Why is having a website so important?

A professional looking website is an essential tool for any business.  Having a website is the easiest and most cost effective way to reach so many people. The internet is open to the public 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week, which means that there is virtually no end to how many people you can contact.  Your website should load quickly, be easy to navigate, and be compatible with all web browsers. This way your customers won’t get frustrated waiting for a page to load or struggle to find information. 

• Over 80% of the US population has access to the internet and over 1.5 billion people are online worldwide.

• Today’s consumers expect businesses to have a professional looking website

• Business is being conducted more and more over the internet and a website is the perfect way to reach millions of people all over the world.

• Save time and money by having answers to frequently asked questions available online. 

• Gather information about your customers easily with online analytics or surveys.

• Expand your customer base by being able to reach a whole new segment of potential clients in the market.

• Websites are the most cost effective form of advertising. 

• A website can provide an unlimited amount of information.

• Websites are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year.

• All of your company and product information can be quickly updated as needed with very little cost.

• Most likely your competition already has a website or soon will.

• Online newsletters are a great way to keep your customers informed about specials, sales or any other events happening.

• Customers can easily give feedback on your company, products, or services.

• Online retail sales continue to grow at rates in excess of 20 percent and over 124 Billion dollars were spent online last year alone.

• 2008 Holiday spending exceeded 29 Billion dollars.  This was an increase of 19% from the previous year.

What your website design should do

• Attract an interest in your product or service

• Create a demand for your product or service

• Get results that are measurable

What is Domain name registration and website hosting?

• A website domain name is also known as your “website address”, such as www.yourcompany.com.  Domain names are registered through domain registrars and can be registered for up to 10 years at a time. 

• Website hosting refers to the files of your website being stored on a “web server” which are owned by hosting companies.  This makes your site available online to the public 24/7.   

Common updates for your website

• Regularly add fresh content and information to keep your customers coming back

• Announce upcoming events for your business

• Inform your customers about new products or services

• Have a routine product feature that showcases 1 or 2 of your different products in detail each week or month 

• Add new features to your site such as a blog, forum, survey, or newsletter…

Benefits of an email newsletter over traditional mailings:

• Email newsletters cost a fraction of the price of traditional media

• Customers will receive it moments after it is sent

• Ability to track important data regarding each newsletter

• Emails can be created much quicker then print mailings

• Environmentally Friendly!

What is a Search Engine Optimized (SEO) website?

“SEO” refers to the process of building a website so that it is search engine friendly.  This is a very important aspect of building your site. It will get you listed higher in search engine results and will bring more traffic to your site.  (up to 85% of all Websites are found after a search engine request)  Here are a few examples of what this includes:

• Manually submitting your website to 10-15 of the top Search Engines and Directories such as Google and Yahoo.

• Building your site with proper meta-tags and meta-descriptions.

• Properly using page titles and clean URL’s.

• Using keywords in the content of your sites pages.

• Building a website using proper web standards.

• Creating XML and HTML sitemaps for search engines to be able to correctly find and index your websites pages.

What are web standard compliant sites?

• These are standards that are used to make sure the coding in your site is done properly.  Having a site that is web standard compliant means that your site will be viewed easier and quicker by search engines.  It also means that your site should function properly and look the same in all the different web browsers being used.

What are XML and HTML sitemaps?

• Sitemaps are a very important part of your web design.  An XML sitemap is the type of sitemap that search engines such as Google and Yahoo use to “crawl” your website.  This allows them to index all of your pages and information so that your site will become available in their search results. HTML sitemaps are generally for your website visitors to use like they would a table of contents in a book.