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Find the Purpose of Your New / Proposed Website
Absolutely everything stems from the purpose of your website - selection of hosting, programming, graphic design, copywriting, internet marketing, autoresponder service, and e-commerce. So it's very important to establish the purpose of your business website first. The most common purposes for a business website are:
* A company brochure: explain to customers (or potential customers), suppliers and shareholders more about the business
* Product news releases: distribution of pricelists, product specifications & photos
* Information releases: downloadable brochures, documents, forms & marketing material
* Lead generation: allow customers to contact you directly via phone, fax, email or SMS.
* Sale generation: complete a transaction on the website (eg. Purchase a book, magazine subscription, etc.)
The above list is ordered from the most simple to the most complex website. Generally, if you want customers to buy your product or service via your website, your website will be more complex - including a shopping cart, secure payment gateway, customer record management, product/stock management and automated customer service. And generally, the more complex a website, the more time it will take to develop, and the more it will cost.
However, I recommend that if you're taking the time and effort to build your business website, you may as well build yourself something decent. So I always recommend business owners plan for a website that will generate fresh leads or sales.
The purpose of your business website should closely relate to your overall business plan. Too many businesses make the mistake of setting up a website and forgetting about it.
A well-planned, well-developed website can be a fundamental part of your business. Not only to present a professional image to your customers, but actually generate new business. And that means more sales!
So take a few hours to sit down and work out how your business website fits into the bigger picture.
Takeaway Tips
* The more effort put into planning, the more successful the website is likely to be.
* Your business website will compete with many others for customers' attention. Professional presentation, design and functionality are essential. Money invested in good presentation is money well spent.
* A website and its objectives and capabilities must be a part of your overall business strategy.
* Always look for new ideas - look at other websites.
* Do not try and do it all at once. Develop your website in stages. Each stage should provide useful information and features for your customers. A staged development will also help to encourage repeat visits by customers.
* Ensure that your site is designed in a way that you can make changes to content yourself, from your own computer - avoid reliance on the web developer for day-to-day changes.
* Update website content regularly, to keep it fresh and interesting.
Once you have an overall strategy for your business website in place, the next thing to consider is the budget. How much are you going to spend? After all for most businesses, money does't grow on trees? at least last time I checked ;-)
TIP: If you already have a website and just need to find a hosting service, check out my recommendation at: http://www.1st-for-business-web-hosting.com/find.asp?i=6
Josh has been involved in web development since 1996. He now helps business owners get their own websites up and running with a free easy-to-understand guide, and 7-part e-course at http://www.1st-For-Businsess-Web-Hosting.com
Functions and Subroutines in ASP
If you read our Tutorial on Include Files (SSI) then you learned how to encapsulate ASP code within include files and the benefits it brings us. As developers, we should endeavour to make our lives easier wherever possible... no one wants to re-invent the wheel after all. Functions and Subroutines exist to not only save us time, but to bring power to our ASP. They are just another way of encapsulating code, but have a lot more functionality than just 'saving some code for later'. First, let's look at Functions... Imagine a balloon salesman in the street. We've all seen them they require one piece of information when you buy a balloon, the colour. Let say we asked for a red balloon... The balloon salesman armed with this 'information' then does a pretty basic action... he hands you the balloon. The balloon you received is a direct result of the information you gave the balloon seller. Functions are just the same... they return to you a value based on the information you provided. Lets look at an example Function: - <% Function getBalloon(strColour) Dim Tempstr strColour = lcase(strColour) 'This converts the value lowercase. Select Case strColour Case "red" Tempstr = "Here is your red balloon" Case "yellow" Tempstr = "Here is your yellow balloon" Case "green" Tempstr = "Here is your green balloon" Case "blue" Tempstr = "Here is your blue balloon" Case Else Tempstr = "Sorry, we have sold out of that Colour" End Select getBalloon = Tempstr End Function%>
Five Essential Questions to Answer Before Creating Your First (or second...or third) Website
Right after the thought, "I need a website," people usually say, "I need a web designer!" Actually, before even whispering "web design," you need to answer these five questions in as much detail as possible. Once you're clear on your strategy, you can provide better information to your web designer. And most likely you'll be pleased with your new home on the web.
