|
|
| www.1001TopWords.com |
|
|
Five Essential Questions to Answer Before Creating Your First (or second...or third) Website
Right after the thought, "I need a website," people usually say, "I need a web designer!" Actually, before even whispering "web design," you need to answer these five questions in as much detail as possible. Once you're clear on your strategy, you can provide better information to your web designer. And most likely you'll be pleased with your new home on the web. 1. What is the purpose of your website? When you're well-known through face-to-face contacts, your website will serve as an additional source of information to potential customers. You may need only a basic "calling card" site: a list of contact information, coming appearances and basic brochure copy. On the other hand, your website may be your primary revenue source. In that case, you'll need to direct visitors to your "for sale" section and come up with a plan to take their money. You'll need a shopping cart and perhaps a merchant account. 2. Who will be your ideal target market? Draft at least two hundred words describing your ideal client. Where does he live, work and play? Where does she eat and shop? What are your client's goals and hobbies? You're the psychologist: create as many details as possible. Some copywriters recommend assigning your target a name so you can see the person behind the credit card. 3. What action do you want everyone to take? Your home page copy drives your website visitors to a clear, unambiguous target. Keep them on your site as long as possible and suggest a specific action. Buy an ebook. Sign up for your ezine. Sign your guest book. Make it easy for visitors to take this action, placing forms and links right on your home page. 4. How will you maintain your site? Many new website owners budget the cost of web design and a year of web hosting. But that's only the beginning. A website that's unchanged will grow cobwebs. It's easy to tell when you've landed on a website where nobody's home. Something's broken. The whole place looks abandoned. You'll need to replace broken links, fix spelling errors, add updates to your schedule, and a whole lot more. And in my experience, your website will look different after five or six months. Time for a new overhaul! That's why I say, "You need to become your own web designer, marry your web designer, or be prepared to pay." 5. How will you promote your site? A website without promotion is like a 747 flying around the world without any passengers: expensive and useless! You can write articles as free content, swap links and submit your site to the search engines. Fill your website with content, update the content regularly, and write your copy with an eye to your keywords. You'll have to budget time for promotion or hire an assistant. Planning ahead can help you create a website that makes your job easier. About The Author Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is an author, speaker and career/business consultant, helping midlife professionals take their First step to a Second Career. http://www.cathygoodwin.com. "Ten secrets of mastering a major life change" mailto:subscribe@cathygoodwin.com Contact: cathy@cathygoodwin.com 505-534-4294
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
PHP Redirect A PHP Redirect automatically transfers a web user from one URL to another. For example, typing foo.com in the browser automatically transfers the user to another URL bar.com. How To Make Your Website More Successful? (Part I) Building a website and getting it online is easy. Driving visitors to it is the more difficult part. Most people are not patient enough when it comes to build up traffic. They expect thousands of visitors a week after they go live with their website. But that is not how it works. We share some secrets of how to make your website more successful. Product Promoting: Getting The Response When you publish a content site there are times when affiliate products are not the only products you want to recommend. Web Success Secret - Keep Your Visitors Interested Visitors to your site come looking for information or solutions to their problems. They will remain there if they find what they are looking for. Otherwise there is always that Back Button to the search engine to click another site. Making the Most of Your Website: Start with the Basics One of my most salient memories from when I sold real estate in Oregon for my Dad's company was listing a property where the owners had initially tried to sell it For-Sale-By-Owner with no success. After the listing contract was signed my Dad told them, "Next time put your phone number on your sign." Introductory PHP For Non-Programmers When you started reading this sentence you assumed lo acabaría en inglés. However, I didn't finish in English. This begs the question, 'In which language did I finish?' Unless I tell you the language, you'd have to run around and compare the words against known words in order to learn that it was Spanish, but I'd bet you'd give up and move on first. Servers work much the same way; if you don't let it know the language it assumes you're speaking to someone else (the browser) and sends it along. Servers aren't even friendly enough to give it a whack and see how it comes out. The Web: Your Window of Opportunity Thinking about starting up a business? The web is the way to go. Look around! More and more, people are relying on the internet as an information resource, a way to foster personal relationships, and method of purchasing goods and services. Increase Hits to Help Increase Your Business In this day and age most businesses consider having their own website; from informational based to the most advanced and complex e-commerce site. For the large enterprise, this become a vital part of their day to day operation, their web site embeds complex applications that exchanges critical information between their partners and clients. Web services are sometime employed in order to simplify their transactions and easily exchange critical information across their suppliers, clients and partners. Cost Effective and Powerful Dynamic Websites w. Fantastico Web Hosting If you are developing your website on a host that charges less that $5 a month, make plenty of backups as you are likely to loose your website files when the webhost goes out of business without notice. Indeed, be extremely wary of any such host. Once your website is attracting getting visitors, get your website hosted with host that does not foolishly try to over sell his server resources. And, expect to pay at least $15 a month or more for the added security and reliability of such a host. If Its Done Its Done for: Make Your Website Part of Your Business before You Build Web sites are an Ongoing Part of Business. Autoresponders Make You Look Like A Pro People like to get immediate responses to requests. Autoresponders are great for letting people know you are on the job and that their requests are being taken care of. These are much better than thank you pages. How To Convert More Sales On Your Website One of the biggest mistakes that most online retailers make is they do not take into account typical buyer behaviour. The conversion from real world to online provides many benefits to the retailer, but present some real challenges for the customer because their buying decision is made more difficult in an online environment. Successful Web Development: 10 Key Elements There are many elements that are key to successful web development. There is no arguing that elements of talent such as graphic design, writing, and technical expertise are important. In the long run, however, it is the elements that are not directly associated with web development that determine a website's success. For the beginner, it is important to have a broader view of success If You Build It, They Will Come? Building a new website can be a lengthy task. From scratch to the client's specification and then implement additional features and/or changes the client usually has. Sometimes far too much attention is put to the development of building the website and then on launch day expect the massess of visitors to flood in. This simply is not the case, unless you have traffic from another of your sites streaming over to the new one. Five Question-Five Minute Web Makeover Quiz If you haven't made the sales and built your clients to an income you want, then you may need a Web Site makeover. 35% Revenue Increase? from Your Website! 2 Golden Rules for an Engaging Website Three Way Linking - Webmaster Strategy Three way linking and concerns. Why Local Service Companies Should Have a Website The Internet is being used by local service business to improve sales today. Sales are improved because a website gives a company more credibility and in some cases generates leads. Streamline your Business Website with a Content Management System I talk with so many people who have small businesses and would like to have a web presence but don't know the first thing about how to even get started. Some of the reasons I hear are: Is Your Web Site Talking to Your Customer? A while ago one of my clients approached me and mentioned thatthey were experiencing a serious problem with customerregistrations (obtaining customer names and e-mail addresses),on their web site. They still had a lot of traffic, but werefinding that the ratio between traffic and registrations hadbeen dropping steadily.
|
| © Athifea Distribution LLC - 2013 |
