Creating A Successful Business Website

Creating A Successful
Business Web Site

The creation of your Web site should be a shared process. The more involved YOU are the more successful your site will be. Maui Cyber Design wants to involve you every step of the way. The following guide contains questions which you, as the client, should be prepared to address in order to ensure the success of your online presentation.

1. CLARIFY YOUR GOALS

So... You want a web site. WHY? Answering this question is often the hardest thing for people to do, but it is necessary. If you fail to define your goals prior to venturing out commercially on the web, your Web site will lack direction and purpose.

Will your Web site be an electronic brochure describing your company? Will you be actively selling on line? Will you be providing free information?

Try writing a web 'mission statement'; just a simple paragraph or two that states what you want your web page/site to do for your company, who you believe your potential clients will be, and why these clients will come to you rather than your competition.

These goals need to be firm in your mind - and your web site designer's mind - at all times in order for your web site successful.

2. VISUALIZE YOUR SITE FROM A MARKETING PERSPECTIVE In most cases, Maui Cyber Design will do the bulk of your site marketing, however your input during the initial design phase is invaluable, as clearly no one knows your business better than you. If you are already online and surfing the web, try asking yourself the following questions:

Are your competitors on line? Who are they? Do you think their sites work? Why or why not? How can yours be better?

Do you have any “allies” on line? These could be Associations or Organizations you may belong to, web sites which may support you by providing free links to your site, and news groups which directly relate to your area of business or expertise.

Finally. Is your target market online? They probably are. The trick is to discover where they spend their time.

3. TOGETHER, WE'LL BUILD YOUR SITE!

First, we assemble the materials. This is easy if steps 1 & 2 have been completed properly.

We begin with the text -- the content.
In most cases, unless you're selling fine art, this is the meat of a site. Detailed information about your products or services are a necessity. The more information we have in the beginning the better. Testimonials from clients can be helpful. Do you often get questions about your products and services? Well, consider answering those questions online in the content.

You may want to have a “Favorite Links” page on your site. Hey, everyone else has one, right? Weigh the pros and cons of this very carefully: Pros are that if you provide links to other sites, they in turn will most often provide a link back. This is an inexpensive and effective marketing tool. Cons are there's a good chance this will be the departure point from your site for many potential customers.

Next come the images.
Find images which compliment the content. The image quality is very important. 3X5 snapshots are fine as long as they're GOOD snapshots. If you're serious about your web site, you will invest in high quality images. If you can't afford a traditional photo shoot, Maui Cyber Design can help out with our digital camera services.

We establish an intuitive navigation scheme.
How will your visitors travel through your site? Where will most of them enter and where do you want them to end up? We will ensure that your site navigation scheme is easy. Intuitive.

Site construction begins.
Content and navigation plans dictate the design. Keeping in mind your company's goals and marketing issues, Maui Cyber Design will design a test site or draft for your review. Where necessary, we'll create custom buttons and page headers. Should your site require internet “bells and whistles” we'll begin working on them at this time too.

Testing & tweaking.
Finally, Maui Cyber Design will put your beta site online temporarily so that you can view it in its actual form. Once everyone is satisfied, we go online!

4. MARKETING YOUR WEB SITE

Most web design companies stop after a site is put online. “Here's your web page. Good luck.” Luck has nothing to do with it. Diligent and creative marketing efforts does.

There are millions of web pages available on the World Wide Web and the numbers are growing all the time. Yours will be but one. You can have the most attractive and potentially most effective site on the net, but if no one knows about it, no one will visit it.

First and foremost, your site must be listed with as many search engines and web page listing locations as possible. Maui Cyber Design will hand-submit you to the major search engines and directories for a nominal fee. Hand submission is important. There are a number of companies offering submission to hundreds if not THOUSANDS of locations for a one time charge, however virtually no custom entry goes into these submissions and chances are your submission will fail or not be complete in a good majority of cases.

There are even a few search engines like SEARCH HOUND (click on URL Bid) and GO TO which allow you to bid on search terms, with the highest bidder getting the highest placement. These spots are NOT expensive and can be easily and affordably worked into any marketing package.

Marketing efforts shouldn't end with the search engines, though. If you aren't going to spend any money on paid advertising, then expect to put in the hours finding the free and low-cost ways to promote your site. Besides requesting links from as many sites as possible, there are a variety of other marketing techniques like regular newsletters and targeted email marketing which can be considered. There are a handful of reputable companies which offer targeted email lists. Do not go for BULK email lists no matter how tempting the price. These get you into serious trouble and can annoy potential customers. Try sources like SEARCH HOUND (click on SH Direct) and POSTMASTER first.

There's no way around it. Proper marketing takes work. There's no instant technique. Maui Cyber Design will develop a cost efficient marketing plan which works specifically for your business. Then, you can choose to either do the work yourself, or contract us to do it for you.

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