Make the most out of a small web team

There are a lot of companies out there in less tech-savvy cities like my own that for one reason or another have not built up the proper staff to truly benefit from their website and online marketing.

Large companies often have the budget, but may not always have the foresight. Small companies usually have the opposite problem.

Web professionals know that to have the most robust online presence you need more than one "web guy." You need staffers with various talents and specialties. The ideal situation would be to have teams working on each type of online marketing--usability, SEO, e-mail marketing, social marketing--and another to monitor analytics and make reports back to these teams to increase conversion and improve on your processes.

However, this is almost never the case. So what can you do if you only have the budget for one or two business-side web people?

1. Prioritize, Prioritize, Prioritize!
If you have one person who is supposed to do it all, he or she obviously lose it if you expect results in every area. The best way to approach your web strategy is to prioritize what you want to do by determining where you will get the best bang for your buck. The best plan is to prioritize based on your goals for the year.

2. Spread the love.
If you have a print writer, graphic designer, PR person or media buyer, you're in luck! There are a number of ways these people can help ease the load. Let the writer take care of the message and ask the web team only to edit for scannability online. Get the designer's help with layout for the site--don't count on your web person to know everything about layout. Usability and layout are not the same! A media buyer can be come your PPC/online advertising expert and take care of placing and tracking ads on search engines and in social media.

3. Hire the best and trust their judgment.
If you only have the budget for one or two people to run your online presence, go for the best. You want people who understand the web...not just people who can write content. A good test is to check his or her personal online presence. Is the applicant engaged in various levels of online tools? If you find the right people, you will be able to trust them and know that they are making the best recommendations.

4. Good analytics software.
If you can't afford another body to work on analytic reports and recommendations, then make sure your software can run itself fairly well. You may want to take the time to train stakeholders in viewing their own reports and translating them to actionable items. This way, the responsibility is spread throughout the organization.