If You Have A Small or Home Based Business Here Is How A Web Site Can Increase Your Profits!

Look at just some of the advantages a web site can offer your small business.

• It's a great way to generate leads for your business at a lower cost
• Send your newsletter or product updates to your prospects electronically in less time and for less cost. You save money on printing, shipping, mailing costs!
• Your business gains exposure to a global marketplace that may not otherwise been accessible due to high costs using traditional forms of promotion and publicity.
• Publish your sales materials, product information, etc at a fraction of the cost by making them available at your web site or by sending qualified prospects an e-mail message.
• Establish e-mail aliases and achieve a larger look for your home based or small business. This works by
• having several alias e-mails forward to one or two accounts. The result is that your business has the appearance of being large with various departments when in actuality, all of the e-mails can be forwarded to one or two people.

  Example: service@kmv.com or pricing@kmv.com etc could all forward to one central e-mail address. Your business can look "Big" without being Big.

• You don't have to pay employees to "man" your Internet store. Shoppers can come and go at their convenience and have fingertip access to your service and product information.
• Communicate more effectively with both customers and prospects through e-mail
• Your Internet store and products are on display and open 24 hours a day worldwide!
• Ability to track who is accessing your site with tools such as Guest Books, Feed Back Forms, User logs
  etc.
• Your customers can order your products and services instantly right off your web site! You make more money faster, and your customers enjoy the convenience that online ordering offers.
• Potential for site upgrades as your business grows with possibilities such as: video, voice presentations, music, database information, search features, archive areas, and secure access areas for established customers only. As web technology grows, and the number of users increase, so too will the business applications

1. Purchase a web site

Advantages

• Your business can test the Internet waters at a lower price. Cost under $250/year
• Your site gets the benefit from traffic the mall or provider generates since small business often doesn't have the advertising budget to generate the necessary traffic to the site

Disadvantages

• pay per each item or service; extra pages, maintenance fees, often labour charges,
• you may experience delays in uploads of new files, since you rely on a technician to make updates to your site.
• URL or web site address is often long, difficult to remember, non-sensical and does not reflect a professional image or company name. Example http://www.advertising/customers/smith.htm

2. The second option is to purchase your own domain.

Advantages

• You own the domain therefore you have greater control over your site.
• You can maintain the site yourself allowing you to upload or delete files at will, and avoid labour charges for work to the site. The alternative to this if you can't maintain your domain is to hire someone to do it for you.
• Your own domain name reflects a professional image and can make a small upstart company look bigger than it is. Example http://www.KMV.com or http://www.CraftInc.com
• You have access to more detailed information about your site so you can track useful features. With specialized software you can track the number of visitors to your site, from which country they arrived, traffic patterns, the effectiveness of certain pages or banner ads, most popular site pages etc. This is extremely useful information and can help you create a more effective site and have access to tools that traditional retail merchants have only been able to achieve with expensive market and consumer surveys.

Disadvantages

• higher cost to have your own domain then to place your web site within a mall service provider due to space requirements, maintenance, etc. Cost approximately: $800/year
• $50 fee each year payable to InterNic to maintain ownership of your domain name
• you are still required to promote your web site on the Internet and in traditional print to generate traffic and interest in your site
• if you aren't technically skilled to maintain the site yourself you will have to pay someone to maintain your site for you.

1. Your budget to make the initial purchase and pay for ongoing maintenance or labour fees.
2. Your technical abilities to maintain the site yourself.
3. Your ability to promote the site both on and off the Internet and therefore bring in traffic.

1. Customer Centered
2. User Ease
3. Offer Online order options
4. "Content" rules
5. Promote your site to maximize your traffic flow
6. Provide several ways for customers to contact you; e-mail, toll free number, phone, fax, mailing address
7. Keep it Simple. Don't overdo your site with excessive graphics, animation, sound files, video, Java, Active X, etc. Your site should be appealing but not overdone with the latest technical wizardry that some viewers simply will not be able to access due to slow connections, or incompatible browsers.