AdPleasure

2011-07-29T11:42:00.000+07:00

Driven View of Web Site Design

2008-03-13T08:10:00.000+07:00

An Information-Driven View of Web Site Design

The goal of a successful Web initiative is to find the perfect fit between information your market wants or needs and information that supports your firm or organization’s marketing goals.

A poor Web site is one-sided. It emphasizes information solely from the business owner’s point of view. A popular Web site is one that provides information the market wants but doesn’t support the firm or organization’s marketing goals. An effective Web site, however, provides information that satisfies both the firm’s and the visitor’s goals.

There are several approaches you might take to determining your market’s information needs:

Intuition—provide the information you think they need.
Historical—base your Web site’s information on previous sales experiences.
Goal-driven—provide content based on your firm or organization’s marketing goals.
Competitor—survey your competitor’s Web sites and see what types of information they provide.
Analytical—base information on an analysis of Web site traffic.
Partnership—create a partnership with your market and let them determine the information you provide on your Web site.

These approaches can be described as “me first” or “market first.”

“Me First” Approaches
As you begin your Web site initiative, the approach you choose will probably be based on a combination of the first three alternatives.

Intuitive approach
The intuitive approach is the weakest approach of all. Interestingly enough, it’s also the most stressful and time-consuming of all because you’re forced to guess, rather than rely on more solid forms of evidence.

The intuitive approach is based on putting yourself in your prospect’s shoes and asking, “If I were a prospect in the market for the product or service I’m offering, what information would I need to make a choice?” The problem is that you—as a business owner or organization executive—know too much; you suffer from knowledge-induced myopia. What’s important to you may not be important to your prospects and customers. More important, what’s boring or common sense to you may be news to your prospects.

This is a battle that you’ll be facing throughout your Web initiative—the battle to view your Web site from the market’s point of view.

Historical approach
Another approach is to review the concerns and questions that are typically brought up during previous sales presentations and identify the issues that are important to your market. The goal is to identify the questions that you and your sales force are asked over and over again and incorporate as much of this information in your Web site your Web site as possible.

Asking questions represents the best way to do this. Typical questions include:

What are the three most frequently asked questions your customers ask when purchasing your product or service?
What other questions typically come up?
What are your qualifications for providing the product or service?
How is your firm or organization different from others providing your product or service?
What are the procedures involved in buying and using the product or service?
What are the next purchases customers frequently make, or ask about?

To the degree that you view your Web site as a sales presentation, you’ll be on the road to identifying your market’s information needs.

Goal-driven
Another approach is to identify your firm’s or organization’s marketing needs as specifically as possible. What are the goals of your Web site? Increased business and referrals is not a sufficient answer. Instead, break your business down into the categories of products or services you provide and establish goals for each category: If you’re an author and consultant, for example:

How many copies of each book do you want to sell direct over the Web each month to new readers?
How many copies of each book do you want to sell each month to readers who previously purchased other books?
How many requests for information about speaking engagements do you want to generate each month?
How many requests for information about your consulting services do you want to generate each month?

After you have identified your goals, try to identify the information that your market will need in order to accomplish these goals. For example, if you want to sell 35 books, you will probably want to include a table of contents, copies of reviews from satisfied readers, and possibly a sample chapter. Once you have established your goals, it becomes a lot easier to identify the information necessary to achieve them. Use the following worksheet as a guide to establishing realistic marketing goals.

How many new prospects do you want to contact you each month?
How many C-level clients do you want to upgrade to B-level clients? How many B-level clients do you want to upgrade to A-level clients?
How many new consulting clients do you want to generate per month?
How many books do you want to sell per month?
How many support calls do you want to eliminate?
How many repeat sales?

Competitor
Your Web site should never be developed in isolation from your competitor. There are several reasons you should closely monitor your competitor’s Web sites Worksheet: Marketing Goals

At the very least, you want to makes sure that your Web site is dramatically different from your competitor’s. If your primary competitors use red, you should use blue. If they use a serif typeface, you should consider a sans serif typeface. Your marketing communications should never be confused with your competitors.
A glance at your competitor’s Web site may suggest categories of information you may have overlooked.
In the worst case scenario, you may be forced to react to prices or promotions on your competitor’s Web site. You don’t want to appear to be more expensive or less qualified than your competitors.
How frequently updated? Monitoring your competitor’s Web sites will give you a clue as to how frequently you should update your Web site. If your competitor’s Web site is updated weekly, yours should to. If you don’t, you’ll be sending out a “less professional” image.

Analytical
A more advanced approach is based on monitoring the performance of your Web site. Web site traffic reports can provide you with information like:

1. How many visitors did your home page attract?
2. Which pages enjoyed the most traffic?
3. Which pages were visited first?
4. Which pages enjoyed the least traffic?
5. How long did visitors stay at each page?
6. What was the last page of your Web site visited?

