EVERY small or home-based business should consider a website. There are certainly some businesses where a website offers nothing of value but for the vast majority a website can be a very effective sales channel and marketing tool. I've listed just a few reasons why a website can be such a powerful tool but before you continue - and just to underscore how valuable the Internet can be - consider these statistics:

• Two billion orders will be placed over the Internet this year.
• E-commerce revenue will be $95 billion by the end of this year and will exceed $1 Trillion by 2002.
• Holiday purchases have increased from $141 million in 1995 and are expected to be $9.5 billion this year. 
  
  
Low Cost
Utilizing the Internet for your business is very inexpensive. Unlimited connect accounts are generally available for less than $20/month and include Internet access and e-mail. You can start off with just using electronic mail (e-mail) as a way to communicate with existing customers and new ones.
E-Mail
Communicate anywhere in the world with customers and employees and pay NO long distance telephone charges. And while you're at it, you can "attach" other documents to your e-mail. For example, you can send an updated proposal to your representative across the country - quickly and at no cost.
Customer Support
Provide personalized support for your customers with answers to common questions; assistance on specific products or services, provide a variety of ways in which you can be contacted. Do all this without answering a phone or hiring additional staff.
Be Open For Business 24 hours a day
This sounds bad but in reality it's a big plus. With e-mail, people can contact you anytime it is convenient for them. You can respond anytime that's convenient for you. Of course, we suggest "timely-response" just as if someone called you. When you have a website, potential customers can find out about your products and services 24 hours a day. Isn't this much better than getting a call at 5:00 AM from a customer in a time zone that's 3 hours ahead of yours?
Global Reach
The Internet is being used on a regular basis by millions worldwide with more "connecting" every day. Many of the new users come from countries around the world. They want to buy the "latest and greatest" products. They have money. With the Internet they can become your customer! How much do you think it would cost you to advertise in the Times of London, the Tokyo Daily, and Moscow Today? Compare that to the cost of a website. The information you provide on your website is instantly available to every one of these users
Reach customers that speak a foreign language
Why restrict your market to the "English-speaking" world? Translate your website into a number of languages and offer a choice to users when they come to your home page to further increase your exposure.
Money Savings
Today your long-distance phone bill can run into the hundreds of dollars. Using the e-mail to talk to your customers, suppliers, partners, etc., can save you a large portion of this expense.
Try new ideas
Since the Internet is a "brand-new" medium, no one (including us) really knows all of the ways you can make money from the Internet. We do know there are a whole lot of great ideas already. When you use the Internet, you can try new ideas usually for little invested on your part. It doesn't work, OK, you learned. Modify it your idea. Improve it. At the very least you'll know more than your competitors. Who could imagine that authors would put their books on the Internet? Well, that's what people are trying with the hope that customer's will like what they read enough so that they'll buy the paper version.
Update or Change your products and services easily and at low cost
If you have produced "paper" catalogs, brochures, sales collateral's, you know how difficult and expensive it is to change them. You want to add a new item. Oh no! The phone company changed your area code. No, no! What a pain with paper. With your Internet site, changing anything is a simple and inexpensive process.
Specials
Say you just received a new product and you want to advertise a "special." Reaching your customers via the phone, sending a letter, or FAX would be time-consuming and expensive. With the Internet you can send out an e-mail to 500 of your best customers with the click of your mouse. You can put a "SPECIAL" notice on your website advertising the new product.

FIRST THE BASICS

1. Decide if you are going to develop your own website or contract with a developer. If the latter, search the web for possible candidates. If you are doing it yourself, visit a bookstore or search the web and pick up one of the many excellent references on Web Publishing and html. If you don't have the time, hire someone and ensure they have the required expertise. A child can write html code. Getting an online game design degree takes some skill and education. Designing an effective website takes an expert. We can help!

2. Apply for a domain name. (You can do it yourself over the internet via the Internic, http://www.rs.internic.net, or have your ISP do it for you. Think up three names ... it is likely you will not get your first choice. Take your time ... this domain name becomes your identifier! We can do this for you.

