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Start Up Website:
Market & Expand Your Business On The Web
As the World Wide Web became the marketing buzzword of the
late 1990s, businesses and consumers alike began using statistics
on the Internet, Web, and online services interchangeably.
It's easy to get confused, so it pays to keep in mind what
the Web is and what it's not.
First, the World Wide Web is just a small part of the Internet,
with fewer users than the Internet as a whole. Although the
Net is made up of more than 10 million computers routing mail
and storing information, the Web is made up of less than 100,000
computers that store Web sites. How many of the Internet's
60 million users browse the Web? Figure somewhere between
a half and two-thirds, or 30 million to 40 million. No accurate
measuring system exists. But even though the surveys disagree
on the exact number of people hooking up, experts agree that
the Web is used far more than the commercial online services.
The number of Web sites doubles every three to five months.
As they become easier to use and more graphics-rich, they
attract more and more people. By 2000, the Web had more than
50 million users logging on either through standard Internet
access accounts or online services.
With commercial users logging in at record rates, the Web
has quickly become the place to be for business. (Online sales
were expected to top $6 billion by the end of 1)98.) Consumers
visit the Web to be entertained and to buy products and services.
Small businesses, able to react faster than large corporations,
arc learning to serve both needs very well. The New Yorker
once ran a cartoon of two dogs sitting in front of a computer.
One is typing while he tells the other, "On the Internet,
nobody knows you're a dog." On the Web, nobody knows you're
a small business.
The difference between a bad Web site and a good one isn't
money, it's creativity. Setting up a good Web site isn't expensive,
so small-company sites can look just as good, or better, than
large-company sites. And smaller companies can move quickly,
because they're able to make changes without calling endless
meetings or securing departmental approval.
On the Web, taking chances and moving quickly pays off. Creative,
flexible sites attract the most visitors, who then tell their
business colleagues and friends to have a look. The Web is
one of those marketplaces where being small is an asset.
Once users find a site-through a search engine, by reading
a URL in a magazine ad, or by being sent to the site from
a link on another site - there are certain things they'll
expect to see. Ignoring these important elements will mark
any site as amateurish and not worth revisiting. Here are
five essentials for any site:
1. It delivers what it promises. Say a Web user types "car
repair" into a search engine, and Auto Mile Car Dealership
turns up among the sites that list "car repair" in their
keyword sections. That site had better have more than just
a line reading, "Our repair shop is open 12 hours a day"
to justify listing "repair" in the keyword section. Otherwise,
that user will be angry to have wasted the time visiting
the site, only to learn there's no information on car repair
there. Make sure that a keyword leads a user to a sizable
amount of information at your site.
2. It can be downloaded quickly. The classic mistake that
many companies make is to include a large photo or sound
or video clip on the Web site. Often it is of the CEO, who
is saying something useless like, "Welcome to our Web site;
we hope you like it." Graphics and sound take a long time
to download compared to text. For a Web user, waiting several
minutes for something that boring is bound to make the user
click elsewhere-literally. Many interesting visual effects
can be created on Web sites that don't take long to download.
For example, skinny horizontal graphics that stretch across
the screen take shorter time to download than large ones
that use a lot of vertical space. Black-and-white graphics
load faster than color ones.
3. Company information is easy to find. On the Web, it
doesn't matter if a company is in Maine or Montana. With
a click of the mouse, it's just as easy for Web users to
reach one as it is the other. But nobody is living completely
in cyberspace yet. Users want to know where the companies
are in the real world. Perhaps the customer lives near the
company and would like to visit, or maybe they'd just find
it interesting to know that a cactus greenhouse is located
in Wisconsin. It's essential to place the Web site somewhere
in traditional real-world space, so always list a physical
company location. Even more essential is to include an address,
as well as phone and fax numbers. Some Web users want to
call a company or mail in an order rather than e-mail it.
Usually this information provides reassurance that the site
belongs to a real company and not a con artist. Sometimes
the Web user just wants the information because he or she
is more comfortable with traditional contact methods.
4. It's updated frequently. Most Web site administrators
update their sites at least once a week. This time-intensive
task consumes a lot of labor, especially when the One-Hour
Browse Rule is factored into the equation: For every change
made to the site, the person making the change should browse
the Web for at least one hour to get ideas, to keep current,
and to compare what other businesses are doing with this
burgeoning medium. Keeping the site updated and refreshed
is key for companies that expect visitors to return. There
is so much action on the Web that it's tempting for visitors
to jump somewhere more exciting if your site bores them.
5. There's user interaction. One of the big advantages
of this medium is that it allows users to interact immediately.
They can send e-mail, fill out a form, enter a contest,
or request information the instant they have the urge. And
they expect to be asked - it's part of the fun and entertainment
of browsing the Web. A site with no "user feedback" e-mail
forms, no games to play, or no forms to fill out is a site
that will soon sit untapped. A clever site will attract
visitors who will return regularly to see what's new.
Make Money Online?
You can save money by buying online, using your business
credit card. You can also make money by selling online. A
Web site can boost your profits by increasing your sales without
proportionately increasing your marketing expenses. Is it
really safe to divulge credit-card numbers online? The chances
of someone stealing those numbers are actually remote-it's
far less likely, for example, than the chance of someone removing
a copy of a customer's credit slip from the trash.
To put customers' minds at ease about doing business online,
offer protected transactions, either in the form of encryption
software or a transaction service. Such services process credit-card
sales by encrypting them for each customer. Growing consumer
confidence in the integrity of these services promises to
send the number of online sales soaring. The estimated number
of online shoppers in 1998 was 16 million. By 2002, that number
was over 61 million.
Marketing Resources on the Web
Here's a sampling of websites that can help you fine-tune
your marketing plan.
1. Direct Marketing Association - Guidelines
and news from the leading association of direct marketers
www.the-dma.org
2. E-mail address directory - Bigfoot's databases
facilitate searches for e-mail addresses www.bigfoot.com
3. International Trade Administration - Broad
range of export-related information, statistics, and country
reports www.trade.gov
4. E-Commerce Times - This free online publication
includes daily news and feature articles for entrepreneurs
and companies doing business on the Internet. www.ecommercetimes.com
5. Web Marketing Today - The Web's largest
source of key information about doing business on the Net;
with over 2,200 pages and 16,000+ links to resources on
e-commerce and Web marketing.
www.wilsonweb.com
6. ebusinessforum.com - This Web site from the Economist
Group (the publishers of The Economist) provides international
business, economic, and political analysis and forecasting.
www.ebusinessforum.com
7. Google Webmaster Central - Welcome to your one-stop
shop for comprehensive info about how Google crawls and
indexes websites. You can learn here how to ensure that
your site is easily crawled and indexed and access tools
that will enable you to diagnose crawling issues, study
statistics on how your site is doing in our index, and tell
us how you'd like your site to be crawled and indexed. www.google.com/webmasters
8. For Web Publishers: Google AdSense - Earn more
revenue from your website, while providing visitors with
a more rewarding online experience. Google AdSense™ automatically
delivers text and image ads that are precisely targeted
to your site and your site content—ads so well-matched,
in fact, that your readers will actually find them useful.
And when you add Google WebSearch to your site, AdSense
delivers targeted ads to your search results pages too.
With AdSense you earn more ad revenue with minimal effort—and
no additional cost. google.com/intl/en/ads/index.html
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