This information can be invaluable. By identifying your most popular pages—pages that are frequently visited and where visitors stay a long time—you can identify the topics of greatest interest to your market. Conversely, after a short time, by identifying Web site traffic reports, you will be able to identify the topics that are of least importance to your market as evidenced by fewer and shorter visits. Then it’s simply a matter of providing more articles on topics that treat popular topics in greater detail.

There are numerous software programs available that permit you to analyze Web site traffic. If you are hosting your own Web site on your own server, you’ll have to purchase these programs and interpret the results yourself—increasing your investment, learning curve, and workload. In most cases, however, your Internet service provider already has these programs and, for an additional cost each month, can prepare reports analyzing Web site traffic on your site, identifying the most popular pages and the time spent on them.

These Web site traffic reports can also indicate the order in which pages were visited at your site. After they arrived at the home page, for example, which page was usually the first one visited? Web site traffic can also indicate the sequence of page visits; which pages are typically visited first, which pages are rarely visited—or visited last.

By analyzing Web site traffic reports, you can learn from your visitors. Instead of guessing which topics are of most importance, you can analyze your visitor’s behavior and learn from it. You can replace guesswork and hunches with information and knowledge.

Partnership
A more fruitful approach is to constantly ask your Web site visitors to evaluate your Web site’s content and be guided by their reactions. Forms represent the easiest way to do this. Forms permit Web site visitors to quickly communicate their likes and dislikes to you.

If your Web site includes a visitor registration form, a simple pair of text boxes asking “What was the most useful part of this Web site?” and “What was the least useful part of this Web site?” can provide you with valuable information.

An even better approach is to include an opportunity for visitor evaluation or feedback on each page of your Web site. Option boxes represent the best approach since they make it easy for visitors to respond. Option boxes offer visitors a choice of several mutually exclusive options (visitors can’t respond that the page was both “very useful” and “not very useful”). Added to the bottom of each page, along with a Submit and Reset buttons, option boxes don’t take up much space, and it is easy to compile the results.

A typical option box might read “How would you rate the contents of this article?”

Very useful
Somewhat useful
Not very useful
A waste of time

You can assign values to each option, for example:

“Very useful” would be assigned the number 2
“Somewhat useful” would be assigned the number 1
“Not very useful” would be assigned negative 1
“A waste of time” would be assigned negative 2

Visitor evaluations could go directly into a database on your Web site, permitting easy evaluation. There would be a separate column for each article. Negative responses would cancel positive responses, making it easy to score each article by simply adding up the responses.

Another approach would be to add a “Comment” or “Feedback” text box to the bottom of each article. Comments and feedback for each article could be directed to a different database or e-mail address. To succeed, your comment or feedback box should have a specific headline: “What other topics should have been covered in this article?” or “Does this article suggest any questions you’d like answered?”

Depending on the goals of your Web site, you could build a dialog with your Web site visitors by adding (copying and pasting) comments to the end of each article. This would dramatically show visitors that you were interested in their responses.

E-mail Strategy For Your Web Site

2008-03-12T08:06:00.000+07:00

E-mail Strategy For Your Web Site

Since e-mail is the engine that propels your customers from step to step along the five-stage customer development cycle, it’s important that you develop an attainable, consistent, and effective e-mail strategy.

Your e-mail strategy has to be attainable in that, once you commit to it, you can be reasonably certain that you have the resources to maintain an e-mail mailing list, can develop your messages at appropriate intervals, and have the talent necessary to write compelling e-mail.
Your e-mail strategy has to be consistent in that success comes from predictability. An on-again/off-again e-mail strategy will alienate your customers and prospects. If you promise to send a once-a-month e-mail newsletter or bimonthly e-mail alerts, the success of your relationship marketing strategy is undermined the first time you miss your self-imposed deadline.
Most important, your e-mail has to be effective. Unread e-mail is a waste of Web resources, your time, and the recipient’s time. Your e-mail has to be more than “brag and boast” advertising. It has to be interesting in style and relevant in content. More important, it has to be meaningful enough to motivate visitors to visit the relevant premium content areas of your Web site.

It’s important to remember that your customers and prospects are receiving more and more e-mail every day. Unless your e-mail message stands out by virtue of its brevity or extremely relevant content, it’s unlikely to be read. Your e-mail will either sit in your customer’s in-box, waiting until a later (that often never arrives) to be read or the recipients will delete your message. Worse, they may request that you remove them from your e-mail distribution list.

Using E-mail to Drive Visitors to Your Web Site
E-mail should be sent to previous Web site visitors or new prospects each time new information is posted on the Web site. The new information should be as easy to locate on the Web site as possible. Some of the ways this is done include:

E-mail alerts inform customers when new content has been added to your Web site. You can include the URL of an unlinked page in your alert so that recipients can click on a link and go directly to the desired page.
You can send e-mail teasers, which are a bit longer than alerts. E-mail teasers typically list the headlines for new information placed on your Web site along with a paragraph or two amplifying the headline and further describing the information that has been added. Teasers will also include the URLs of the specific pages of the Web site the new information is placed on, permitting visitors to go directly to the new content.
Your bimonthly or monthly e-mails can function like a newsletter, telling the whole story—or enough of the story—so that visitors do not have to go back to the Web site to learn more. Although the text will be unformatted, visitors will be reminded of your constant efforts to provide meaningful information. More important, visitors may choose to forward your newsletter to friends and business associates who might benefit from the newly added content on your Web site.

