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Lately, I’ve developed an annoying twitch that makes my right eye blink uncontrollably, stiffening my hands and causing me to sweat profusely. It generally happens whenever I hear a business owner say “Web site? What for? I really don’t need that sort of thing”.
These words are enough to trigger the twitch, followed by a barely-contained need to punch something repeatedly (hasn’t happened yet, but I am close).
Why would a business want a web site? I think the question is much too obvious nowadays, but since my twitch keeps reappearing I think I will mention at least the very basic points.
Keep in mind, although these points are very simple, they are not unimportant:
Presence
From the basics, the most basic and yet, the most valid. You MUST have a web site (of course, you will need also a web hosting account and a domain). Would you think to open a business without a phone line? Get real! With a web site your clients can find you, check your contact info, review your products and services and a long etcetera.
Attract New Clients
When a new prospect visits your web site, he/she has the opportunity to know about your organization before anybody talks to him/her. What could be better than a new client that already knows your company and has picked up the phone or sent an email to contact you? The sale is halfway closed!
Service Your Current Clients
Do you have a new product or service? Tell your clients everything about it trough your web site. Changes in prices? Post them in your site. New manuals, upgrades, new location? They must be in your web site! Did you just get a new phone line? Get a BIG announcement in your home page!
Describe in Detail
If your products or services require a detailed or technical explanation, your web site is the best tool. You can post as much information as needed: PDF files, pictures, manuals and whatever you can think of. As you have additional info you can upload it and your clients will be able to instantly find it.
Constant Updating
Already mentioned, but this point is worth elaborating. Each time that something changes in your organization, you have the opportunity to tell all of your clients through your web site. Products, prices, service policies, press releases, anything at all! Did you change your logo? Let your web site show it. Give your site a quick check at least once a year (every 6 months is better) and make changes as required. Let your clients notice you are still there.
Show Off
Yes, your web site lets you show off the kind of work you’ve done for other clients. Ask for testimonials and include them in your web site. Prospects love these since it gives your business credibility (we will talk about the best way to post your testimonials in another column).
Shame on You
To finish, if all these haven’t been able to convince you, think that a web site is really cheap (most web hosting services cost less than a 100 dollars a year). Would you think of doing business with somebody that can’t pay at least that? I would think twice about it.
I could go on with many more important arguments, but I hope you’ve got the idea. Now go get your web site! I am off to get a valium to calm my twitch.
Everybody has his own particular point of view about internet use and its advantages. I will explain you why your point of view is wrong and mine right.
Salehoo: Wholesale Kazuri Beads
Salehoo is perfect for anyone who wants to buy and resell products on the Internet, or just purchase items for a bargain price. Make sure that you learn how everything works, before buying anything. Do some research, learn and only then spend money. For starters I fail to understand why anyone would want to pay to have access to a list of suppliers? I mean we live in an age where anything can be found with a little research online there are dozens of free directories that will give you the same information as a premium list if not more so why pay for it? Do a bit of ground work and you will be able to find all the information you need, so learn all about Salehoo wholesalers.
Salehoo is not a one-stop-shopping solution instead it provides a locus for buyerssuppliers wholesalers drop shippers and liquidators by facilitating seamless interconnectivity between them which is the real benefit of Salehoo dropshippers. Wholesale Source: Wholesale niche search engines and also the Salehoo Suppliers. Entrepreneurs are required to sign up to become a member at a nominal fee
Salehoo Gift Wholesale Accounting Software:
So if you need to buy appliance parts for your appliances at home it would be best to look for accredited appliance parts dealer. Nevertheless, there are also some dealers who may not have accreditation but are also known for quality parts; these types of dealers may also be a source of appliance parts that you may need. Ebay powersellers trust Salehoo dropshippers and Salehoo prices.
You list on eBay or your website someone buys you inform the dropshipper of the buyers details and then they send it to the buyer, so try to join the Salehoo forums. The easy way is the hard way though and you have to consider how many other people are selling the same products on the web at the same low prices, which will be the Salehoo customers. See Salehoo Reviews.
