First, lets talk about why use the Internet to promote your business.
10 ways the Internet can help your business succeed:
- It’s faster than radio, TV, or print media
- It’s cheaper than radio, TV, or print media
- It’s easier to track results than radio, TV, or print media
- It’s interactive with your prospective customer
- You can target your market with laser-like precision
- It can easily tell you where the trends are, and how to profit from them faster
- It can be used to accelerate the growth of your business
- It can help you identify market needs at a much faster pace
- It can help deliver your product or service instantly
- It helps you communicate with the masses faster, easier and cheaper than any other medium
There are currently millions of web sites on the Internet. Unfortunately, many fall under the category of mediocre in design. For this reason, it is very important for you to know the simple questions you must ask yourself as you build your site.
1. Why do I want a web site? What is its purpose?
What is the main reason you want a web site? Is it to supplement your advertising arsenal? Is it to sell a product or service? Or is it just because your competitor has one. Focus on how your site can achieve what is important to your business. Knowing exactly how your site will fit your organization’s goals is very important. It is the first step in designing an effective and powerful web site.
2. Who is my target audience?
The better you target your market the more effective your site will be. Don’t try to be all things to all people. Just because there are over 100 million people on line, you shouldn’t attempt to target them all. A more direct approach will be to design your site targeted at one specific group or market. If you do not know who your target market is, you should consult an advertising firm who will help you, or hire a marketing research firm to get this information for you.
3. How can I get the most visitors to my site?
What can you offer your target market that will make them want to visit you. Once you have them, what can you do to get them coming back? You can design your site to be a resource site in order to educate your visitors. You can offer special reports if you’re selling a service, or free shipping if you’re selling a product. Whatever you decide, make sure it is something of value to the visitor. Make sure the visitor benefits from your site and they will come back. Better yet, they’ll refer your site to others.
4. Who else has a web site like mine?
Before designing your web site, take a look at the competition. Study what they’ve done’what you like about it and what you don’t like about it. Once you’ve seen a few similar sites from around the world, you’ll have a pretty good idea as to what you specifically want. Once you see the best site out there, don’t try to duplicate it! Your site should be even better!
5. How often should I update my web site?
You should update your web site as much as once per month. Visit your web site regularly and make sure all the links work and that all the information is current. If you have someone design the site for you, make sure you do not pay exorbitant fees for up dates. At A&E Advertising, we allow one free update section per month. This also keeps your audience coming back. Test different offers for your products or services. That’s the beauty of the Internet, it allows you to make changes almost immediately at a minimal cost.
6. How will people find my web site through search engines?
When designing your web site, make sure it is designed with special key words, title and description that will help search engines find your site. Make belief that someone is looking for your product, and come up with about 10 to 12 key phrases that people may use to find you. Insert these key words, or phrases when designing your site and search engines will find you easier.
7. Should I use a domain name? If so, what should it be?
A domain name is the Internet address you will use when advertising your web site. You can use your company’s name, such as aeadvertising.com . Or a description of what your company offers, such as advertisingandwebdesign.com. You can also choose a benefit that your organization offers, such as increasedprofits.com. A domain name is highly recommended because it gives your web site and company more credibility. We will handle all of your domain name needs, from research to registration. If you’d like to do it yourself, you can research and register your domain name at aeDomain.com.
8. Should I design the web site myself, or hire a professional?
Web sites are extremely inexpensive today, compared to a few years ago. You can easily design a web site yourself using various tools-without programming knowledge. There are a few main designing programs used for designing web sites. They are: Joomla, Mambo, WordPress and DreamWeaver. Technology now allows anyone to design a web site with ease as long as they have the right tools.
When you need a custom-designed web site, you should hire a professional. Prices vary according to the type of work needed as well as the number of bells and whistles. You can expect to pay from $2,000 to thousands of dollars depending on your needs and budget. When hiring a professional, make sure that you have a good idea of what you’re looking for before the initial meeting. A good web designer should be able to show you their portfolio without hesitation, and should be able to suggest ideas to get the most out of your site for designing it and promoting it. You can click here to see our portfolio.
9. Should I accept credit cards on my web site?
If you would like to accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, etc., you should get a merchant account. You can visit your existing or local bank and inquire about the types of merchant accounts they offer. If your bank does not offer merchant accounts, you can check your local yellow pages, for a list of companies that offer such services.
You can also visit www.PayPal.com, or www.AcceptCreditCardsNow.biz in order to accept credit cards. There are many reasons to choose one type of service over the other, therefore, you should do your homework and compare each plan. Check for transaction fees, discount rates, monthly fees, and everything else that will affect your bottom line.
10. How do I get traffic to my web site?
There are various strategies to driving targeted traffic to your web site. You can Blog; write articles; create a linking strategy; optimize your site for search engines; pay for top search engine positioning; create an affiliate program; capture and database email addresses; create an on-line newsletter; joint venture with other businesses; and much more.
Naturally, there are dozens if not hundreds of great marketing strategies you can employ to get traffic, and ultimately sell your product or service. Our job is to help you create the most profitable, yet affordable internet marketing strategy possible in order to get the most out of your investment.
If you’d like to schedule a meeting to discuss a custom-designed marketing strategy, please click here to complete our contact form. We will schedule a free consultation that will help us create the most profitable Internet Marketing Plan that meets your needs.
If you’d like to learn the many Internet marketing strategies in order to promote your business on your own, you can visit www.InternetMarketingWorkshops.com.