Long e-mails are read if they offer the recipient compelling and relevant information. The 1to1.com e-mail newsletters sent by Peppers and Roger fall into this category. Each e-mail contains several full-length articles. Although tightly written, each e-mail contains enough information to communicate a key point.

Another approach is the summary approach. This involves sending information that updates your customer’s or prospect’s knowledge of your Web site. One of the best examples of this is the weekly alert that E. P. Levine sends out informing camera lovers of additions to their inventory of used equipment. Summary e-mail can be read at a glance and avoids the necessity for visitors to launch their Web browser and visit the Web site itself.
Your e-mail can also contain attached files, such as formatted word processed documents, PowerPoint presentations, or sophisticated publications created using page layout programs like Adobe PageMaker and saved using Adobe Acrobat.

Adobe Acrobat permits you to distribute fully formatted publications that appear on screen exactly as they looked when they were created and can also be printed on the recipient’s printer. Acrobat publications contain all of the formatting attributes found on a the original print version of the publication, including typefaces not available on the individual’s computer. Adobe Acrobat documents preserve all of the design nuances, such as subtle letter and line spacing, found on the original document. The Adobe Acrobat Reader has already been widely installed on computers and can be downloaded for free from the Adobe Web site. (Always provide a link to the appropriate page of the Adobe Web site for the convenience of those who may not have already downloaded Adobe Acrobat.)

There are three primary disadvantages of distributing attached documents.

Acrobat files take time to download and occupy valuable computer hard disk or network space.
Many corporations, in order to prevent the transmission of computer viruses, do not allow attached files through their firewalls or e-mail security systems.
Attached files do not drive e-mail recipients back to your Web site, which, after all, is the whole purpose of sending the e-mail.

Choosing the right option
Any one of the above options might be enough to guarantee success. More important than the perfection with which these options are executed is the consistency in which you implement your e-mail campaign.

A one-page e-mail “teaser” that goes out like clockwork on the first and fifteenth of each month is far better than an occasional four-page e-mail newsletter that disappears from view for months at a time. Your goal is to constantly keep your prospects and customers aware of your presence and, whenever possible, to drive visitors—and their friends and coworkers—back to your Web site for more information.

The very fact that you consistently send an e-mail teaser or e-mail newsletter to your customers and prospects reminds them of your professionalism and your commitment to providing the information they need to do their job better or enjoy their pleasures with more satisfaction. Consistency equals success.

It’s hard to overestimate the importance of using information and e-mail to propel the customer development cycle. Information used to be frightfully expensive to communicate to prospects and customers. Producing, printing, and mailing postcards and newsletters can be expensive and it can take weeks—often months—for even the simplest project to get designed, produced, printed, addressed, and mailed.

All in all, the best e-mail approach combines brevity and meaningful content with one or more hyperlinks that take visitors to a specific premium content page that interests them.

FOCUS ON CURRENT CUSTOMERS FIRST!

2008-03-11T08:05:00.000+07:00

FOCUS ON CURRENT CUSTOMERS FIRST!

Once you've got a simple Web site up and you're looking to expand it, I'd next focus on providing more information primarily for current customers. Businesses on the Web have had a lot more success serving current customers better and more efficiently than attracting new ones.

The Web can be particularly effective for many kinds of service support. You can provide information twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, without having anyone on staff. And you can update information instantly.

You might be able to slash your customer-service costs dramatically by shifting customers to the Web. Consider announcing the Web address automatically to all incoming callers on your customer-service line.

For minimal cost, you could just list by category answers to frequently asked questions or solutions to common problems. Later you may want to go to the expense of having a database and search engine added.

PUT YOUR CATALOG ON THE WEB!

2008-03-10T08:04:00.000+07:00

PUT YOUR CATALOG ON THE WEB!

Consider putting your product or service catalog on your Web site.

Adding additional pages to your Web site is a fraction of the cost of printing and mailing more catalog pages to even a few thousand customers. So on your Web site you can afford to provide more in-depth information and information on more obscure products that are of interest to only a small portion of your customer base.

If most of your customers have Web access, you may want to shorten, simplify, or even eliminate your printed catalog and direct your customers to an on-line catalog on your Web site saving a lot of money in printing and mailing costs.

A word of caution: On the Web, your competitors will usually be among your most frequent visitors.

BUILD TRAFFIC FOR YOUR WEB SITE

2008-03-09T08:04:00.000+07:00

BUILD TRAFFIC FOR YOUR WEB SITE!

Once you have even a modest amount of information on your Web site, you'll want to start using it to attract new business.

