85% to 95% of all customers will visit your website before calling
you. With that trend increasing every day, having a website should
be a no-brainer. The next step is to make your site easy to navigate,
in-line with your marketing direction and brand, as well as make
information easy to find. Circore Creative offers website development,
design, e-newsletters, and web marketing.
According to Gerry McGovern, "Having a deep understanding
of the gut instinct of your customer is the number one skill of
managing a website. The web is a self-service environment, and
self-service is about convenience, speed and price."
People read on the web, but they read like they're driving
down a road. They are reading at high speed; they are reading
by gut instinct. What kinds of questions do customers ask you?
What kinds of concerns do your customers have? Those are the kinds
of questions we want to build your website to answer.
According to Dave Chaffey, web trend and marketing expert, "The
increase in (web) use means that digital marketers, in particular
have to develop a competence in analysis, modeling and using web
analytics tools which was not required 10 years ago." We
at Circore have that ability to analyze data, making it easy for
us to tell you what content areas are most likely to be of interest
to your customers.
Let Circore do our magic in helping you reach your ideal customers
with your Internet presence. For more web marketing trends visit:
Demographics
of Internet Users
Internet
Activities
Steps to Creating a Web Site
Domain Name
Hosting
Writing Content
Designing the Look
Search Engine Registration and Site Promotion
Web Savings
Web Updates
To E or Not to E - That Isn't the Question!
Domain Name: First off, you will need a domain name.
That is the www.yourname.com (or .net, .org, etc) address that
users type into a browser to see your site. When building a new
site we usually include domain name registration for one year
in your price. Although unlikely to happen, someone else can buy
your name! If you register your own domain name, we will need
your password and username.
Hosting: Next, we arrange for you
site to be "hosted". A host puts your web page information
on a special computer called a server. This computer can be accessed
around the world by various browsers to see your website. You
are essentially paying to rent a certain amount of memory -
or real estate - on one of the host's servers. When setting
up a new site we often recommend you host with a company we recommend.
If you want to host somewhere else you may, but you are required
to set it up. Either way, hosting allows your site to take up
real estate space on the world wide web. Having a host also gives
you access to email addresses like contact@yourname.com.
When we contact the host to set up an account, we will give
you the name of the server. This is a name like name.server.net
or a number like 10.0.0.1. This tells the world "I own www.myname.com
and the information for this page is located on the server named
name.server.net. Keep this information in your files.
When setting up the hosting you can also set up your email accounts.
Even if there are only 1 or 2 employees at your business, you
may find it useful to have email accounts such as info@yourname.com,
billing@yourname.com, jobs@yourname.com, etc. These can all be
separate accounts or all forward (empty out) into one account.
Take full advantage of having an email with your domain name in
it. Nothing looks more unprofessional than having a great new
web page (ProfessionalAccountingServices.com), but a hotmail or
aol contact email (fuzzybunny1234@aol.com)!
Once hosting is set up, the host will give you a FTP (file transfer
protocol) login name and password. Remember to write these down.
We will need this login name and password to put your finished
site on to the server and to make changes.
As a side note: Remember to keep track of all your hosting,
domain name and design invoices and receipts. They are all tax
deductible as business expenses.
Writing Content:
Using you and your employees as a resource we will research
your site's content. We will look at competitors. We will
contact suppliers for your industry. We will study products and
resources and come up with a recipe or outline for your site.
We will first have you OK all content. We write content first
and you must edit and approve the text. Your ability to collaborate
with us will determine how unique and amazing your site becomes.
Things we consider for your site:
What is the function of the site - informational, sales,
both?
Who will be using this site?
Why am are we creating this site? What are my company's
goals for this site?
We help you determine what information you want on the site?
Do you need product or portfolio images, staff introductions,
contact information, hours, location map, Frequently Asked Questions,
request for information form, client testimonial, links, logo,
professional association logos, history, spec sheets or pdf
forms?
We may ask you questions about sites you like.
What are the keywords you want to use for your site meta (hidden
keyword for search engines) tags?