Until recently, if a company wanted to implement an intranet, they first had to install an internal network. Next they had to install a web server and set it up to host their internal documents. This created an intranet, which is an internal network that uses web-based technology. The difference between an intranet and a traditional company network is that everything on the intranet is accessed through a web browser.
To secure access to the intranet, the company needs to install special software, set up firewalls, and install a VPN server or switch. The equipment could be very expensive and most companies had to hire or train someone to maintain everything.
As a result, intranets were beyond the reach of smaller companies. However, all of that has changed. There are now a number of service providers that offer hosted intranet solutions, which allows a company to outsource all the hardware, software and maintenance for their intranet. These service providers are sometimes referred to as intranet application service providers (intranet asp).
Why Host Outside Your Company?
For smaller companies, cost may be the determining factor. For larger companies, unless the necessary infrastructure already exists, not having to purchase new equipment and train personnel may make it more cost efficient than doing it themselves.
Advantages of a Hosted Intranet
• Hardware and software do not need to be purchased or installed
• Security measures such as authentication, regular backups and disaster recovery are already in place
• Personnel to maintain the equipment do not need to be hired or trained
• Many applications are already available from the hosting company
• Technical support provided by the hosting company
Disadvantages of a Hosted Intranet
• Data may or may not be more secure than if it was all kept internal to your company
• Possible limitations on the software you use and services you can provide
• For larger companies, it may be more expensive over the long run than hosting internally.
Rick Mosenkis is CEO of Trichys, providers of hosted intranet asp solutions for document sharing and online collaboration.
PART II - THE SOUND OF BUSINESS
SONIC PERSONALITY© STARTS WITH BUSINESS PERSONALITY
Creating a ‘kick ass’ Sonic Personality© for your business
requires that your business have a personality in the first
place. Of course every business has one, whether you are aware
of it or not, and this is a real danger. Your customers’
understanding of who you are, and what you do, as a business,
may be very different from the vision you have of yourself. This
can be a very serious problem for owner-managed businesses,
where the personality of the entrepreneur oft times gets
substituted for the personality of the business - big mistake!
So what’s the first step in crafting a marketable business
personality?
What Business Are you Really In?
OK kids, its story time. Back in the day, the railroad barons
were the most powerful business leaders in the country. They had
the money, the power, and the political ’shlep’ (that’s drag for
the uninitiated) to do pretty much whatever they wanted. Today
railroads are a depressed industry. So what happened? Simple,
they didn’t know what business they were really in.
If you could have asked Leland Stanford or Collis P. Huntington,
what business they were in, they would have most likely
answered, ‘the railroad business’. And in the long run, that was
their downfall. Instead, they should have thought of themselves
as being in ‘the transportation business’ and if they did, they
surely would have used their money, power, and influence to
control the emerging automobile, trucking, and airline
industries.
Before you can craft a Sonic Personality© you first must
understand who you are, what you do, and why you do it better
than the other guy. If you can answer those three questions
clearly, then you have the beginning of a coherent business
personality that must first exist before you can have a Sonic
Personality©.
Focus On One Core Value
One of the hardest things for entrepreneurial businesses to do
is to focus on one core value. This may sound, on the surface,
to be contrary to the lesson learned from the railroad barons,
but it isn’t. Your core value focus has to be broad enough to be
able to sustain your business through the onslaught of
competition and fast moving technological change. When the
railroad barons focused on just one form of transportation they
let all the other transportation opportunities slip through
their fingers and ultimately overtake them.
Most accountants and bankers will tell you to ’stick to your
knitting’ and not let yourself be spread too thin with secondary
initiatives. This is generally good advice, however there is a
fundamental difference between going off on a tangent and
sticking to your core values. Knowing who you are, what you do,
and why you do it better than the competition will help you keep
your focus while at the same time allow you to critically
determine whether new opportunities are ones that you should
pursue.