It costs nothing but a little time and effort to build traffic to your Web site. Hot links from one site to the next is what the World Wide Web is all about--and these free links (not paid advertising) is how most traffic is created on the Web.

Start with the major search engines and visit their sites for instructions on how to submit your site for free inclusion with their listings.

By using your imagination and the search engines, try to think of related sites from which you might be able to attract customers. E-mail the Webmaster and consider offering a reciprocal link on your site.

If you have a local service business, maybe you can find a community, association, or newspaper-owned site serving your community. If you have a retail business, maybe some of your manufacturers will list you on their sites.

JAZZING UP YOUR WEB SITE!

2008-03-08T08:03:00.000+07:00

JAZZING UP YOUR WEB SITE!

Although a pretty simple Web site is the best bet for most businesses, there is no limit to how complex and expensive Web sites can be.

One route larger Web sites have taken is to add a lot of "editorial" type of information, becoming more like on-line magazines than just a catalog for their products.

More information and constantly changing information and graphics help build repeat traffic-but it does take time and energy.

You can jazz up your Web site with animation, such as blinking lights and moving cartoons, but the animation may only be visible on more advanced Web browsers. Or you can even add videos and audios--but they will require users to have plug-ins downloaded from other third-party Web sites.

On the other hand, there are still a lot of Web users with very slow modems--so you may want to give users the option of a text-only version of your Web site--or they might never see it at all.

Go On-Line Incrementally

2008-03-07T08:02:00.000+07:00

Go On-Line Incrementally

There are a lot of companies spending a lot of money on elaborate World Wide Web sites only to be frustrated with the small amount of revenue their site is generating. Despite the so-called success stories you read about, very few companies are making money on their Web sites.

So if you're considering a Web site for your firm, take an incremental approach. Start with a very simple site and gradually expand it, keeping careful track of your revenue, your costs, and how much your current customers are using the site.

Even a very small service business today should consider a simple Web site--that I would call "an expanded business card." Keep the graphics simple, but have a few paragraphs of text that explain what your business does and why prospects should do business with you instead of your competition.

Even without programming skills you can create a few basic Web pages yourself using off-the-shelf software. Your only ongoing cost will be about $50 a month to a Web access provider.

Build and Promote Your Web Site

2008-03-06T08:59:00.000+07:00

Build and Promote Your Web Site

When I was writing this article, I posted a message on the Online Advertising mailing list asking people to tell me about how they made or saved money on the Web. One individual wrote to me saying that small businesses lose money more often than they make it on the Web because of the high cost of creating and running a Web site.

Unfortunately, there is some truth in what that individual had to say. Many small businesses have spent more money on the Web than they will ever make or save.

But the good news is that doesn’t have to happen. You can profit from the Web if you plan carefully and use your ingenuity.

Decide What the Purpose of Your Web Site Will Be
If you go to business meetings or look in the local papers, you will find numerous service providers who offer Web site design, hosting, and marketing services. Among them are advertising agencies and marketing firms, desktop publishers, office support services, commercial artists, computer programmers, computer consulting firms, and companies that also sell Web site hosting and Internet connectivity services.

Some of them will have experience setting up huge corporate sites, some will have limited experience building Web sites, and some may be people claiming to be Internet consultants or Web site developers because they have just purchased a Web page creation program and assume that owning the program gives them the expertise to design Web sites.

Many will try to convince you to buy their services now, whether or not you know anything about the Web—or about them. Don’t be pressured by their solicitations. Don’t sign any agreements to buy Web site space or to have a Web site created until you have a clear vision of what you want the Web site to accomplish.

Every decision you make about your Web site should be focused on what you want to achieve by having a Web site. Do you want to use the Web site primarily as a capabilities statement or online version of your press kit or promotional materials? Will you be selling products to consumers directly from your Web site? Or will your primary purpose be communicating with customers, employees, or suppliers?

To avoid spinning your wheels or spending money on services you don’t need, make a list of all the capabilities you need and put them in priority order.

Determine Your Needs

To save time, money (and possibly your sanity), plan out the Web site carefully before you sign any contracts or spend any money on developing it. You can determine what capabilities you’ll need and gather the information you need to get accurate pricing estimates by answering these questions: Who do you want to use the Web site?
How many people do you expect to use the site?
How will you let them know about the site (how will you market it)?
Who will do the marketing?
What capabilities (ordering, database, audio, video, and so on) will you need?
How often will you have to update the Web site?
Who will do the updates?
What will it cost to host the site (or for your own server and Internet connection)?
What will it cost to design the Web site?
What it will cost to market the Web site?
What will it cost to update the site?
How much will you have to spend on inventory?
What will fulfillment costs be?
Will you need warehouse space?
Will you have to hire employees?
How many sales or leads will you need to break even on costs?
What sales volume do you want to attain?
How much, if anything, do you expect to make in advertising revenues?
How soon do you need to reach your sales goals?

Use the answers to these questions to determine what it will cost you to build the site and maintain it. Then compare your costs to the results you hope to achieve and determine if the cost will justify the results.

