Leveraging the Web to Cut Down Marketing Cost

 

Your first website: Get your business online quickly and cheaply

 

Nowadays, your website is as much a part of your business as your logo, letterheads and business cards. With the correct approach, it can be one of your most effective marketing tools.

 

Before you even start thinking about how your site will look, consider what you are going to use it for. Is it just going to be a one page 'business card' website, or are you going to tell your customers all about your company and its products and services?

 

Do it yourself?

 

Having outlined what you want your website to do, you should decide what pages you need and how they will interact with each other. You may wish to get a professional copywriter to write your page copy, or do it yourself.

 

Once you have a clear idea of what the content of your site is going to be, you need to decide whether to build it yourself or use a professional design company. The choice may be simple. If you know you do not have the skills to do it yourself, then it may be wise to give the job to another company. Alternatively, you could do some of the work yourself (e.g. writing copy) but outsource the rest.

 

If you look for templates then remember: some of the best sites out there are beautiful in their simplicity. It's all too easy to go overboard with the graphics and animations but it's unlikely that your visitors will be impressed. It's easy to be clever for the sake of it - but that won't impress anyone.

 

Choosing the domain name

 

Going live

 

You'll probably want to register a domain name (like www.yourcompany.com) and choose a company to host your site. Opt for a company that provides both as they then offer free statistics capturing for your site.

 

Give your website a name that's professional and easy to remember

 

A domain is the home of your website - like www.yourname.com. According to VeriSign, in 2004 domain name registrations across the globe hit 64.5 million names. If you don't already have a great domain name, you need one, and fast.

 

Even if you have no intention of having a website yet, a domain name is worth securing. Crucially, owning a domain name gives you instant access to the appropriate email addresses for that domain (yourname@yourname.com). This is important if you want to create a professional perception of your business from the outset.

 

Attention to detail

 

Currently you can buy domain names at throwaway prices. Hence, free domain names, such as www.yourbusiness.someone-else.co.in (where you get a name that sticks on the end of someone else's) have the same turn-off effect

 

What's in a name?

 

Keep it short and memorable.Use your company name, own name or a relevant solution-related name.

 

Brainstorm domain names that solve a problem. For example, if you were selling an arthritis remedy and you identified a niche for customers that wanted lasting arthritis relief then you could register the domain www.lastingarthritisrelief.com.

 

Or, you could opt for a name that describes the products or services your company provides (e.g. www.financialservices.co.in). Either way, your name will help drive targeted traffic to your website if you take this approach.

 

You can search availability of domain names at the registrar you intend to purchase it from, or direct from the nic.net. If your chosen domain names aren't available you can either go back to the drawing board, or approach the owner of your dream domain to see if they will sell it to you. It's worth seeking legal advice first, although a direct and honest approach often works.

 

These steps help:

 

 

Site hosting principles:

 

Look for dependability and trustworthiness

 

You need a hosting provider (or 'host') to make your website available on the Internet. They will host your website on their server(s), making it available to anyone browsing the Web. Without a good host your business could be in trouble, so choosing one should be more than a last minute decision.
A good hosting company will be your partner throughout the life of your business, ensuring that your site is always live and available to visitors, and dealing with any problems promptly.
right one? Try and get a personal recommendation first. Failing that, you'll need to do
some research.

 

Wrong choice

 

The implications of choosing the wrong hosting company can be very serious: "Making the wrong choice could end in thousands of customers either being shown unwanted advertising, being shown a page error due to server downtime, or worse still, never actually finding your site in the first place. Some hosts will advertise on your site and email and some have recently been known to Link Farm too.

 

Link Farming is where less scrupulous hosting companies link all their customers' sites back to their own to boost their search engine rankings. This can result in their site, and their customers' sites, being banned from search engines altogether.

 

We suggest going with a known, reputable provider: "After all, your site may well become the main customer-facing part of your business. The power of the Web is that it's up and running 24x7 makes sure your site is too."

 

Get it in writing

 

When choosing a host, insist on a Service Level Agreement (SLA). This is where your hosting company sticks its neck out and tells you what percentage of the time you can expect your site to be up and running and how quickly they will react if something goes wrong. We would recommend a formal SLA from the outset. Also make a point of asking for reference customers who can vouch for the quality of their support when things don't go according to plan.

 

"Your needs might start simple, but they could soon grow to include a fully scripted application driven by a database back-end that has thousands of hits a day. Furthermore make sure the host has a breadth of offerings the last thing you want is to outsource your email to one provider, get your broadband from another and need to go elsewhere for dedicated server hosting."