Background
In order to appreciate and fully understand the power of scripts (also known as “widgets”) in today’s world, we need to provide a little background.
Let’s say you just launched a new business and you needed to make a website with an eStore, a way to chat online with your customers, and a support system with tickets.
10 YEARS AGO, you would have needed to hire a professional web developer to custom program the entire business website just for you. The cost of doing so would most likely be in the $15-20,000 range, maybe higher. There would be a very high amount of risk involved as well. Once your website and all of it’s custom software was built, you were married to it. Each time you wanted to make changes to it, you’d have to pay the same developer hundreds or thousands more.
5 YEARS AGO, software companies were formed in order to build a one-size-fits-all chat tools and ticketing systems. You could then buy this software, and hire a professional web developer to install it on your server and integrate it into your website (which they would still need to build). This would still cost you several thousand dollars for the software and installation.
TODAY, software companies have turned their software into “web applications” which are hosted in the “cloud” . The implication of this and it’s value to you is almost too profound to summarize, but here are the main benefits:
- the same, powerful software that you needed to buy, install, and integrate into your website at your own cost is now hosted online by the software company.
- The software can be integrated into your website in seconds, by simply copying and pasting a “script” (which is about a paragraph of code)
- As long as you know how to copy and paste, you can install it (no professional is needed, so there is no cost of installation)
- There is one “version” of the software - only and always the latest and greatest, for all to use. This means you never have to worry about updating it.
- As quickly as you can install it, you can also remove it. As your business grows your needs will change, and this flexibility is extremely valuable.
- Many scripts are free to use (or have a free plan). Even if you use a paid version (which you can decide after a free trial) - you will only have to pay a nominal monthly fee, and you can cancel anytime.
How You Should Use Scripts
The web application industry has grown so fast over the past several years that you can pretty much find a script for anything. Not only that, with a simple Google search you will probably find 3 different options for each type of tool. Here are some of the most common:
- Web Analytics
- Custom Form
- Chat
- Ticketing System
- Surveys
- Announcement Banner
- Social Media Toolbar
- Forum
- Music Player
Plain and simple - every business should be using scripts to further leverage the power of their small business website. They are too easy to use, and they are so powerful and valuable for your business that it would be foolish to not be using them.
For example, this is never more important when you start a new business website.
Who knows if your website — with the imagery you have chosen and the text you have written — is communicating a clear message about your products and services to your target audience. These potential customers could very well be visiting your website every day and leaving, without ever contacting you and without you even knowing. What’s worse than that?
You can and should solve this problem in two ways:
- Install Web Analytics - this will show you extremely detailed statistics about your visitors such as how much traffic you have, where they came from, on what day they came, how many pages they visited, and so forth. You’ll never have to wonder about your website and its visitors again.
- Install a Chat Tool - this doesn’t need to be permanent. But in the beginning, you need to connect with your visitors, answer their questions, and gather information. A chat tool will empower you to do this. It will make your visitors think that someone is there to answer their questions right now (as if you were in person). In turn, you’ll have a chance to speak to a portion of the visitors who would have otherwise left your website without any contact. They’ll get great service and hopefully be convinced to do business with you; but more importantly, you’ll gather an incredible amount of intelligence in the form of their questions and comments. Their questions and comments will help you understand what aspects of your website — or your products and services offered - are confusing or lacking in information. Empowered with this information, you can fine tune your website. Doing so will help create more leads and sales (for more info on this topic, see our article on How to Track your Visitor Stats and Lead Conversion Rates).
A Final Word
Now that you understand the power of scripts, we hope that you take time to think about the types of tools that you can use to grow sales of your products and/or services right now. We have an extensive Tutorial Library that will introduce you to a ton of different tools that you can use with our website builder and that we recommend. But don’t be afraid to do a Google search and find your own. Because if you can think of it, there’s probably already a script for it, and you could be using it right now to grow your business.