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By Livvie Matthews
Well, congratulations! You have decided to start your
business online. You have the skills, the knowledge,
the enthusiasm and desire needed. There's just
one problem.......Now what do you do?
You need an online presence. In other words, a web site.
Your web site is your "storefront". This is where you will be
"working". It is where your viewer/customers will come to
do business.
Your web site should be a high quality marketing service...
a reflection of your business and a reflection of you. You
are only going to get one chance to make an impression, so
make sure it is a good one.
Unless you are using your own name, choose your web site
name wisely. For best results, it should relate to your services.
Try to stay away from catchy, funny names. This is your
business and you need to project a professional message
and image.
For example, I named my first web site BizyBodies.com
and my tag line was For Women Caught Between A CLOCK
and A Hard Place. Pretty cool I thought, but I later realized ,
after almost a year of hard work building that site, that the
name really wasn't relating with the direction of the site.
The name didn't "say" or "do" what I needed the site to
do. In other words, the name wasn't "marketing" the site
on it's own.
When I had the site re-designed by a professional we
changed the name to Simple Biz Publications. Now
even the name "markets" the site. Choose your
name carefully.
There are many sites that have a place for you to check
and to register your domain name. Three of the sites are
http://www.netsolutions.com and http://www.alldomains.com
and http://www.whois.org. Make sure the name you choose
reflects the image you want your viewers to see.
Determine what you want your site to do:
Are you selling a product or service?
Are you selling online-offline or both?
Who is your visitor?
Where do you want to take your visitor?
Where do you want your visitor to go?
Grab their attention:
As you grab their attention, if you can create curiosity,
that is even better. If your information doesn't grab
their attention, you won't make a sale. It's that simple!
Add your personality to the pages:
Talk to your viewer/customer as though they are
right beside you, one-on-one. Write your
information from the viewer's point of view.
Solve their problems:
They are at your web site because they want
a solution to their problems. People love solutions.
Let them know you can solve their problems and you
can solve them quick! They have a question, a problem
a need...and YOU have their solution. Better yet, you
ARE their solution. Become their source of information.
Benefit to Buyer:
People will buy on benefit from your site, not from feature.
They buy based on "what's in it for me?" When designing
your site, concentrate on the "benefit to your buyer".
Accepting Credit Cards:
Create a web site without being an HTML expert:
For those of your who want to try to build your own sites
and don't know how to code using HTML try using the
Site Build software at http://www.homestead.com,
http://geocities.com or http://www.hypermart.com.
Privacy Statement:
Make sure your add a privacy statement to the bottom of all
your web pages. Identity theft, scams and spamming are
huge concerns for viewers now. A privacy statement
addresses the fact you value their right to privacy and
protecting their identity.
As you build your web site and prepare to "open" your
business. Remember it is the customer who will
define the quality of your business based on
how you treated them, how you resolved their problems,
how you handled their order and what benefits they
received as a result of doing business with you!
In short, make your web site easy to understand, easy
to navigate and as easy as possible to place and
order. Remember you are building relationships
every step of the way in starting your online business
and now.... You know just what to do!
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