The 2 Most Common Web Site Mistakes
When we review the sites of potential clients, there are 2 mistakes we see over and over. If you are having problems with your site, make sure these 2 problems aren't killing you.
Cost Effective and Powerful Dynamic Websites w. Fantastico Web Hosting
If you are developing your website on a host that charges less that $5 a month, make plenty of backups as you are likely to loose your website files when the webhost goes out of business without notice. Indeed, be extremely wary of any such host. Once your website is attracting getting visitors, get your website hosted with host that does not foolishly try to over sell his server resources. And, expect to pay at least $15 a month or more for the added security and reliability of such a host.
Web Measurement: What You Don?t Know Would Make A Great Book
"What's in it for me?" you ask. "Why should I measure how people use my website? How does it help and what does it all mean?" The purpose of this article is to try to give you some insight into effective web measurement and to talk about the most important page of any website, the landing or home page.
How To Make Your Website More Successful? (Part I)
Building a website and getting it online is easy. Driving visitors to it is the more difficult part. Most people are not patient enough when it comes to build up traffic. They expect thousands of visitors a week after they go live with their website. But that is not how it works. We share some secrets of how to make your website more successful.
Effectively Using Robots Meta Tags
The "robots" meta tag, when used properly, will tell the search engine spiders whether or not to index and follow a particular page. For the purposes of this article, we will be using the "( )" symbols to represent the "" in html coding.
My Yahoo Search - Beyond Bookmarks
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Remember This When Building A New Site - Beginners Guide
I recently helped my mom to launch a website (www.mom2me.com) to publish some of her recipes and it was probably the best wake up call I have had this year. It dawned on me that I actually do not know nearly as much as I thought I did. In fact it was evident that some things are best left to the experts.
How To Convert More Sales On Your Website
One of the biggest mistakes that most online retailers make is they do not take into account typical buyer behaviour. The conversion from real world to online provides many benefits to the retailer, but present some real challenges for the customer because their buying decision is made more difficult in an online environment.
Pick Up Your Own Domain Name
Think up a name and check if yourname.com is available. Personally, I like to use http://www.whois.com to check if a domain name is available. You may also check the registrant contact information using "whois" service if you want to negotiate about purchasing the domain you like from people who registered it first.
Achieving Differentiation With Your Website
Internet Marketing is not a miracle marketing strategy ? competition still exists and you need to have a unique approach with regards to:
Building a Web Site Requires the Right Software to Eliminate Headaches and Keep Money in Your Pocket
When most people build a web site, they think one simple thing. "If I build it, they will come". How further from the truth this is.
Profitable Websites for Exclusive Industries
In the region where my company is located, South Bend, Indiana, the demand for web design and associated services could be described as: leery. It's not that the locale is horribly lacking evolvement technologically; rather that so many proprietors in this area are very uncertain as to what the internet can do and how they can go about forming profitable web sites for their exclusive industries.
Why Is No-one Buying From My Website?
Are you, like many other website owners, frustrated at the amount of time, effort and money you've put into your website, only to see few or no sales?
Planning Your Website for Success
Most people know they need a website in order to publicise and promote their business but very few people know what they want in their website. Fewer still are those who can actually sit down and plan their websites well.
What Your Customers Say About YOUR Site! Part 1
The following is a list of patterns that many visitors follow, and you can use these suggestions to better your site.
How to Make Your Own Free Website in 8.5 Minutes or Less
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Why Local Service Companies Should Have a Website
The Internet is being used by local service business to improve sales today. Sales are improved because a website gives a company more credibility and in some cases generates leads.
Study Your Sites Performance Via Hit Tracking
Knowledge is power.