Small Business

SMALL BUSINESS BLUEPRINT STORE SHOP STREET BOOTH ONLINE INTERNET SMALL BUSINESS WE SELL KING AD's P.O.BOX 1322 Milwaukee, WI 53201

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ONLINE BUSINESS

INFORMATION

Creating a Successful Presence Online

In creating a website, there a several things you need to address in getting the best, and most secure site you can get.

The 7 items I want to discuss in this section are:

•1  WEB HOSTING

•2  DOMAIN NAMES

•3  HTML

•4  DESIGN STRATEGIES

•5  SITE TEXT

•6  ORDERING & PAYMENT ISSUES

•7  AUTO-RESPONDERS

All of these things have the potential of helping or hurting your website. This section will identify for you how important it is to take proper steps and make correct choices in relation to your Internet presence. So by taking the time to do this right the first time, you will be much further ahead down the road. You will also feel much better about your business because you did it right the first time as opposed to having to make unnecessary changes later on in your business that may cost additional income.

Remember there are two ways in starting your business in today's world; the first being "Trial and Error." With this way, you can expect to pay more. The second is "follow in someone's successful footsteps;" it savings you a substantial amount of time and money. I will identify for you what is called the "10 second rule" in regards to your website, and how to keep the potential customers within your site. If your customers won't stay on your site because its slow, or to difficult to read or understand, you've just lost money! First impressions are everything. So make it count!

 Web Hosting

Choosing the company to host your website, you are making one of the most important decisions you can make regarding your online business. Would you just point to a name in the phone book and call someone up and offer them a chance to be your business partner? Of course not. But many people use much the same technique when selecting a web host. It's a mistake. Your web host is vital to the success of your site. It is the "engine" that is running your money making machine, and if the engine breaks down, your money maker grinds to a stop.

If your web host is not reliable, your website will not be either! If your web host is slow, your website will be slow too. And no one will wait forever for your page to load, even if your product is the best in the world.

You can't afford to do business with a web host that is down 20% of the time, is slow, or has no security. Do your research up front, and find a hosting company with a proven track record. It is worth the time and money to find a reliable partner. Don't try to save a few cents on a less reliable provider. What is saving a few cents going to mean to you when you are losing thousands of dollars each month to downtime? Are you going to care about a few extra dollars if the host's hardware crashes, losing all of your data including your website?

Take the time to do your homework first. Will you be building and designing your own website? There are lots of companies out there who will build it for you. In this scenario, you must remember that the cost will be high to have them do it entirely for you. Can you do it yourself? Yes, YOU CAN! Take the time to research companies that allow you to build the website yourself using their web-building software or have them give you a password that will allow you to access their online builder.

Whatever route you decide to take, Get to know the ins and outs of how your host operates, when they are available for technical support, etc. Find a reliable company to host your site, or it will cost you in money and headaches later on.

     Domain Names

Why should you purchase your own domain name? Two reasons.

NUMBER ONE

You want your name to reflect what you are selling. People would rather visit a descriptive website name that sounds "legitimate" than a site with a name like www.xyzhost.com/joespages. Wouldn't you? This second example is commonly referred to as a Sub-Domain name. It is the provider's name and then your business name after it. Think about how you want to represent yourself out there in the world, out there to your potential customers. You want them to remember your name the first time they see it.

NUMBER TWO

If you have your own domain name, your web host cannot hold you hostage and after you move, your customers can still find you because you haven't changed your website URL.

So you need a domain name and you need one quickly. Domain names are going fast and people are buying them up so that they can resell them to someone who REALLY wants them later on. But don't panic if all of the ones you can think of are taken. You can register a domain name up to 67 characters in length, so you still can put together groups of words or phrases that will still generate traffic to your site.

When deciding on and registering a name, make sure you that register all iterations of your business name and product. You may just leave them empty or you can direct each of them to your one sales site, but the point is that others won't be able to use them if you have already registered them.

Another thing to remember is to try to get a .com domain name if possible. People don't remember .net or .org names as well, and you can lose visitors to your site which equates to money out of your pocket. So be creative if you need to be, and register a .com domain name. Use a memorable name, even if it is long, because it will provide a description of what you are trying to sell. If you just can't find a domain name ending in .com, then move to the second most popular suffix which is .net.

