A recent survey from Aussie online giant MelbourneIT has highlighted the three things that Australian business and website owners want from their website.


It should not cost you big money to be able to do these things:

Top three things small businesses want to achieve online:

• Improve their current web site  - ok, so this one is a bit generic. I bet what they really mean is improve the ROI on their current website. Simple to do with a free google analytics account and CMS. Difficult to do if you need to pay a design $300 an hour to make updates.
  

• Improve rankings on search engines - who doesn't want to promote their business to a targetted hungry audience for free? Of course they want to improve their SEO, but are they willing to put in the work to be worthy of that top ten placement?
  

• Manage their costs by use of email marketing - ditto the above. Building a permission based list takes time and effort, but with the right systems in place, it shouldn't cost much. Building a permission list means more targeted campaigns and more responsive recipients and a better return overall.
  

These things are so simple they almost seem stupid. But how many businesses get caught up with having flashy flash sites? Or spend thousands or tens of thousands on a design, without thinking about usability and findability? Or hear buzz words about web 2.0 and social media and want a bespoke solution when ning or facebook will do just fine?

Online, business want to be found, they want to reach out, and they want people to respond. How is your site going with this?