Your business website should exist to increase profits either directly through online sales or to assist in your sales process by generating leads/enquiries.

Yes, you need to attract as many relevant visitors to your website as possible but ultimately you need to convert these visitors into paying customers! Website conversion will drive your profits and once you buy into the process of conversion management you’ll see the monetary gain.

For effective website conversion, start thinking like your customer:

Everyone loves a big web project. Need to get more traffic and sales via your website? Hire a web designer and redesign like there’s no tomorrow.

That’s right, get redesigning with endless iterations and mockups and wireframes and have everyone working round the clock to get the website redesign project complete.The problem alot of businesses face is that after the ‘new look & feel’ has been implemented and bedded down that they still end up needing an improvement in traffic & online sales.

Top notch sales people are coveted the world over.

The guys and gals who can meet and greet your target customers and close the sale will forever earn big bucks and be the cornerstone of successful companies.

And as businesses look to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals, too many have discounted the opportunity to create and mould their very own sales person – one who refuses to eat or sleep in their pursuit of generating more sales for you.

The rules of the game are different now – marketing for tourism businesses in Ireland (hell, all businesses) has changed dramatically. No longer can Irish hotels, B&Bs, etc. rely on the annual, mega-bucks TV advertising of Tourism Ireland or Discover Ireland to bring in customers.

All the doom & gloom of the economic situation in Ireland can be overwhelming for new or small/medium businesses & service providers but for those that have a product or service, social media may open a new channel to you.

If you're an SME owner reading this blog then there's a good chance that you're already thinking of how to use the buzz tools of Twitter and Facebook and so on. First of all, remember that they're just tools so like any tool only use those social networks that you think will benefit your business.