Basic Steps To a Successful Website
By Sue Doughty |
Why Do I Need a Website?
No doubt this question has come to mind if you
own a business. The answer is simple: If you don't have a website,
then your competition probably does.
The Internet has become so pervasive in our lives
that consumers and suppliers expect to find information about your
products or services and even expect to purchase them directly online.
Maybe in the early days an Internet presence was out of reach for
the average business, but nowadays there is really no excuse for
not having your own website. E-Commerce (Electronic Commerce) has
now become a required business tool for small businesses if you
are to compete in this ever-changing technological world.
Because we live in a technology driven world,
millions of consumers across the globe are now searching the Internet
for products and services from the convenience of their home or
office. Having a WWW website allows the consumer to conveniently
access your website 24 hours a day, 365 days a year without you
even being there. Your site can be totally automated to answer questions,
take orders online and promote your goods and services plus much
more.
If you are an individual, an artist or a business
owner who offers goods or services, by having your own website,
you are making a statement that you are on the cutting edge. The
consumer now perceives you as a serious professional with instant
credibility.
Your website can provide your customers with a
vast amount of information. You can write a newsletter, publish
articles and become an instant opinion leader in your field. Promoting
yourself on the web has unlimited possibilities. Your advertising
and printing costs on the web are greatly reduced because it is
quicker and more cost-effective to revise material on your website.
You can capture your own mailing list of potential customers who
visit your site and promote to them. This is one of the keys to
successful marketing on the web.
Businesses and organizations that do not have
a presence on the Internet may inadvertently be making a statement
that they are unable to keep up with today's technology and cannot
adapt to change.
If you want to be perceived as a serious professional
in today's marketplace, it is time to realize that the future that
once was is NOW.
I decided I want a website. Now what do I do?
The first thing you need to do is establish the
goals for your website. What do you want it to do? Next you need
to determine a budget. This will be based on what you want to achieve
and what you can afford. Remember that some of the expenses you
will have to consider are monthly web hosting besides the design
and marketing. I highly recommend consulting with a professional
who can be a one-stop solution for you. You definitely want your
site designed with marketing in mind. A good web design is one that
is visually stimulating and appears simple and easy to navigate.
Certain web designs can be interesting and have a lot of glitz,
but does the visitor remain at your web site after he arrives? If
your web design does not communicate, if the customer cannot navigate
easily, then your prospective client is lost.
How do I get visitors to my website?
There are millions of pages on the Internet. Driving
traffic to your web site requires that it be listed in search engines.
A search engine is a special kind of web site
that maintains an index of words and phrases gathered from the web
sites on the Internet. A few of the more popular ones are Google
(www.google.com), Yahoo (www.yahoo.com), Lycos (www.lycos.com),
Excite (www.excite.com) and Altavista (www.altavista.com). You may
already be familiar with these. Users who are looking for sites
with specific content visit search engines and enter a search query
(search words and phrases) and the search engine returns links to
pages having content that matches the search query.
A typical search yields many pages of results
because there are so many sites on the Internet. Most people never
read beyond the first few pages. Therefore, an effective search
engine strategy requires that your site be listed at or near the
top of the results of a search engine query.
Statistically, 85% of the traffic that comes to
the average web site comes from search engines. This one fact is
so vital that missing this one point can mean the difference between
viability and non-viability for your web site.
There are literally hundreds, if not thousands
of search engines on the Internet. Most of the traffic resulting
from search engines comes from only 8 or 10 of the most popular
ones. The five mentioned above are among these. So these top 8 or
10 search engines become the focus of an effective search engine
strategy.
Getting listed in the search engines requires
that you submit your website on a regular basis. Knowing just how
often to submit is important. Over-submitting and under-submitting
can lower your position. Again, it would be wise to enlist the services
of a professional to submit your site to the search engines.
How do I achieve a top position in the search engines?
Words and phrases that users enter in a search
engine are called “keywords” or “keyword phrases”. The dictionary
definition of a keyword is one that “serves as a guide to find other
words, articles, topics, etc.”
The answer to achieving a top position in the
search engines is for your web pages to contain the same keywords
and keyword phrases that are used as search phrases in search engines.
Although this may sound simple, discovering these exact words and
phrases and knowing how to place them in your web pages is a skill
acquired after much practice. Your web site must contain the right
keywords in order for you to be found. That important step is called
“Keyword Optimization” (choosing, writing and placement of the proper
keywords for your web site).
I can't begin to tell you how many web sites are
on the Internet today that fail to generate traffic. Many owners
don't understand that there is a solution. Most just give up.
You can write the content and place the keywords
in your web pages yourself or you can hire a professional to do
it for you. If you choose a professional, then check out their statistics.
Of the sites they are promoting through search engines, how many
of them appear at or near the top of a typical search? This is a
service that is well worth the fee.
How long does it take before my web site has top position?
A search engine maintains an index of words along
with the addresses of web sites it gathers from the Internet. It
takes time for the search engines to update their indexes and for
your pages to appear in them. One should start seeing results within
three months on average, but if there is a lot of competition for
the keywords in your site, it can take longer.
There are a number of factors that can affect
your ranking. If you are starting from scratch it can take longer.
If your site is already listed somewhere in the search engines,
then it can take less time. If your site is popular with other sites
and they have placed links to your site on their web pages, your
chances of getting a high ranking increase.
The best thing to do would be to get a thorough
evaluation of your site by a professional. You can get an estimate
of the costs and decide if it would be better for you to optimize
your web pages yourself or hire them to do it for you.
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Sue Doughty is the Marketing Director of Studio 1 Design and Hosting
and has over 15 years experience in her field. Her advice in the
area of search
engine optimization has helped businesses achieve high search
engine placement and success on the Internet. Visit Studio1
Design and Hosting on the Web at http://www.studio1webdesign.com,
email .
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