A different way to go with domain names is to use a catchy phrase even if it doesn't describe your business or product. Names like www.dont-count-yourchickens.com or something like that can draw people to your site, just because it is memorable and catchy. Names like these can also boost your search engine ratings!

Speaking of search engines, you can use other domain names that are loaded with keywords that describe your product to submit to search engines. Search engines love domains that have a lot of keywords in them and you can use these "alternate" domain names to direct people to your "real" domain/website. You can register domains with lots of keywords with and without hyphens, and I suggest you do so. Why? Search engines prefer hyphenated URLs and visitors prefer them without. So satisfy both by registering your keyword domain both ways. (I'll talk more about search engines in Section 5.)

Here are some ideas for keyword-rich domain names.

www.crafts-dolls-art-supplies.com www.craftsdolisartsupplies.com www.dogs-cats-birds-pets-reptiles.com www.dogscatsbirdspetsreptiles.com

As you can see, it wont take you long to figure out a keyword-type URL to submit to search engines for your business.

You can also register your name as a URL. Not only can you use this for online businesses, but personal and family websites as well. And a great benefit of having a website with your name as the URL, is that anyone you ever give your URL to can find your site - forever!

Remember that registering a domain name only costs between $6.95 on up to $25 per year. It depends on entirely where you register the domain name at online, and there are lots of options out there. You are not required to actually put up a website on every name you reserve. You are merely holding the name for future use, or security purposes so someone else can't take it. In fact, you may want to register other names which have to do with other ideas you may wish to pursue in the future as well, just to ensure that you will have them when the time comes.

Another very important reason to get your own domain name, is that it will allow you to have a permanent email address. If you plan to do business on the Internet, you must invest in a permanent email address that you can use for the rest of your life.

You can get a permanent email address through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) for a small annual charge. This will forward all of your email, no matter where you are or what new address you are using. However, if you try to go through your ISP, you may waste time and money. If they close business or just decide to shut you down, you lose your email address and domain name forever.

Here are some companies that can help you to obtain a permanent email address: POBox.com, Net Forward, Net Identity, A.K.A.Mail

DOMAIN EXTENSIONS

Extensions are categories of Internet domain names. There are several to choose from:

•com represents the word "commercial," and is the most widely used extension in the world. Most businesses prefer a .com domain name because it is a highly recognized symbol for having a business presence on the Internet.

•net represents the word "network," and is most commonly used by Internet service providers, Web-hosting companies or other businesses that are directly involved in the infrastructure of the Internet. Additionally, some businesses choose domain names with a .net extension for their intranet Websites.

•org represents the word "organization," and is primarily used by non-profits groups or trade associations.

•biz is used for small business Web sites.

•Info is for credible resource Web sites and signifies a "resource" web site. It's the most popular extension beyond .com, .net and .org.

• US is for American Web sites and is the newest extension. It has the largest amount of available names in inventory.

•CC was originally the country code for Coco's Keeling Islands. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

• bz was originally designated as the country code for Belize, but is now commonly used by small business who can't get the name they want using the .biz extension. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

•tv is for rich content/multi-media Web sites, commonly used within the entertainment or media industry.

 HTML

HTML,,stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and it is the major language in which most websites are written. You will want to learn HTML so that you can make changes to your own site without being at the mercy of others.

This is easier than you might think. First of all, there are many tutorial programs out there that will help you learn HTML. Using one of the programs will give the background you need to make changes to your site. A FREE guide to barebones HTML programming is available at http://www.werbach.com/ barebones/ Remember HTML is very easy to learn, it just takes a little effort.

The other thing that makes using HTML easy, is that you can use any number of HTML editors to create and edit your website. Using an editor is like using a word processing program. You type in what you want to say, insert your graphics, change colors, etc., and what you see is what you get when you publish it to the web. The back end of the editor inserts all of the HTML tags to create what you have done on the screen. Piece of cake!

There are lots of editors out there, but the ones that I would recommend are:

• Microsoft FrontPage
• Dreamweaver (www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver)
• HotDog (http://www.sausagetools.com
• Visual Web Tools (http://www.pacificwebworks.com

You can download trial versions of the second two and try them out. In fact, just spending some time going through these editors will teach you a great deal about HTML language. If you want to see an example of HTML on a real web page, follow these steps:

• Open a web page in your browser Click on the View drop down menu.

There should be a View Source Code option or it will just say Source. When you click on this, you can see the HTML code "behind the scenes" of the web page.