If the results will justify the cost, set specific goals and timelines for achieving the goals and start the project. At each step along the way, compare your progress to your needs to keep it on target.

If the results won’t justify the costs, look for ways to cut expenses or increase revenues. Or don’t build the site at all. You can reap many of the benefits of the Internet without having your own domain name and Web site.

Don’t Purchase Your Own Internet Server
You don’t have to have your own Internet server (computer dedicated to serving pages to the Internet) and Internet access lines to put your business on the Web. The most cost-effective way for most small businesses to launch and maintain a Web site is to rent server space from a Web-hosting company.

Similarly, if you don’t have the time, skill, and interest to do a good job of designing a Web site, farm out the chore to a reputable contractor or Web design company. The reason is simple: The time you would have to invest to learn to create Web pages could be put to better use selling your products and services and running your own business.

Know What to Expect
With Web design, like other services, you don’t always get what you pay for. High price is no assurance of good design or a result suited to the intended use for your site. One organization paid more than $9,000 to have their Web site designed and hosted for a year. The Web site consisted of only a few pages of text and one graphic image. There were no databases and no order forms. The only interactive feature was a function to send mail to the owners of the site. The entire job, including creating the graphic image, shouldn’t have taken more than a day or two to create.

You could get ripped off like this, too, if you don’t know what you are buying. Launching a Web site is a process that involves several types of activities. Depending on the nature of your site, those services will include some or all of the following:

Setting up the Web site on a hosting service
Hosting the Web site on an ongoing basis (storing the Web site on a computer, connecting it to the Internet)
Registering a domain name (giving yourself a unique “address” on the Web)
Designing Web pages (similar to typesetting and laying out a newsletter)
Designing artwork (creating original artwork for the Web site)
Writing the editorial content for the Web site
Programming a database to work on the Web (for mailing lists, surveys, catalogs, customer sales data, and so on)
Registering the site with Internet search engines
Marketing and promoting the site (on the Web and offline)
Advertising (on the Web and offline)
Scanning your graphics and text to make them usable on the Web
Maintaining the site on an ongoing basis

Few companies offer all these services. Many, however, offer “complete” packages that include setting up and hosting the site along with design and limited maintenance. Although using a single source to do all the work sounds convenient, it isn’t necessarily a good idea. The person who is a whiz at computer programming may have no artistic abilities and no eye for graphic design. Someone who is capable of putting text into html format may not know anything about creating the editorial content for the site or about Internet marketing. (Don’t assume they can type well or spell words correctly either!) And the company that hosts the Web site may charge a small fortune to “design” your Web site, when all they do is plug your material into a cookie-cutter template that they use to “design” every Web site they create.

Furthermore, if you are charged a flat fee, you may wind up paying for services you don’t need, or overpaying for the ones you do need.

To make sure the price you are quoted is fair, ask the provider to give you an itemized list of services they provide and to specify the fee they are charging for each service.

Get quotes from several vendors and compare them. Look at how much disk space you get, how much bandwidth you are allowed (how much data can be transferred monthly for the fee), and what extra charges you’ll incur if you go over these amounts. If you plan to sell online, see if there are extra charges for a storefront, too. Ask whether you will have access to update the files yourself if you decide to; how many e-mail accounts you will be given; and whether there are extra charges for autoresponders, mailing lists, and other services you may want.

Know the Going Rates
Be wary of deals that offer you a set number of pages unless you have no plans to add anything to your site after it is set up. A page requires very little space on a computer. If you need to have only a few pages on the Internet, you shouldn’t have to pay more than $10 or $15 a month for hosting them, plus a reasonable hourly fee for taking your material and converting it into html Web pages.

In 1999, Web-hosting prices for people who could build their own Web sites ranged from as little as $15 a month to $50 a month or more depending on the amount of computer (server) space needed and whether the Web site would require database, audio or video capabilities. A site costing $15 per month in hosting fees is adequate for most small businesses whose primarily goal is to put sales literature on the Web to get sales leads. Some hosting companies included shopping cart software (software for setting up a retail site) at no extra charge with host plans costing about $25 a month. Graphic artists and programmers typically charge $75 an hour and up. Conversion of documents to simple html pages costs between $15 and $25 an hour.

Find Affordable Web Hosting
If you will be creating your own Web pages or if you want to compare the prices your service provider quotes to price elsewhere.

Ask for References and Check Them
Before you agree to have anyone design your Web site, ask for references. Get the names and URLs of Web sites they have designed for other companies. Look at those sites and see if you like them. Is the design of the pages attractive? Do they load quickly? Do they all look the same? Look around the sites for the e-mail address of the owners and send them e-mail. Ask if they were satisfied with the work that was done for them and if it was done in a timely fashion.

