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Tutorial:
Starting an Online
Business - page 3 of 5
Step 5:
Designing a Website
Designing a website
yourself, especially if you already have a professional logo designed,
is not a difficult process with the right tools. Two excellent and
frequently-used programs to help in this process are Microsoft FrontPage 2003
and Dreamweaver MX . You can also learn to program in HTML, the primary website design language with
a very useful HTML tutorials: Professor Teaches How to Create Web Pages & Graphics 5
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If you do not have the time,
the inclination or the skills needed to design and maintain your own
website, you will either need to hire someone to work in-house or hire
an independent design firm. Unless you plan to have a highly
active, involved and frequently-updated (daily or hourly) website, it is
generally much more cost-effective to hire a design firm.
A word of warning: Design
firms, especially those connected to advertising companies, can be
extremely expensive. Unless you shop around, you may end up paying
$50,000 for a website, when you could have had the same (or better)
website for as little as $500 to $2,000. Ask to see samples of their work
and ask for a firm quote up front. Then find a trusted
Internet-savvy individual or webmaster critique their proposal.
Many companies who worked formerly only in the print or television world
(magazines, commercials, etc.) have very little appreciation for issues
like bandwidth, load time, navigation and search engine
maximization. You may end up with a very pretty, but almost
worthless website. We see them all the time!
If you would like our firm
give you an estimate on site design or re-design, please contact
us. You can view our online
portfolio to see examples of
sites we have designed.
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Step 6:
Marketing Your Website
Your website is of little
use to you if no one uses or visits it. Generally, your goal
should be to generate traffic that will result in increased
business. This means that using tricks to get more people to your
site is probably not a good idea. It also means that paying for
advertising that does not deliver targeted traffic is not an effective
use of your advertising budget.
We recommend the following:
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Use pay-per-click
advertising rather than pay-per-impression advertising.
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List your website in the
top 10-20 search engines. The top search engines generate 90-95% of
web searches, so paying for services that claim to add your site to
thousands of search engines is probably a waste of money. The "Master of the Search Engines" is WebPosition Gold. You can even download a free trial version to check it out!
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Generate as much traffic
as you can by trading links with companies whose content or products
compliment those on your site.
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One of the most important marketing tools for your website is located right on your own site. That is, the keywords and description you use on your site (in the Meta Tags) have a huge impact on your placement in search engines and the traffic you get from them. For millions of niche keywords for use in your web pages, please click here. Contact us if you need help with this.
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Since search engines
often do not index pages past the first level (link from the index
page), you should put links to most of your key pages on the first
page of your site. The more pages a search engines indexes from your
site, the greater the chance that your site will be found.
Don't forget to include keywords and description meta tags on each
of those pages that are appropriate to the content of those pages.
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Pay only for visitors who buy products or services from you! In the meantime you will get free product branding and free traffic by setting up your own affiliate program. Once you have experienced the high cost of advertising online, you will realize that affiliate programs are generally a much more cost effective way
of selling online, unless you sell a service or product that can only be delivered locally. This is really a GOOD DEAL!! You can set whatever commission structure you want. We do not recommend that you select payment per click, however, since you will end up paying your affiliates for traffic that may never buy a thing. The best system is to pay either a percentage or a flat rate - only if a
sale is made!
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The best FREE traffic builder
we have ever found is Exit Exchange. Your entire web page will be shown when visitor exit from other websites all over the Internet. Then the more people who find your page, the more traffic you get from that traffic. No more will you have to hope that someone clicks on some banner on another website. The click-through rate on banners is less than 1/2 of one percent. Since there is no click-through
required with banner exchange, 100% of your credits on Exit Exchange will see you entire page, which you can change as often as you want! It doesn't get any better than this! Click on the graphic below to sign up. It's FREE!
Other suggested,
low-cost ways to promote your online business:
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Business cards and
business literature
- Every piece of literature, all print ads,
business cards, yellow page ads, stationary and every email you write should contain
your company's web address. It is now so common to do so that people
will assume you do not have a web site, if they do not see it listed
on your company literature.
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Write articles for
Internet newsletters - If you write well, you can get articles
accepted in many online newsletters. When the article runs you
will essentially be trading content (your article) for free
advertising (your web address and email on the article).
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Local
advertising on billboards and on the radio. This is one very
good way to let customers know that you have a business online.
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Joining
local chambers of commerce. We find that the smaller chambers
are generally better because they actively promote their members.
Much of our business has come through the chambers.
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Free
seminars:
We have offered to speak about the Internet and
ecommerce to many local groups. We have spoken to small business
groups, chamber groups, accounting groups and trade organizations.
None of these groups pay for speakers so they are generally pleased
to have volunteers. Plan ahead. They tend to book speakers about a
year in advance.
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BBBOnline – Join
the Better
Business Bureau Online
program.
We have gotten both attention and referrals from this program. We
also strongly support its concepts of honest advertising and
responsiveness to customer concerns.
Be sure to read the sections on Search Engines and Promotion.
THE savvy way to
successful website promotion
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