Business-Card Websites

- Usually 3-5 pages (Homepage, Contact Information and About us page).
- Best for local, not-highly-competitive field.
- Accessed directly by customers who are already aware of the existence of the business and are looking for a specific information (e.g. Contact info).
- Perfect for those who have just entered the industry/area.
- Fairly cheap with minimal ongoing expenses.

Brochure Websites

- Anywhere from 5 to 25 pages.
- Contains all of the Business Card Website features + much more (Portfolio, Services, Testimonials, Specials etc.).
- Focused towards advertising and promotion.
- Highly competitive, focused on attracting new customers/visitors.
- Perfect for businesses in a highly competitive fields.
- Average price and ongoing expenses (Maintenance and Hosting).

E-Commerce Websites

- Online Store with unlimited amount of pages.
- Best for any business with a product that is easy to ship.
- Great for any business with a high quality products where shipping costs are not prohibitive.
- Expensive, involving a lot of work.
- Open to customers all over the world.
- Highly successful if implemented the proper way.

By I. Georgiev — Shtrack.com

Define the purpose of the site
What is the purpose of your new site? Are you trying to sell a product? Are you trying to generate qualified business leads? Are you providing information and resources? You will need to clearly define the purpose of the website first and foremost because this is the basis for your website design, functionality and marketing plan.

Who will manage the website?
Maintaining a successful website takes time and many companies overlook this very important fact. Having a website with outdated content is very bad.

Are you too busy with business obligations to handle regular updates or do you have someone who is internet savvy on staff who can handle them for you? Most professional website development companies offer maintenance agreements for updating items such as event calendars, news sections, blog posts and perhaps more importantly, search engine performance monitoring. Some companies also pay their website development company to watch the internet for mentions of their company on other websites for public relations and damage control should a competitor mention their name.

What is your website budget?
Building a website is a lot like building a new house. Websites can be built cheaply, using cheap materials or they can be grand palaces with gold ceilings. Make sure you budget for the cost of initial website design, monthly website hosting, website marketing and ongoing website maintenance. Like any investment, a website budget should be calculated to determine the rate of return necessary to make the effort worthwhile. In some cases, not having a professionally designed website is costing your company money and could be tarnishing your brand.

What features will your site require?
Will your customers need to fill-out forms? Do you need an online store? Do you have photographs that you want to place and manage on your website? How about a calendar of events? Write a list of all the features your new website will require. This is very important if you want to avoid unexpected delays and price increases. Make sure that all of the items necessary for your website are listed in your website proposal and ask a lot of questions before signing anything. I prefer to read the entire proposal with the client so there is sure to be no misunderstanding later in the project. Be cautious of overzealous salesmen who pressure or try to rush the sale.

Website content and layout
Do you have an idea for the layout of your new website? If so, sketch it out on paper and bring it to the initial design meeting, this is very helpful. Also, think about what pages you will need and start writing the text for each page. This is a time consuming process so some of our clients ask us to help produce content for them. We have a full-time copywriter on staff. Some companies write the copy and ask us to proof it for search engine performance. Your website content and design need to be search engine friendly and lead potential customers to perform a desired action. Most copy editors who have experience with print media are finding it difficult to cater to both people and search engines, this is a delicate process.

Gather your website content
Text, images, customer databases, product catalogs and any other information you will need added to the website should be given to your developer as soon as possible to avoid delays. This is typically the step that is the most time consuming for the client and can cause the project to take longer than necessary.

Competitor Research
Take a look at your online competition. Write down features that you like or dislike. Write down a few website addresses that appeal to you and bring them to your developer, this is valuable to understand what interests you from a design standpoint.

Website Marketing Plan
A succesful website needs a marketing plan. Once your new website launches, people need to know about it! Add your website address to your business cards, outdoor signs, marketing materials, letterhead and of course, the search engines. Ask all of your vendors and friends to link to your website from theirs and return the favor, this is known as reciprocal linking. Send a mass email to all of your customers past and present, every month and include multiple links to your website. Also, depending on your budget, you might want to consider a pay-per-click campaign with Google or Yahoo. Delaware.Net can help you with this, you will want professional guidance with this step of your website planning.