Increase Productivity on the Web

2008-03-05T08:54:00.000+07:00

Increase Productivity and Profits on the Web

When I started my first online forum in 1988, few people knew what an online service was. Fewer still cared. Trying to explain what I did usually produced puzzled looks, and if I could corner anyone long enough to give a demonstration, the usual response was a polite, “That’s nice, but who will use it?”

No one asks that question anymore. Hundreds of thousands of individuals a month use either the Business Know-How Forum on America Online. Big and small businesses alike have flocked to the Internet and to online services because that’s where their customers are. And that’s where their suppliers are. Researchers expect there will be 100 million Americans online* in the year 2000.

Every type of product you can imagine is being sold on the Web, too. In 1999, 76 percent of retailers and 43 percent of manufacturers were selling online or planned to sell online.† Besides computers, books, and CDs, you’ll find leather jackets, soda pop, lingerie, and clothing. You’ll find some rather inconceivable offerings, as well. One enterprising college student set up a Web site to sell horse manure. Her target wasn’t farmers or gardeners. It was any individual who wanted to “get even” for being laid off, dumped by a love one, and so on. For $19.99, the site would giftwrap a clump of horse manure and ship it to the sender’s least favorite people.

You don’t have to be a retailer to benefit from the Web, however. Small and home-based businesses throughout the world are discovering that the Internet reduces costs and improves efficiency. In fact, the improvements are so significant that you will be at a competitive disadvantage if you don’t learn to put the Web to work in your business.

Before You Go On…
Don’t let the savings and productivity enhancements described in the following pages make you rush out and spend thousands of dollars overnight to have someone set you up with your own Web server, hosted Web site, or intranet. Take the time to learn about the Web firsthand before you make any major investment in it.

Learn the Inexpensive Way
If you have no experience using the Internet, the easiest way to learn about it is to use a personal computer hooked up to a standard telephone line and sign up for an online service such as America Online, Compuserve, or Microsoft Network. Or pay an Internet service provider (ISP), such as AT&T Worldnet or BellSouth, by the month for an e-mail address and a connection to the Internet.

The reason to start with one of these services is they simplify the process of getting connected to the Internet. Some offer their own content (news, feature articles, and so on) as well as just the connection to the Internet. Once you have an Internet connection with access to the Web, you can also use any of the popular Web “portals” (Web sites that categorize sites according to their content and give you links to them) to look around the Internet for Web sites in your industry.

Here are some of the most popular portals. Each offers links to various categories of information as well as powerful search engines that search the entire Web for keywords you choose:

Google.com
Yahoo!
Netscape Netcenter
Lycos
AltaVista
MSN
Snap
Excite
Infoseek
AT&T WorldNet

Get in the Habit of Using E-mail
Having an e-mail address is just about as important these days as having a business card or a sales tax number. Millions of businesspeople are using e-mail to send routine business correspondence, requests for proposals, contracts, instructions, price lists, spreadsheets, and sometimes orders. If you don’t have an e-mail account you won’t appear professional, and in some cases, you may not be able to do business at all.

Set Goals and Focus on Them
The Web offers so many ways to inform, do research, entertain, and sell that it’s easy to lose site of your business reason for being on the Web. The “wow” factor attached to it all can cause you to waste countless amounts of time and money doing little more than playing around on the Web.

To avoid that pitfall, make a list of your goals before you make any decisions about what to put on your Web site or how to present the material. Don’t include things like “set up a Web site” or “set up a bulletin board.” List only the results you want to accomplish, not the tools you’ll use to get those results. Your list might include some of the following goals:

Send and receive business correspondence
Keep tabs on your competitors
Generate sales
Generate advertising revenue
Reduce support calls
Enhance customer communications
Reduce costs
Provide product information to customers
Give demos

Assign priorities and a value to each goal. Weigh every decision you make about your use of the Web against these priorities and values.

For instance, suppose you have decided a Web site would help build your business and you are thinking about putting a video on the site showing you demonstrating your product. Consider whether that demo will really enhance sales. Do people understand what the product does? Or does it really require a demo to sell it? Will the video really build sales or just stroke your ego? Any feature that doesn’t help you reach your goal should be eliminated—at least at startup. You can always add capabilities once you see how customers actually use your site.

Optimizing Web Site's Performance

2008-03-04T08:52:00.000+07:00

Optimizing Your Web Site's Performance

Your Web site consists of a combination of hardware and software that must be chosen to serve your unique needs and support your relationship marketing efforts. These tools must first of all be suitable to the task at hand in terms of volume of traffic they will support and your informational and transactional needs. These tools need to be flexible enough to accommodate the inevitable changes that will take place as your business grows. They need to be powerful enough to support surges of activity and traffic (like when you have a special offer or a live event), and they need to be powerful and expandable enough to support overnight growth without needing replacement.

Not only should each of these points be addressed, but the resulting information infrastructure should be integrated with your relationship marketing initiative. This does not happen by accident. It happens though careful planning, equipment selection, design, implementation, and operation.