Create Definition: Lift and Separate
So far I have managed to avoid using the term, brand, because it
is generally misunderstood and ignored by most owner-managed
businesses. Substituting ‘personality’ for ‘brand’ puts the
notion of brand in context. Think about it. You may have thought
your business doesn’t relate to branding concepts, but you’ve
accepted, or at least are intrigued by the idea, that your
business needs a clearly defined personality.
Al Ries and Jack Trout have written numerous books on branding
and marketing, including ‘The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.”
One of the lessons to be learned from this book is ‘The Law of
Opposites’. Simply stated, unless you’re the ‘top dog’ in your
industry, you have to define who you are in contrast to the
industry leader. This is not dissimilar to The Theory of
Contrary Thinking.
The example sometimes used to explain The Theory of Contrary
Thinking is Tulip Mania. When tulips were first introduced to
Holland in the middle to late sixteenth century, people fell in
love with them. By the early 1600s, an exchange market had been
created that dealt with tulip futures. Similar to what happen in
the Roaring 20s, everyone got involved in purchasing tulip
futures for ridiculous prices, until some wise guy yelled SELL!
Panic set-in and like in the 1920s, the market collapsed. The
moral of the story is simple; if everyone is doing it, you
better do the opposite.
By defining your business in contrast to the industry leader,
you create a separate and distinct business personality that
gives your audience an alternative to the ‘big guy’. You no
longer are a second banana ‘wannbe’ imitator, but rather a
distinctive company with your own image, strengths, advantages
and of course, personality.
Customers Are An Audience
Finally, this distinctive personality needs to be communicated
to your audience, and you’ll notice I’ve called your customers
an audience, because that is exactly what they are. If you think
in terms of audience, it will open up a whole new understanding
of communication techniques and media, that will lead to better
audience recognition, acceptance, and ultimately sales. Now we
have to give your finely crafted personality a voice. Tune-in
next time for ‘How to Give Good Sonic Personality©.’
Now that you have got your domain name registered, your next worry is about designing a website or getting it designed, depending on your budget,inclination and knowledge.
To help the newbie’s start it right - Design your website before getting the domain name registered. Why park an empty domain on the web just like that? Why waste even a single day after registration? right? So a better idea is to keep your “small but complete” site ready. As soon as domain name registration notification arrives, upload the pages. You can keep adding
value forever.
Small but complete” is what is being explained thru’ this article. Keep three things in mind. Simplicity, Appropriate content and Easy navigation. Try striking a perfect balance between them and you are bound to succeed.
Simplicity: Keep everything about your website simple. Flow of content,language, layout and terminology. Considering the potential of your visitor(who might be your future client/ buyer/affiliate) and his technical ignorance, you will do yourself a great deal of good sticking to simplicity. However stylized or hi fi your site is, if it can’t hold the traffic or visitor’s attention- its pointless.
Appropriate content: Content is the king. No augments. Always look at content is two parts. One, keeping the visitors in mind and the other keeping the spiders. Visitor needs emotional convincing and the spider - logical. Meta tags and keywords are what will come in handy with Spiders, Visitors can be reached across better if we can help them identify and relate to our message or proposal in a more emotional manner. He will not
buy from your site because you have designed you site in java or your because he found your core key-phrase in the anchor tag! He will have to be aspired… thus, content is the soul of site and you will have to keep it ticking…
Navigation: Let your site be very easy to navigate. A closely weaved theme, and therefore a well presented index will help the visitor to gain focus and think in a certain direction A SITE MAP IS A MUST. All the pages, as you keep adding them to your site should find a place on the site map. Spider should be able to reach all your pages thru site map. Another important thing to keep in mind is try to connect each link page from one other station besides sitemap. Connect your internal pages with
each other according to their theme. No orphan pages. No broken links…
The author is Purva Mewar webmaster
of two Work at Home Business websites:
http://www.yesearnformhome.com and http://www.work-at-home-earn-extra-income.com