3. Carefully outline and organize the material you want to place on the web. Don't do it "on the fly."

4. Decide on the "look" of your pages. Browse the web for ideas.

5. Your website MUST provide a service as well as present your product or service that you are selling. In our case, we provide useful small business related information (tax advice, start-up and money saving tips, etc). We then gently steer the visitor to the books we are selling. It works!

6. Your website must be EASY to use. The design of the site must make it easy for the user to navigate and not get lost. A confused visitor will simply leave.

7. Your website will go nowhere without a sustained marketing effort. See below for what has been successful for us.

WEBSITE DESIGN TIPS

1. LOADING TIME. Users will not wait. You have about 10-seconds to catch and keep a visitor. Your home page should load quickly. Ensure this by keeping graphic files small (optimize all graphics with "Gif Wizard" at http://www.gifwizard.com), backgrounds simple and by using height and width tags with every graphic. The height/width tags will force the text to load first giving the user something to read while the graphics load. It is also a good idea to use ALT tags with the graphic tag so that the graphic is identified to the user while it loads.

2.  BROWSER FRIENDLINESS. There are many different browsers in use. Ensure your home page is friendly to all of them. Do this by keeping your page simple and if you are using frames, tables, image maps and other enhancements, ensure you have an alternate page available for browsers that cannot display the enhancements. For example, we use frames so we provide a "non-frame" gateway for those users with older non-frame friendly browsers.

3.  ORGANIZED MESSAGE. The user should be immediately presented with a description of your site ... what it's for and what's in it. Also, make it easy for the user to navigate your site. For example, make certain there is always an obvious way to return to the home page from anywhere within your site.

4.  META TAGS. These html tags are used to define the name and content of you site. Proper use of META tags will ensure that some important (large) search engines can find and properly index your site. Also ensure each webpage is property "titled" within the header tags. Learn about meta statements at http://www.metatag.webpromote.com.

5. UPDATE FREQUENTLY. Ensure that visitors will return to your site by constantly updating its content. This cannot be stressed enough - a static site will not grow.

6.  ASK FOR FEEDBACK. Make it easy for a visitor to e-mail you comments.

MARKETING IDEAS (ATTRACTING VISITORS)

We have found the following to be very effective in building and sustaining traffic to our website. I hope it goes without saying that website sales are directly proportional to traffic!

1. Get listed with the major search engines. Don't do it yourself - it is very time consuming and there are plenty of inexpensive ways to get it done. I like the folks at 1-step (http://www.1step.com).

2. Utilize traditional and internet-based news releases.

3. Engage in strategic mutual link development. This is quite important - 25% of our traffic comes to us via these links! This takes time but is worth the effort.

4. Participate in newsgroups and listservs. Don't advertise - provide useful information. Let your "signature" do the advertising. Don't become a pest.

5. Include your URL on EVERYthing: telephone answering machine, literature, business cards and stationary, traditional adverts, etc. We had some T-shirts printed with our homepage on the front and URL on the back - they are great conversation starters.

6. Develop a newsletter. (Preferably e-mail based) We did, and in about a year generated a mailing list of over 5000. This brings traffic ... and sales. Got a new book? Let your list know about it - at no cost.

7. Write articles for journals and periodicals that relate to what you do. Include a byline with your URL, of course.

8. Make sure you are using a "signature" with your e-mail and include your URL.

KEEPING VISITORS

1. Content, content, content. Your site must say something, teach something, provide valuable useful information. This is the most important element of any successful website. Furthermore, this information must be dynamic - kept up to date and always changing.

2. As noted earlier, website navigation is very important. It must be easy to find anything within your site and it should not be impossible to "get lost." It is amazing how many websites ignore this important element of website design.

That's about it. You can build a successful website if you pay attention to what has worked for others. The ideas presented here worked for us and I bet they will work for you. All you have to lose without a website are sales! Think about it.

Learn how the Small Business Advisor can help with your website development.

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