What is a web consultancy firm?
Consultancy as an in-demand service is on the rise, as many businesses’ move away from having in house staff with specialist knowledge towards out-sourcing projects which demand a specialised skill set. The Internet as a market is no different, and in this article we’re going to be looking at what a web consultancy firm is, what their areas of expertise might be and what they can offer a business like yours.
Put simply, a web consultancy firm offers similar services to any normal consultancy, however their area of expertise revolves around the web and how to leverage the Internet to give a business an advantage in it’s online arena. Most Business’s have identified the internet as not only an opportunity to have a 24/7 presence, but as a place where they can tap into a global market more easily, connect with customers more frequently and fluently, and establish a new revenue stream. A web consultancy firm helps business’s achieve this by providing professional advice to businesses’ on how to use the Internet to meet their business objectives.
Areas of expertise
A web consultancy firm will typically have consultants who are specialists at SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), some of which have a marketing background, they are well versed in consumer and competitor research and know how to reach, attract, convert and retain customers. Web consultants often have a level of technical understanding around how websites are built and maintained and apply this knowledge to increase the effectiveness and performance of a businesses’ site.
How does a web consultancy help a business?
A web consultancy usually engages with businesses’ on a per project basis lending to the term ‘contractor’. That is, a business employs a consultant or a team of consultants to assist in developing an online strategy around the launch of a new site or an overhaul of an existing site on a contractual basis.
Many businesses’ have an in-house web design team and in addition choose to employ Web Consultants on a retainer, using them to help support their current online operations, and advise the team on how to better improve their website.
Whichever employment method a business chooses, broadly speaking a web consultant will be focussed on three things:
1. Attracting more visitors to a website
Often businesses’ will want to reach a wider audience in order to raise awareness around a company and it’s services, or to increase online sales. A web consultancy firm help’s a business identify how to reach these groups of people – creating a strategy for the business around how to attract and engage them. These strategies often incorporate SEO and PPC campaigns and ever more frequently, utilise social media.
2. Converting more visitors whilst on a website
Once a business has a sufficient number of visitors to its website, the focus then turns on how to encourage these visitors to achieve the businesses’ objective, whether that be a sale, a sign-up or an enquiry. There is both a science and an art to creating an engaging website which converts visitors, and a web consultant may focus on improving the design, usability and the copy of a site, all together or individually depending on the size of the business and the complexity of the website. In order to be effective at converting customers, a consultant must understand consumer and business buyer behaviour, and how to guide the visitor through the necessary steps to complete a purchase.
3. Retaining customers once they’ve purchased from the site
Finally a web consultancy can help a business retain customers after they’ve purchased by encouraging repeat purchases and in doing so, building consumer loyalty. Repeat purchases in the online world are often gained from building rapport with customers through the use of email and newsletter subscriptions, as well as using targeted promotions offering discounts and competitions to encourage the customer to spend again at the store. A great example of a company who are excellent at targeted promotions is amazon.com, who offer discounts to frequent shoppers as well as suggesting products that a customer might be interested in based on their buying and viewing history.
The advantage of using a web consultancy firm
The advantages of using a web consultancy firm are two-fold. Firstly as explained earlier, web consultants are usually hired on a contractual basis, which give’s you the ability to employ consultants on an ‘as needed’ basis and therefore giving your business greater flexibility.
Due to this added flexibility, a smart business can use web consultants as a way of adding a lot more punch to it’s latest web campaigns – or to squeeze the most out of an existing campaign. Businesses often look at the daily rates of hiring a web consultant and are put off by how much their fees are when extrapolated over several weeks or months, however they are missing the bigger picture. The cost of hiring a web consultant is relative to the value they’re adding to your business. If for instance you were launching a website on a tight budget, you could use small doses of web consultancy at critical stages of the site development to give cutting edge advice whilst keeping costs down, rather than hiring a consultant for the term of the project. For the rest of the site development you can use a web design agency which sits firmly inside your budget. Think of it this way; on the whole, web consultants are more knowledgeable about the business side of online business and can add a tremendous amount of value and ‘business sense’ to your next project. On the flip side, web design agencies tend to be more focused on design and useability without focusing as much on the business implications of your site. By utilising both skill sets on your next build, you can end up with a site which is both beautifully designed (thanks to the web design team) and structured to maximize your businesses online performance (thanks to the web consultancy firm).
In this article we’ve taken a look at what a web consultancy firm is as well as the ways they can help your business. Hiring a web consultancy firm is a cost effective way to receive expert insight and advice into how to improve the performance of an existing site or what the business should be focussing on when building a site from scratch. If your looking for ways to improve your site yourself, have a browse through our SEO guide which will tell you what you need to know to rank well in search engines.
If on the other hand your considering hiring a web design agency or a web consultancy firm, then why not get in touch with Pxl8 web design & consultancy and contact us today for a free consultation about how we can help your business.