So now that you know that you should learn HTML, let me give a couple of compelling reasons why.

Waiting for someone else - if you don't know how to make changes on your site, you are at the mercy of someone else. You may have to wait until a backlogged programmer has time to make a tiny correction or change for you. Do you want to wait several days to have a typo changed?

Number of Changes - at the beginning, as you work to get your site "just right", you may have a large number of changes, perhaps every day. If you are using someone else to make those changes, they may not have the time to make all the adjustments you want done, or it may be cost

prohibitive for you. By doing the HTML changes yourself, you save time and money and get just what you want.

Losing it in the translation - when you describe what you want to the programmer working on your site, can you be sure he is picturing what you are picturing? Will the site turn out the way YOU want, or the way HE is imagining it? You have total control on making your ideas turn out the way you want if you are the one programming it.

Even if you desire a really complex site and want to go with a web designer for the initial site programming, I would still recommend that you learn basic HTML so that you can do the tweaking on the site once it is up. This will save you time and money as you go along, for the same reasons I mentioned above. You won't be at the mercy of your programmer's schedule and you won't be charged for every little change that you want to make.

Make sure that you do a little research and find a quality web designer that

won't charge you too much. You shouldn't have to pay a fortune to get a quality website put up. Ask for references, and take the time to check them. Your website is an extremely important part of your business, and you want it to be fantastic.

Since we are on the subject of web design, let's move on to the "look" of your site - the design and text that will make the first impression on your visitors. Later, I will discuss some of the "guts" of the site when I talk about how to set up ordering and payment, as well as auto-responders that will reply to those who order.

 Design Strategies for Your Website

If you want to be successful online, you need to make your website a quick and easy place for people to order. If your site is slow, or sloppy, or confusing, your potential buyers will go elsewhere. You only have a very short time frame to get someone online, and online buyers are impatient.

I have outlined some good rules of thumb to keep in mind when designing your site. Read through them once, and then when your page is done, go through them again to make sure that you haven't "broken" any of them.

MAKE YOUR SITE FAST!

If your website is slow to load, your potential customers may not wait and will click elsewhere. If something is not up within around 10 seconds, they wont stick around.

There are a lot of elements that contribute to the speed of your pages loading. The speed of your customers' computer is one of them. Not everyone is using high speed internet; there are still plenty of people out there with slow modems and dial-up connections. You have to remember that these slow modems with cause your page to load slower.

Another thing that will bog down your page is a lot of graphics or really large graphics. Other than simply using fewer graphics, there are a few different ways to handle this.

Compress the file size of your images - WebGraphics Optimizer is a good program for optimizing and compressing images for the Web. Compressed images will load considerably faster and take up less space as well.

Create a "space" for the graphics on the page - Using HTML, you can specify the dimensions of the graphics that will be loading. By doing this, the browser will "create" the area that the graphic will need before the graphic actually loads. This will allow the rest of the page to display before the graphic shows up, and it allows your viewer to begin reading the information on your site without waiting for everything to load.

Keep the "files" to a minimum - Let me explain. Most browsers are set to a default maximum of four sockets. Each socket allows one file to be downloaded to the computer. So four sockets means four files simultaneously. A web page consists of the HTML "file" and then each graphic is another "file". By limiting the number of files and graphics to around five (the HTML page and four graphics) then the web page and three of the graphics will load up simultaneously, with only one graphic left to load once a socket becomes free. This may not be possible, but it is a good trick to remember when trying to increase loading speeds.

Size & Resolution - On a website, graphics do not need to be large or have a high resolution. This is not print. A resolution of 72 dpi is sufficient and 256 color graphics will be fine. The higher the resolution and color, the larger the graphic file size will be. By lowering the resolution and color, you will save file size and speed.

Replace graphics with something else - For example, you can use colored text to set off different sections rather than having a graphic at the start of each new paragraph or page. It will look cleaner and load faster.

Text instead of graphics - Some visitors turn off the graphics on their browsers, so make sure that you provide a text alternative for each image. This lets those users know what the picture is supposed to be. This also helps in a case where someone presses the stop button to cancel the downloading of a slow site. The page will probably come up, but not the graphics. You can do this easily using HTML code.

Inform your viewer if your site is unavoidably slow - Sometimes your business or product will necessarily be graphic intensive. When your website is large and perhaps slow-loading, it is wise to put a note at the top of the page that informs your visitors to be patient while the page loads. When you do this, you will get more people who will wait rather than give up.

