but the attractive and resourceful ones  never lose their cool. They still have time to joke and it all comes together in the end

That’s what it’s been like at Wonderful Web HQ.

It’s Web Site Blitz!!

Our launch time looms just hours away and the tension mounts. Now before I describe the incredible make-over our own attractive and resourceful team have done, let me tell you something…

The virtual equivalent of the truck with the pavers has failed to turn up. Yep. I’ll tell you all the frustrating details in a moment but let me tell you what this means for you.

Re-Launch delayed by one week:

Instead of launching tomorrow with a special tele-class (details and registration here at this link) we will now be launching one week later. I have changed the dates over there on the registration page. We figured you’d rather come home to a beautiful backyard make-over than be faced with a pile of construction material.

OK. That’s about as far as I can continue with the Backyard Blitz analogy.

At least I got to mention how attractive and resourceful our team is

What’s Involved in The Make-Over?

OK. I can probably stretch this analogy a bit further. Let me share a few statistics with you on what is involved in a Web Site Blitz.

Since the total recreation of  Wonderful Web Seminars, which was our first priority, we have turned our full attention to the recreation of Wonderful Web Women. Let me tell you what we have done in the last 10 days. Well actually, this is a really abbreviated version. I tell you this mainly so you can appreciate what is involved in re-building a business but also because I’m really quite proud.

1. Communicate with existing customers

If you’re building a business from scratch, you would focus on finding new customers. For us it was really important to keep the ones we had. They need to know what is happening at all stages so they know we still value them. So this has involved blog posts, emails, Facebook messages, Twitter updates, 2 special teleclasses for paying customers and in some cases, personal phone calls.

You can’t neglect this or you will lose your customers who are the most valuable asset you have.

2. Re-Evaluate the Business Plan

We could have recovered a few days earlier if we simply recreated our sites exactly as they were before. But we saw this as an opportunity to reinvent and come back even better than before.

After 2 years of running Wonderful Web Women we have a much better idea of what our customers want and what will help them reach their goals faster. We also have a better idea of what we are capable of providing. So lots of visualising, coloured textas and really thinking about what we value.

If you are starting from scratch, this is the first step you will do. Actually this is great step to do at many times during your business.

3. Ask Your Customers

We have also surveyed our customers and subscribers this last few weeks. We asked them to complete a survey and the results were incredibly powerful in helping us shape the new business. We printed out and analysed hundreds of responses.

I recommend you survey your customers at least twice per year. You should always be responding to the changing needs of your customers. Besides they have great ideas!

4. Move to a New Platform

For the last few years we have built our membership sites using Memberspeed software. This is incredibly powerful software but because it attempts to do so many complex things, it does them all poorly. I have literally spent tens of thousands of dollars fixing the problems this software has caused it. I had wanted to move to another platform for a while but the cost of redevelopment seemed a low priority. Well, be careful what you wish for!

This is the new platform we are using:

1. WordPress for the site structure with lots of really cool plugins
2. Wishlist Plug-in to manage the membership part of the site
3. Auto WebBusiness (a.k.a. 1ShoppingCart) to manage our sales, affiliate payments and tracking
4. EWay payment gateway so the info collected from the shoppingcart gets sent to the merchant account
5. Merchant Account. Previously we only used PayPal but Auto Web Business does not work with PayPal for subscription payments (yep, painful isn’t it?)
6. Aweber: We could use AutoWeb Business for our emails but we already have all our lists set up on Aweber so we decided to stick with them. Besides, Aweber rocks.

5. Design The New Site

We looked at all the resources we had, the new ones we wanted to offer and how the software worked and created a very detailed site map of the new web site.

We then had to create stunning looking templates for all areas of the site to make it really easy for people to navigate. Trickier than it sounds.

When people decide to get a web site done this is usually the main thing they think about. It can take forever  but as you can see, it really is the 5th step.

6. Add the Content

To give you an example of the content we have created in the last 10 days:

• 367 Pages of content already
• 88 MP3s plus transcript bundles added
• hundreds of images uploaded
• Then there is the sales copy to be crafted so people know what benefits there are to membership.
• There are email follow ups to write and sign up pages to create

Phew, exhausting just thinking about it isn’t it?

7. Prepare to Relaunch

There’s no use opening the doors if no-one is there to see it. This is where affiliates and JV partners come in.

So you need to set up an affiliate program, add sample promotion material for your affiliates and then contact your past affiliates and let them know of your new program. Ask them for help.

We also decided to create an opening event, which is the free tele-class we will run. So we needed to set that up as well

8. Tie it all together and test, test, test

This is the stage  we are at now. So many people don’t do this very thoroughly and it is where you really let your customers down. It is really frustrating for customers if links don’t work, payments don’t go through, emails don’t arrive.

Sure, you will find things once it is getting used but you need to really check through as if you were the customer. Without fail, you will find a really long list of things that don’t work properly and things that don’t make sense for the visitor to the site.

Now here’s where we have been let down. The virtual truck with the pavers…..

Unexpected Red Tape

Remember how I said we need to set up a merchant account because we will now use Auto Web Business. And PayPal won’t take subscription payments with this system?

That’s OK. We intended to get one anyway so as soon as we realised we needed to reinvent we applied for our account. 8th January. We chose the National Australia Bank (NAB) because at the moment they are the only bank that allows you to accept payments in multiple currencies.

3 weeks later they finally worked through the paper work (after we turned into the customers from hell) and came back with some very surprising conditions. It will still take a few more days for the paperwork to come through.

That’s why our relaunch is delayed.

I’ve been amazed at how slow this process has been. I’ve helped clients set up merchant accounts online before and it usually only takes 10 days.

On our call next week I’ll tell you why we had to come up with $7000 cash fast (luckily we had it on hand) and what the implications are for you, especially if you are just setting up. Heavens, even if you have a trading history of 3 years like we do!!!

Apparently, because so many merchants have gone bust with the Global Financial Crisis, banks are placing very severe restrictions on companies setting up to have an online merchant account. These restrictions have only been introduced in the last few months.

So shop around and find out what restrictions each bank will impose on you. They will very likely ask you to deposit money into a term deposit as security, especially if you have no merchant history with that bank. This is a new thing so take this into account if you are setting this up yourself.

Hope this helps you if you are planning to launch a new online business, or reinvent like we have.

In the mean time, I can’t wait to open the doors and show you what we have done with the place. The new Wonderful Web Women will be a force to be reckoned with on the Internet.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences you have had setting up from scratch or reinventing.

Just share your thoughts below and I’ll come back here and continue the conversation.

Cheers

Janet