Your Guide To Setting Up A Wealth Generating Web Site For Your Business - Large or Small

But for the average business owner or corporate officer, it's hard to know what to do with this new found technology that is gripping the business world. "Get on the net or get left behind" is the message many uncertain business people are getting. Conservative types may have been content once, to listen to the called "industry experts" who just a year or so ago denounced the Internet as just another fad. But now that the Internet has revealed itself to be a whole new world of electronic marketing and communication, much confusion continues to exist. In the words of one corporate CEO "OK the Internet is amazing but what do I do with it and how can it help my business?" This is a question voiced by many people so if you've said it yourself, sit back and we'll address some of those concerns.

In brief, a web site offers your business...

• global exposure through the use of an electronic store front known as a web site
• global electronic communication which provides
  • customer assistance through electronic messaging
  • electronic marketing
  • electronic purchasing
  • database availability
  • file sharing
  • information exchange
  • global networking
  • web phone and web conferencing

The Basic Web Site

a) offer brief information and/or an introduction to the company's products or services
b) generate qualified leads who may be interested in your service or products
c) provide products order for your products or services while the visitor is at the site.

A basic site should cost in the range of $100 to $1,000 a year depending on the complexity of the site. Although a basic site is a great way for a small company or individual to set up a presence on the Internet without a large investment, it has its limitations. Primarily, by limiting the options available to the visitor you may be sacrificing consumer interaction and ultimately consumer purchases.

Advanced Web Sites

Advanced web sites are designed to:

a) Offer more extensive information and/or an introduction to the company's products or services including product presentation, specs, and pricing.
b) Generate qualified leads who may be interested in your service or products
c) Provide orders for your products or services while the visitor is at the site.
d) Invite consumer/visitor interactivity
e) Provide search queries from within the site
f) Offer downloadable software, files or information (FTP)
g) Advanced use of graphics, sound, video to provide sophisticated display of products and or services
h) Convey an image consistent with the corporate theme and philosophies
i) Offer some form of newsletter or e-mail list to valued customers or prospective customers

The extensive information available in an advanced site requires that the site be organized, easily navigated and presented to visitors using a series of very well organized links and navigation aids. An interactive database can be used when the company carries hundreds of products which require input from the visitor.

Your company's product can be accompanied by text and a graphic picture; even a sound clip presentation. Some sites are even taking advantage of 3 dimensional tools that allow the customer more options such as viewing or rotating a 3-D graphic of a product. Video, sound and animation offer businesses a multi-media presentation that until a few months ago wasn't available.

Once you have determined what you would like to accomplish with your web site and worked out a budget for development, you need to consider the following,

1. "What are the steps involved in setting up my web site?" and
2. "Who can provide this type of service so that I get the best results?"

You are going to need to contact a web site development agency or firm. Specifically look for

1. At least two - three years of Internet experience
2. Solid customer service and a verifiable customer base
3. Knowledgeable technical staff
4. Professional copywriters
5. Access to mass promotion vehicles
6. An existing professional web site that you can tour.

The copywriter's job is paramount and he or she must design wording and layout for your site that will:

a) be attractive and appealing to the visitor
b) limited in verbiage to avoid boring "flighty" visitors
c) be Internet customer centered not company centered
d) be motivating copy that produces some action on the part of the visitor
e) graphics and features should be used creatively and enhance a site, not overpower it or weigh it down with excessive graphic load times
f) balanced use of text, graphics and features
g) invite interaction from the visitor
h) continual updating of the site to encourage new visors and previous visitors to return.
i) be information based and useful to the visitor as opposed to blatant in your face commercialism

Working with the technical staff will require some input from you based on your preference, the purpose of the site, and the response you wish to illicit.

On the technical level you will want knowledgeable programmers, Internet media experts who...

• can custom design logos, image maps and other graphics as required
• can add colour graphics of your products to your site
• can provide secure electronic online ordering
• offer fast and efficient service based on your needs and requests
• maintain state of the art Internet connections and servers
• offer additional services including virtual e-mail, autoresponders etc.

• announce and continually mass promote the existence of your site on and off the Internet
• -maintain and upgrade your site promptly as needed without incurring excessive cost

Design Considerations

The use of a database should be considered if your company has a lot of products and/or services. Visitors to your web site may wish to view only products that belong to a certain category or price range. The use of a sequential query database will make it possible for the customer to request or search for specific information in a step by step manner. We recommend that you consider this option if you have over 250 products to offer.

We suggest you consider bringing your site to life with colour graphics. Product pictures are an asset since people like to see what they buy. Many services now provide animated graphics which mean you can have a logo that has motion. You may wish to have announcements about specials of the month with the company logo flashing or rotating in space. Once again, the media and graphics design people will provide ideas for you to consider.