Search Engine Performance Monitoring
This is an often overlooked step for a lot of website owners. After your new website is launched, you are going to need a way to measure your performance. Where are your website visitors coming from? What are they doing while they are on your website? Why are they leaving? Delaware.Net has many ways to analyze search engine performance such as analytics tools, keyword research tools, text analysis tools, screen readers and link density tools just to mention a few. Constant analysis needs to be paid to search engine performance and timely changes need to be made when the organic search engine landscape changes. This is one of our most requested services and our most successful customers are taking advantage of it.

by Greg Austin Sr. Director of Sales, Delaware.net

1. Brainstorm 5 Top Keywords

When you first begin your domain name search, it helps to have 5 terms or phrases in mind that best describe the domain you’re seeking. Once you have this list, you can start to pair them or add prefixes & suffixes to create good domain ideas. For example, if you’re launching a mortgage related domain, you might start with words like “mortage, finance, home equity, interest rate, house payment” then play around until you can find a good match.

2. Make the Domain Unique

Having your website confused with a popular site already owned by someone else is a recipe for disaster. Thus, I never choose domains that are simply the plural, hyphenated or misspelled version of an already established domain. I still believe that Flickr desperately needs to buy Flicker.com - I hear kids in their 20’s tell parents in their 40’s and 50’s to see photos on Flickr and always envision that traffic going straight to the wrong domain.

3. Only Choose Dot-Com Available Domains

If you’re not concerned with type-in traffic, branding or name recognition, you don’t need to worry about this one. However, if you’re at all serious about building a successful website over the long-term, you should be worried about all of these elements, and while directing traffic to a .net or .org (as SEOmoz does) is fine, owning and 301′ing the .com is critical. With the exception of the very tech-savvy, most people who use the web still make the automatic assumption that .com is all that’s out there - don’t make the mistake of locking out or losing traffic to these folks.

4. Make it Easy to Type

If a domain name requires considerable attention to type correctly, due to spelling, length or the use of un-memorable words or sounds, you’ve lost a good portion of your branding and marketing value. I’ve even heard usability folks toute the value of having the letters include easy-to-type letters (which I interpret as avoiding “q,” “z,” “x,” “c,” and “p”).

5. Make it Easy to Remember

Remember that word-of-mouth and SERPs dominance marketing (where your domain consistently comes up for industry-related searches) both rely on the ease with which the domain can be called to mind. You don’t want to be the company with the terrific website that no one can ever remember to tell their friends about because they can’t remember the domain name.

6. Keep the Name as Short as Possible

Short names are easy to type and easy to remember (the previous two rules). They also allow for more characters in the URL in the SERPs and a better fit on business cards and other offline media.

7. Create and Fulfill Expectations

When someone hears about your domain name for the first time, they should be able to instantly and accurately guess at the type of content that might be found there. That’s why I love domain names like Hotmail.com, CareerBuilder.com, AutoTrader.com and WebMD.com. Domains like Monster.com, Amazon.com and Zillow.com (whom I usually praise) required far more branding because of their un-intuitive names.

8. Avoid Copyright Infringement

This is a mistake that isn’t made too often, but can kill a great domain and a great company when it does. To be sure you’re not infringing on anyone’s copyright with your site’s name, visit copyright.gov and search before you buy.

9. Set Yourself Apart with a Brand

Using a unique moniker is a great way to build additional value with your domain name. A “brand” is more than just a combination of words, which is why names like mortgageforyourhome.com or shoesandboots.com aren’t as compelling as branded names like bankrate.com or lendingtree.com. SEOmoz itself is a good example - “SEO” does a good job of explaining the industry we’re in and creating expectations, while “moz” gives a web association, and an association with being free, open, and community-driven.

10. Reject Hyphens and Numbers

Both hyphens and numbers make it hard to give your domain name verbally and falls down on being easy to remember or type. I’d suggest not using spelled-out or roman numerals in domains, as both can be confusing and mistaken for the other.

11. Don’t Follow the Latest Trends

Website names that rely on odd mis-spellings (like many Web 2.0 style sites), multiple hyphens (like the SEO-optimized domains of the early 2000’s), or uninspiring short adjectives (like “top…x,” “best…x,” “hot…x”) aren’t always the best choice. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but in the world of naming conventions in general, if everyone else is doing it, that doesn’t mean it’s a surefire strategy. Just look at all the people who named their businesses “AAA… x” over the last 50 years to be first in the phone book; how many Fortune 2000’s are named “AAA company?”

