Web site objectives

Before you even contact a web designer to create your online presence you need to determine what are your online aims and objectives. In the creation of these objectives you need to ensure they are:

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely

This will ensure that you can properly monitor the success of your online activities, and provide you with a clear understanding of what you want your web presence to achieve.

In terms of the types of objective, these can be any number of things, but typically they include the following areas:

To sell
To better serve customers
To reduce costs
To build your brand image
To communicate with the outside world

Once you have clearly defined your online and web site’s objectives, you can move on to the next stage of determining your audience.

Web site targets

Knowing who you want to target is important for a number of reasons. Firstly who you target will impact on whether you need a web site, and if you do how it will be presented and the functionality to be provided, secondly it will determine what messages need to be conveyed through the web site and thirdly it will determine whether you need to segment the information presented on your web site and if you do, provide you with an idea how to do it. Read the rest of this entry »

Many individuals and small businesses have web sites. Many of those web sites are worthless or nearly worthless. Sorry to be blunt, but it’s true. Look at the questions below. If you can’t answer these questions, you need a better web site. If the questions cause you to be concerned about how your site is hosted or designed, then you need to make changes.

You deserve to have a web site that generates traffic and income as well as provide you with credibility and prestige. Do not waste any more time or money on something that doesn’t work.

These questions are designed to make you think about what your web site (or web hosting company) is – or should be – doing for you.

If you already have a web site, ask yourself the following questions:

How many unique visitors does your site attract each month?

How many pages do these visitors to your site view?

Do you have the ability to track (or get a report of) how many visitors view your site each day?

Which of your web pages is visited most frequently? Why?

Where does your site rank at each of the major search engines?

Is the rank this month better than last month?

Do you know where each of your web pages rank at each of the major search engines? Read the rest of this entry »

With the ever-expanding popularity of the Internet comes e-commerce, the exploding trend of doing business on-line. Perhaps you have witnessed first- hand the infinite power of communication, information, and marketing afforded by this awesome tool.

But how do you get from the basic concept of your own web site- to a professionally designed site, up and running on your own domain? The following information may helpful.

Planning Your Web Site

Some questions you need to answer before developing your own custom web site design are:

Will it be a personal web site? Personal web sites usually focus on family and friends, or things such as hobbies, recent news, or “fun” things.

Will it be for conducting or promoting business? On the internet you will find an endless variety of business web sites, ranging from basic customer information type sites, to enormous ecommerce web sites like ebay or amazon. Read the rest of this entry »