Are you able to accept information by e-mail. If you cannot then seriously consider getting set up to do so. The Internet will enable customers to order information directly from your company using what we call electronic forms. By filling out information right on the web the customer is able to e-mail you critical ordering information. You can use an electronic form to gather addresses for a mailing list or for gathering e-mail addresses for bulk e-mailing of a monthly newsletter. Bulk e-mail is a great way to keep people coming back for more. E-mail is an inexpensive, powerful but highly underused tool. Remember e-mail saves your business the time and money traditionally associated with shipping, handling and printing. Use some creativity here. You can easily develop a e-mail list for a variety of purposes; a list for valued customers, prospective customers, media releases, retailers etc. A newsletter, media release, new product announcement can be sent out to thousands of people within minutes for virtually no cost other than the time to do it and the cost of the e-mail service- about $5 a month!

Is your site going to need "sub-menus"? In other words when a person arrives at your products/services page will there need to be another level of menu items. Perhaps you would like to group your information so as to avoid making the visitor sort through it to locate what they want. You must remember that the Internet is 3 dimensional. This type of organization cannot be found in print and therefore, requires careful planning on the designer's part.

A mini search engine is also essential for a large web site. This allows the casual visitor the ability to search the entire site using key words. This is perhaps the most powerful tool used on very large sites. Sub- menus are great but just how far can you keep breaking down the information? When the site has too many levels it's flow gets destroyed. The search engine is a way out and makes the tour pleasurable to a person that just wants information on one topic and has no time to plow through every part of the site.

Are you able to best present your information using sound and/or video. Sound clips are used more and more for bands, musical instruments and for effect. Sound can sometimes be used to just say "Welcome to the XYZ company web site". This would be followed by a marquee (text that rolls across the screen) that shows the weekly product special or date of the next shareholders meeting, etc. The use of video is not yet standard on the Internet and needs to be more like a brief clip rather than a five minute presentation. The reason is due to the speed that people receive information at their computer. Most will not wait 20 minutes to download a large segment of video. A clip for a few seconds is now easy to set up using "animated graphics". A creative designer can usually get the message out using this method. Note: sound and video can be costly (video more so) and should be assessed against the value you feel it will give the site.

Internet promotion and an ongoing marketing presence throughout the web are critical to the success of any site. We advise that you consider a professional Internet marketing service. The cost will vary depending on the level of service you are looking for. Right now there are over a dozen ways to get the word out on the Internet and in the print media that your site has arrived. Promotion is a crucial point often overlooked. A web site that is not promoted is useless. Without promotion, yes you're business is out there in cyberspace but nobody knows and nobody cares.

Consider having a banner ad for your site designed. If you find that other sites are willing to exchange links with you it will be helpful to have a banner ad on file. Each time you exchange links with another site the webmaster will ask for a banner. This makes your site stand out, looks professional and increases traffic.

The best way to go about answering each of these questions is to have your designer on the phone and go through each. The designer will take you through the process one step at a time.

The key points about webvertising that you need to be aware of

1. Internet web sites have no analogy in the print medium thereby making it difficult to communicate all of the above options in a simple manner. Your designer should fully understand this and lead you through each step of the way until you are at the finished product.
2. Web sites take on a 3 dimensional appearance therefore offering so much more than even television. People browsing the site have the ability to pick and choose what they want to see. Unlike television where information is "force-fed". This means that your site needs to cater to the potential customer and make them decide to ACT NOW. The copywriter's job will be to achieve this goal and the designer will need to back this up with easy to follow links and features throughout the site.
3. In order for people to come back often your web site cannot be static. Weekly specials will not cut it. You will attract people by supplying free information in many forms on a regular basis. If your company creates software consider a demo version for download at your site. The key is that people are coming back for more of what your site offers on a regular basis. This is perhaps the most overlooked point of the large web site on the Internet today.

http://www.worldprofit.com (Complex of Interactive Malls)

http://www.virtualflowers.com (Florist )

http://disney.com (Disney )

http://www.microsoft.com (Microsoft - what else)

http://www.hotwired.com (Hot Wired Magazine)

http://www.dnb.com (Dun & Bradstreet)

Final notes

Now just a short time later, full colour, video, sound and telephone transmissions are available. The Internet is at the stage the moving picture industry was at decades ago. But in cyberspace things move much faster and with the advent of cable modems, greater familiarity, wider use and better standardization of Internet tools, the wheels of change are spinning at lightening speed. Those Star Trek gadgets are becoming more of a reality every day. Those savvy individuals who establish their businesses on the web now, will be like the early gold prospectors who staked their claim and enjoyed their wealth for years to come.

George Kosch, MSc. is the Senior Technical Officer for Incor Enterprises Inc., and the Systems Manager of Dr. Jeffrey Lant's Worldprofit Malls, Sandra Hunter, BST., BSW., BA, is the Director of Web Site Development. Incor Enterprises has established web sites for over 1,000 companies looking to expand their business to an international level by establishing a presence on the World Wide Web. To see what Incor can do for your business or service on the web, visit their web site at: http://www.worldprofit.com/