12. Use an Ajax Domain Selection Tool

Websites like AJAXWhois and Domjax make it exceptionally easy to determine availability of a domain name - just remember that you don’t have to buy through these services. You can find a name you like that’s available, then go to your registrar of choice.

by randfish/SEOMOZ.org

1. Far Cheaper and Much More Flexible Than Print Advertising

The Internet is extremely different from print advertising in that space is cheap, your advertisement is accessible for a longer period of time, the content can be changed without having to ask someone to do it for you (if you use a content management system) and you can potentially reach a wider audience. This is not to say that you should not use other forms of advertising at all You can use it to entice people to visit your website and find out about your company and potentially open two-way communication between the potential customer and a sales person.

2. Market Expansion

The Internet has allowed businesses to break through the geographical barriers and become accessible, virtually, from any country in the world by a potential customer that has Internet access.

3. Diversify Revenue Streams

A website is not just a medium for representation of your company, it is a form of media from which everybody can acquire information. You can use this media to sell advertising space to other businesses.
A recent trend has risen where businesses feature their very own directory of complimentary services, where the visitor can search for information on a business that will enhance the use of your service. The business sells complimentary businesses a listing in their directory.
A good example is a catering company featuring a directory with businesses such as event co-coordinators, electronic equipment rental companies, etc.

4. 24 7 365

No more turning customers away when its time to close shop, putting up a note saying closed for public holiday , or leaving an irritating message on your answering service specifying your trading hours tell them to visit your website for information they are looking for.

5. Offer Convenience

It is far more convenient for a person to research a product on the Internet than it is to get in a car, drive somewhere and look for or ask someone for information on a product. Also, a potential customer won t have to judge a call centre agent to determine whether he/she has their best interests in mind, or just wants to make a sale.
The potential customer can visit your website whenever they like in their own privacy and comfort, without the stresses and distractions that exist in the real world .?Your website is a self-service medium for example, instead of having to wait in a long cue to pay your TV License, you can now do it electronically through the TV License website.

6. Add Value and Satisfaction?

By offering convenience, a point of reference and that touch of individualized customer service, you ultimately add value to your offering and your customers experience a higher level of satisfaction.
Your website can add value in other ways too, by featuring tips, advice and general interest content you can entertain your customers. This will also help them remember you better.

7. Standardize Sales Performance

By looking at which approached / pitches have worked in the past and those which have not, you can produce the ultimate pitch and use it with your website, so that you use it on every customer. No more training of sales people and waiting for them to get a feel for your line of trade.

8. Improve credibility

A website gives you the opportunity to tell potential customers what you are about and why you deserve their trust and confidence. In fact, many people use the internet for pre-purchase research so that they can determine for themselves whether a particular supplier or brand is worthy of their patronage, and won t take them for a ride.?The Internet also allows for Viral Marketing where your website visitors spread positive word-of-mouth about your business - your customers do your marketing!

9. Promote your Brick n Mortar Presence

Getting lost trying to find a place can be frustrating for a potential customer. You can publish what they call a dummy map on your website, which shows directions and landmarks graphically, and the potential customer can print it out when looking for your Brick n Mortar premises.
You might advertise a promotion on your website encouraging the visitor to visit your Brick n Mortar premises (e.g.. At a branch near you! ).?Also, if you recently moved to a new location, you will have to wait for the next ‘phone directory to come out before people figure out where you currently are. Because a website is flexible you can change the content as you like you can change you contact details instantly and lower the risk of losing customers when moving to a new location.

10. Growth Opportunity

A website serves as a great place to refer potential investors to, to show them what your company is about, what it has achieved and what it can achieve in future.

11. Two-Way Communicative Marketing

Customers can quickly and easily give feedback on your product and/or marketing approach.

12. Cheap Market Research

You can use features on your website such as visitor polls, online surveys and your website statistics to find out what your customers like more and how they feel about certain aspects of your business to determine how you can improve your product and the way you do business.
Website statistics show you how much traffic your website receives, how the visitor got to your website and where, geographically, the visitor is from.

By John Simms, Internet Marketer for Eiledon Solutions