Designing the Look:
Site Creation: We will first have you OK all content. We write
it first and you must edit and approve the text. After the text
is approved, we will design 2-3 rough (main page) designs. You
will link to these on the Circore website. We will refine and
tweak the initial page design until it meets your approval. We
will then create web ready artwork from this design. Following
that, we may spin off a similar template design for the secondary
(sub) pages. Once your template is created, we place your text,
pictures and artwork into these pages. The site will be available
to you in a hidden directory to read and approve before it ever
becomes live or able to be accessed to the public. We will test
the site on various browsers and platforms. Once your page is
ready to launch, we will put the new site on your host's
server and register it in the search engines. The page will then
be "live" and anyone in the world can see it.
Search Engine Registration and Site Promotion:
At present, there are about 300,000 new sites added to search
engines like Google, Yahoo, Dmoz and others every hour. The main
browsers still accept registrations of new sites for free. However,
it may be 6 weeks or more until your site has filtered into the
system. There are other ways to become listed and visited. This
first is to pay for a listing. Sites like Yahoo charge a few hundred
dollars to list you. This may not be the best use of your advertising
dollars. The majority of people searching on the web now use Google.
Google both lists sites for free and also offers a "pay
per click" program. You can chose what words you want your
site to show up for and how much you are willing to pay for it.
You can offer to spend anywhere from a few cents a day to hundreds
of dollars. If you belong to any professional associations, make
sure your page is listed. You may also want to consider paying
a small fee to be listed on various local business listings. Far
from being dead, print is actually one of the best ways to get
noticed. Most potential customers expect a company to have a site.
They will look for the web address on letterhead, business cards,
print ads, phone book listings etc.
Web Savings
While you still need print advertising, the web site can save
you money by:
Offering a private way to get to know you and your company.
Your customers/patients can learn about services you offer without
having to know a lot of terminology to ask thoughtful questions.
Spending less employee time on the phone giving hours, directions,
rates and more.
Allow for forms like customer data, medical histories to be
printed off ahead of time.
Show a wide variety of products in full color, without the
cost of printing.
Collect information from forms and emails when the business
closed.
Offer printable forms, brochures and other documents to be
downloaded. This saves you the time and cost of printing and
mailing them.
Quickly make announcements, offer sales or coupons, newsletters
and other up-to-date information without waiting for a publication
to go to press.
Web Updates
Your site's placement in the search engines
will go up the more frequently your site is updated. While this
isn't the only factor search engines like Google look to see if
your site is relevant. It measures relevancy by how often your
site is changed. Clients who are on retainer with us often enjoy
frequent site updates as we help in writing content. You telling
us about breaking news in your industry will help us keep your
site fresh. Non-retainer clients can pay our hourly rates to have
their site updated as well.Last, but not least, take a big breath.
This is a lot of information to take in. Don't worry about understanding
it all at once - that is what Circore is here for. Feel free to
call or email for help or with questions. We will be glad to explain
anything that doesn't make sense, and help to make your web and
e-marketing as successful as possible.
To E or Not to E - That Isn't the Question!
By Laurie Windham
Excerpted from: http://www.intelligententerprise.com/010524/customer1_1.jhtml
Consider this: Before the Internet, where did you begin to
find out how to contact someone, learn the answer to an obscure
question, check prices on something you're considering buying,
obtain directions to a new destination, pay bills, or get a
job?
Before the Internet, those activities involved a broad array
of interfaces. You went to encyclopedias to get answers to obscure
questions. You used the telephone book or directory assistance
to find someone's phone number. You went to retail stores, catalogs,
and ads in newspapers to find out price information. You used
a street map to get directions. You read the classified ads
for employment opportunities.
But the Internet changed all of that. The Web has become the
place where millions of consumers instinctively begin their
tasks, and that trend will continue gaining momentum. So, the
Internet has shaped our origin instinct. That's a dramatic change,
not only for consumers who migrated their routines to the Web,
but also for the businesses that serve consumers in the old
ways.