Adequate Internet Connection
Traffic to your Web site comes to your Web server through your Internet connection. Your connection needs to be fast enough to support the highest anticipated traffic and reliable enough to make sure your site visitors can reach your site 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If your connection is down or simply too crowded, and visitors cannot reach your Web site they may never return.

If you will host your own Web server, you will need a high-speed Internet connection to the physical location of your server hardware. The typical minimum Internet connection for self-hosted Web sites is a T1 connection, which can support up to 1.544Mb/s (megabytes per second). This is sufficient for fairly large Web sites but can become a bottleneck at periods of peak usage such as live chats, product announcements, or special offers. Advanced media like streaming audio can place enormous demands on your Internet connection.

Internet service providers (ISPs) have their own high-speed Internet connections to their upstream provider. If an ISP is hosting your Web site, your site will share their upstream connection with all other Web sites they host. If one hosted site is experiencing a lot of traffic, your site can suffer. You should talk with your ISP about their upstream connection and get them to assure you they have sufficient upstream capacity today and in the future. Also ask them if they have “multiple, redundant connections” with multiple upstream connectivity providers. That way, if one of their upstream providers goes down, or if one of their physical connection lines goes down, people can still reach your Web site. The reliability that comes from multiple, redundant connections is one of the primary benefits of having an ISP host your site.

Capable Web Server Hardware and Software
If you will be hosting your own Web site, make sure you have the hardware to easily support your highest anticipated traffic and 6 to 12 months of anticipated growth. Web servers benefit from large amounts of RAM memory (512 Mb or more) and fault tolerant features like multiple power supplies, redundant disk drives, and networking cards. Your Web server should also have an uninterruptible power supply in case the power goes out for a short while. Basically, anything that can fail needs to have a backup, preferably “hot-swappable,” which means it can be replaced without turning the computer off or rebooting.

An increasingly common approach to increasing the availability of Web sites is through a hardware redundancy technique called “clustering.” A cluster is two or more identical computers configured to share the traffic the site receives. Each is equipped with a special “failover” capability so that if one machine fails for any reason, the Web site is instantly served from the remaining machine, or machines, in the cluster. When the failed machine is repaired, it rejoins the cluster. Also remember that the physical facility where your Web server is installed must be secure and have good environmental characteristics and adequate and reliable power. And your Web server should be backed up regularly with tapes or other backup medium kept at another physical location.

If your Web site will need to process a large number of transactions, the processor speed and the number of processors should be increased over the basics. In this case, the I/O throughput of the hard disks on your server should also be increased.

The operating system and Web server software will be determined by your overall information needs and should be chosen to be compatible with your database, Web site reporting, and e-mail integration needs. If an ISP will be hosting your Web site, your Web site will probably share a computer with several dozen other Web sites. Rarely will you have the opportunity to impact the configuration of their hardware.

Compatible Database Software and Application Server
Most likely, you will want to create a database-driven Web site, which means that most of your open and premium content is stored in a database. When a visitor comes to your Web site and views a page, the content is called up from the database and gets formatted and sent to the visitor as HTML. This significantly simplifies ongoing site maintenance and the integration of your Web site visitor tracking and e-mail databases.

The selection of a database and an application server (the software that integrates the Web site and your database) should be made to insure compatibility with your other information integration needs. Most popular software tools in this category today are quite interoperable, but you need to investigate carefully and specifically address the compatibility with your e-mail system and other pre-existing information infrastructure components.

Remember that depending on the anticipated volume of your Web site, you may need separate computer hardware on which to install your database. Typically, all but the smallest Web sites have one or more computers functioning as Web servers as well as one or more computers functioning as database and application servers. Larger Web sites can have dozens or hundreds of servers. Make sure that the tools you select can accommodate the growth, or “scalability,” you require. It would be a terrible thing if you had to abandon your system in a few months and start over. With careful planning, growth can be seamless. As your needs magnify, you can add additional computers, more storage, additional high-speed Internet connections, and the software that makes it all work.

If your site will be hosted by an ISP, you will have little choice over the database and application server programs they use. You should select your ISP based on the compatibility of their database with your overall information needs. You should also discuss your anticipated growth and let them describe to you their plan for keeping up with your needs.

How to Attract Visitors

2008-03-03T08:49:00.000+07:00

How to Attract Visitors to Your Web Site

Attracting visitors to your Web site is a precondition for the success of your Web initiative. Although promoting your Web site should take place at all stages of your Web initiative, it is particularly important at the start. There are a few keys to attracting and promoting visitors to your Web site:

Choose the right URL, or Web site, address.
Make your Web site visible on the various search engines.
Place banner advertisements that link to your Web site on other Web sites.
Promote your Web site to your existing customers and prospects.

URLs
Your Web site address should be short, logical, and memorable so that someone could remember it without writing it down. Many new Internet companies will actually choose their name based on the availability of a domain name. You may not have this flexibility. It is also best to choose a domain within the “dotcom” top level domain. This is the premium real estate on the Web and will continue to be so even if or when additional top level domains become released.

