Why is it business websites and web assets ‘don’t get no respect’? That’s right.

In my 13 years as a web business professional I see this happen over and over. It happens with large corporations, to one man shop freelancers, to mid size and small businesses to entrepreneurs. Their website gets very little attention and nurturing at the stage of inception often handed off to the ‘web people’ to Make It So!

What’s wrong with that you ask?

Well for starters, your website and web properties (blogs, social pages, digital campaigns, etc) are not just flipping things that show up on the Internet! Rather they are digital jewels! They are exceptionally valuable to your business survival and well being.

They should not be looked at as just some text, images and a few things that go bump in the night on the web. Nor should they be just referred to as marketing ‘tools’.

No, your website and web presence is to be a digital expression of your business. It is your front door to the world to radiate the passion, heartbeat, culture, creativity, innovation, and emotion of your business. It should be your best ‘digi-friend’. I’m not joking.

Why do I take this position?

The world has changed. Business has changed. Marketing has changed. Your Client has changed.

I just love what Jeremy Dent at JuiceDigital says on this…

“With the obsession about financial ‘instruments’ and debt management, the business of innovation in products and services aimed at a sustainable future is bankrupt. Tomorrow’s growth won’t come from a particular person, place, or technology but from understanding why recent growth has failed.

The same growth models applied to new people, places, and technologies will simply result in the same crises, over again. We have to reboot growth (and maybe capitalism itself): the problem is not what is growing versus what is not, but how we grow.

So as marketers, let’s concentrate at creative thinking in those areas in which we have control. We know that the conventional advertising, public relations and direct marketing models are having less effective results. The consumer (and business user) is Web-savvy, resistant to interruption and engaging in more and more interaction online”.

Being in business and being Web-savvy is more than just using the Internet daily. It’s understanding and embracing the truth that at the core of succeeding in 21st Century business is a new mindset about the way you do business and the value you place on your digital presence and property!

It’s about taking control and responsibility in the ownership and nurturing of your digital business objectives and getting the best quailified professionals to help you make your onlone postion a strong and eveloing one. Not just leaving it to the intern, your high school son, some web shop or department. You better treat it right if you want to be around!