COLLECT EMAIL ADDRESSES OF THOSE WHO VISIT

Offer information for free in order to get their email address. This is important because it allows you to compile a list for future marketing campaigns. If they visited your site once, they are more likely to respond favorably to email marketing from you later on. You can offer free reports, newsletter, e-Books, etc, and set up an auto-responder to send out the information automatically once you have the email address.

DON'T SEND YOUR VISITORS SOMEWHERE ELSE!

Do not include links to other sites on your main page; always put links on a separate page. You don't want to do all the hard work of getting someone to your site, only to have them click over to someone else's.

MAKE YOUR SITE EASY TO GET AROUND

Lead your customer where you want them to be. Don't give them tons of choices and then hope that they make it to the order form so they can buy your product. Lead them to the purchase decision, and make it easy for them to get there.

Give them the information that they need right away. Don't make them sift through irrelevant information before they can get to what they came for. Most people won't wait that long. The easier it is to navigate your site, the longer they will stay and the more likely they are to return later.

Provide consistent links on each page that make it easy to move from page to page and back without having to use the "Back" button on the browser. Keep the links simple and easy to understand using text or icons. Keep these "navigation" buttons in the same place on each page (top, bottom, side, etc.) so that they aren't searching for them on each new page. Make sure that EVERY page has a link to your home page. You don't want to lose someone who accidentally landed on a sub-page and has no way of getting back to the main page and order form. Avoid using a large graphic as your navigation tool.

 Automating Your Site

I want to discuss creating a fully automated website. If you begin by doing this right from the start, it will save you a lot of time in the future. I realize this goes contrary to what I have been teaching you as far as allowing your business to make money first, then letting it pay for itself. However, it is very important with your website to start off fully on automated solfware.

 Sales Copy

Now let's move on to the sales text or copy. Your copy should not tell your potential customers about the features of the product. Instead, emphasize how your product will improve the customer's life.

EXAMPLE

Let's say that your product is a skin care lotion. Your original text reads as follows:

"ABC Beauty Cream is made from the finest ingredients, has a lovely floral scent, and feels like silk on your face! We have a commitment against any products tested on animals. The cost is only $19.99 per jar. Buy one today."

You can see why no one would really care one way or the other if they bought this skin cream over the stuff their Avon lady is selling. But if you change your copy to emphasize the benefits of using your cream over Avon's, then...

"Is your skin dry and tight? Do you feel like all of the smog, and pollution settles onto your face by the end of the day? ABC Beauty Cream can make your face feel like you've just stepped out of a spa! Smooth on ABC Cream at the end of the day, and feel the stress and grime of your day slip away. Your face will feel softer. The floral aromatherapy scent will soothe your senses. And your skin tone and texture will improve as you continue to use ABC Cream. Similar products sell for as much as $30 out of catalogs, but ABC Cream is yours for the low price of $19.99. Buy today and get free shipping!"

You can see how a customer would be enticed into buying the product in the second example. A woman would be able to imagine her face feeling clean and fresh after a long day. You answer the question "What's in it for me?" and your customers will buy from you.

Don't try to sell your product to a customer, instead help them solve their problem. Focus on the benefits of your product, and how it will help the customer. It is much easier to sell a solution than a product. Focus on a solution instead of a feature. Toothpaste companies focus on a whiter, brighter smile, not the flavor of the toothpaste or the ingredients that help whiten.

People are motivated when they are afraid they will miss out on something, or if they can gain something additional when buying from you. Use these two tools in your marketing copy. Make them aware of what they are missing out on, or wasting if they do not buy. Show them what they can gain or save if they do.

But always remember - people do not want to be sold something. Do not waste your time listing the features of your product, focus on the benefits and what they will get from your product. Benefits are not the cost of the product, the color, of the features. Benefits answer the questions "What's in it for me?" "Why should I keep reading?" or "Why should I buy from you?"

Here are some other things to keep in mind when writing your sales copy.

GIVE YOUR CUSTOMERS INFORMATION

When you take the time to educate your visitors, you are establishing credibility for you and your site. When your potential customers see you as an expert, they are more willing to buy from you. They

want to purchase from someone who knows what they are talking about, so give them the information that proves that person is you.

Explain how using your product will enhance