Search Engines
Businesses have gone to a great deal of trouble making sure their Web sites show up on the various Web search engines. There are two types of search engines:

Many Web site search engines require you to submit your Web site address and a brief description of the content on your Web site. Sometimes these search engines automatically list your site, other times employees evaluate your site to make sure that what you promise is what you deliver.
Other search engines work quietly in the background, constantly searching the Web for keywords located in the text at the top of each of the individual pages of your Web site or elsewhere in your Web site, categorizing your Web site on the basis of the keywords.

Checking your current listing
If you already have a Web site, you can see how effectively your Web site is listed by visiting a popular search site such as www.google.com (an individual search site) or a site such as www.ask.com that simultaneously submits your query to several search engines. Enter your name or the name of your business in the “find” box. The number of times your Web site’s correct Web address appears will give you an idea of how well you’re doing.

If your Web site address doesn’t show up frequently enough (or at all), you might consider devoting some time to visiting each of the search Web sites, locating their search criteria, and submitting (or resubmitting) your Web site address.

Increasing your visibility
There are some inexpensive ways you can ensure that search engines that actively search the Web will locate your Web site. One is to be sure that you clearly identify the contents of each page of your Web site in the title area at the top of each page.

Another approach is to add HTML meta text to the top of each page below the title area. Meta text consists of keywords that describe the contents of each page. Meta text does not show up on the screen of your Web site visitor, but it is visible to the search engines who silently visit Web pages and inventory the meta text located at the top of each page.

If your Web site contains important text, like headlines and pull quotes formatted as graphic files that are downloaded along with each page of your Web site, you can use alt text to make sure that the formatted text is searchable. Although the graphic files themselves are not indexed by search engines, alt text (which appears on the screen of your visitor’s computer as the graphic text is downloaded) is searchable and indexable.

Pros and cons of search engines
The advantage of being listed by a search engine is that a lot of potential visitors to your Web site depend on them. However, if you are totally absent from the search engines, you will undoubtedly miss out on some sales opportunities.

Other problems involved with search engines are that not every Web visitor is aware of them or uses them, and the explosive growth of the Web has meant that the search engines are unable to keep up with new sites. Some research indicates that less than 16 percent of all Web sites are listed on search engines. Search sites are overwhelmed by the number of Web sites out there.

The primary emphasis of this book is on using the Web as a tool to develop closer relationships with existing customers and prospects and those you encounter during your day-to-day business activities. For this reason, it makes more sense to concentrate your attention on developing open and premium content for visitors at each stage of the customer development cycle, and backing up your efforts with a consistent and targeted e-mail program aimed at those most likely to buy from you, rather than investing a lot of time on marginal prospects.

Banner Advertising
Many Web sites contain banner advertisements. Banners are ads that, when clicked, bring the visitor from the current site to your Web site. Banner ads are either traded or sold. The purpose of trading banner ads is that, hopefully, when your ad is seen by visitors at a site attracting the same market as yours, the visitor will click on the banner and visit your Web site. You can also purchase banner ads on Web sites that, presumably, attract visitors who would enjoy visiting your site.

The pros and cons of banner ads
The advantage of banner advertisements is that your name and brief advertising message is viewed by tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of visitors to other Web sites each day, thereby increasing your firm’s visibility. Also, since payment for many banner advertisements is based on the number of visitors who click on the banner and visit your site, you pay only for the actual site visitors, even though your advertising message may have be seen by far more people. And, of course, there is no charge for banner ads that are exchanged or traded with other sites.

The problem of banner ads is that—at best—they are intrusions. They interrupt the primary reason the visitor is at a Web site, which is to learn something.

When trading banner ads on your site for banner ads on another site, of course, each time a visitor clicks on a banner on your site and leaves your site, there is a chance they might never return.

Another problem is that it is very difficult to obtain actual statistics on the number of purchases that result from banner advertising. Although many individuals may click on your banner advertisement and visit your Web site, it is very difficult to relate these visits to actual sales. You might end up spending a lot of money on banner advertising and find that only a few actual sales can be traced back to the originating advertisements. Your banner advertising might be attracting curiosity seekers rather than serious buyers.

Look to your competition
When evaluating banner advertising, pay attention to your competition. See how many businesses similar to yours in size and product mix use banner advertisements and where they are placed. This will give you a rough indication of whether others similar to you have successfully employed banner advertisements.

Promoting Your Web Site to Existing Customers and Prospects
A far better alternative to get visitors to your site is to promote your Web site to your core market—your current customers and prospects. There are three ways to do this:

You can promote your Web site’s address wherever possible, such as on all of your existing print communications.
You can obtain your customers’ and prospects’ e-mail addresses whenever possible.
You can create a direct-mail or telemarketing promotion designed to drive visitors to your site.

Welcome To AdPleasure Media

2008-03-01T02:39:00.002+07:00

Welcome...

We are pleased to welcome you to AdPleasure Media. We will to assist you for promoting your products or services.

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Why AdPleasure MEDIA:

This our answers:

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