Tips for building a better website

Building a Better Web Site – Choose or Lose

Once you have these keywords, you need to use as many of the keywords as possible on the main page
of your Web site, in the text that describes your business. The closer this text is to the top of your Web
page, the better. Repeat the most important keywords several times.

Testing, 1-2-3:

Once you’ve built your Web site, test every aspect of it before opening up for business. Click on every
link. Make sure all the text, images, colors and page layouts are correct. Check your spelling one more
time—spelling mistakes can give your customers a negative impression.

If you are selling products online, get out your credit card and try ordering something. If there are problems,
it’s best to nd them now before your customers do. There are many free tools that will help you
test your site: go to www.netmechanic.com for spellcheckers, link checkers, Web browser compatibility
checkers and more.

Promotion equals commotion

How you promote your site depends on your budget, but there are several free things you should do
immediately:

• Be sure to include your Web site’s URL in all your printed marketing and advertising materials and business cards.
• Register your Web site with the big search engines: Google, Yahoo, AltaVista and MSN.
• Leverage specialized Web directories that only list businesses in a certain industry.
• If you belong to any business associations, list your company’s information on the association’s Web site.

Analyze this…

You can track many statistics critical to improving your business, including how many unique visitors
came to your site, what they looked at, how many just browsed, how many bought something, how
many are repeat customers and the eectiveness of your advertising/marketing campaigns.

To get these statistics you must have Web analysis software installed on your site. Some of this software,
such as StatCounter, is free but has limited functionality. Commercial software can cost more but oers
more detailed analysis and far better reports. Some Web hosting companies, including Hometown
Marketing Group, Inc., oer inexpensive analysis software.

Listen and learn

Web sites oer many ways to obtain customer feedback in addition to web statistics, as mentioned
above. Two additional methods are customer surveys and community forums.

You can use customer surveys on your Web site as they are likely to oer feedback in this manner. Community
forums (also called message boards) can also be used to gather customer feedback. Customers
post messages on your site, most often to other customers, to discuss their opinions. This can be used to
respond to common misunderstandings and respond to possible complaints.

Invest wisely in your Web site and it will be a critical business tool that drives your company’s growth
and success. To learn moreAdditionally, Internet use for promotional purposes will continue to
increase with ve out of six companies projected to have established a Web site or home page by the
end of that year.

This makes the key to a successful Web site not just its look, but also the way in which it is marketed once
it is up and running. Keep the following things in mind as you set out on your Web journey:

Choose Your Path Wisely

The type of Web site you need depends on the nature of your business and the goals you have for the
site.

A brochure Web site is the easiest to build (www.earlsnyc.com is a good example). These sites combine
the roles of print collateral, yellow page ads and direct mail pieces. Brochure sites are used primarily by
restaurants and other small businesses that need to drive foot trac to their physical location.

If you want to sell your company's products directly to customers, you will need a Web site that revolves
around a catalog (www.amazon.com is a good example). Catalog sites need e-commerce software that
manages the catalog, provides a customer shopping cart and includes a payment method for customers.
These sites may seem complicated to build, but there are many pre-built software solutions available to
get you started.

Before deciding the type of Web site you need, look at your competitor's sites and position your site
accordingly. Once you choose the general type of site you want, decide what types of features will
provide your customers or users with the richest experience using your site. The choices are almost
unlimited, but some of the most popular additional features are: message boards, news articles, le
downloads and automated customer service.

What’s in a Name?

A domain name is your business's address on the Internet and will be used as part of your company’s
email address and its Web site address (URL).

It is important that your domain name be short, descriptive and memorable. For instance, IBM's domain
name is ibm.com. If you can’t be descriptive, then be short and memorable. When Amazon obtained its
domain name, it had many choices: AmazonBookstore.com, AmazonBooksandCDs.com,
AmazonPrintandMultimedia.com, but they chose the simplest name: amazon.com

The Search is On

Many customers will use a Web search engine to nd your site, so making your Web site “search engine
friendly” is extremely important. To do this, rst create keywords that describe your business. For
instance, if you sell reconditioned laser printer cartridges, then your keywords might include reconditioned,
refurbished, used, laser, printer, toner, cartridge, ink and supplies.

Once you have these keywords, you need to use as many of the keywords as possible on the main page
of your Web site, in the text that describes your business. The closer this text is to the top of your Web
page, the better. Repeat the most important keywords several times.

Testing, 1-2-3:

Once you’ve built your Web site, test every aspect of it before opening up for business. Click on every
link. Make sure all the text, images, colors and page layouts are correct. Check your spelling one more
time—spelling mistakes can give your customers a negative impression.

If you are selling products online, get out your credit card and try ordering something. If there are problems,
it’s best to nd them now before your customers do. There are many free tools that will help you
test your site: go to www.netmechanic.com for spellcheckers, link checkers, Web browser compatibility
checkers and more.

Promotion equals commotion

How you promote your site depends on your budget, but there are several free things you should do
immediately:

• Be sure to include your Web site’s URL in all your printed marketing and advertising materials and business cards.
• Register your Web site with the big search engines: Google, Yahoo, AltaVista and MSN.
• Leverage specialized Web directories that only list businesses in a certain industry.
• If you belong to any business associations, list your company’s information on the association’s Web site.

Analyze this…

You can track many statistics critical to improving your business, including how many unique visitors
came to your site, what they looked at, how many just browsed, how many bought something, how
many are repeat customers and the eectiveness of your advertising/marketing campaigns.

To get these statistics you must have Web analysis software installed on your site. Some of this software,
such as StatCounter, is free but has limited functionality. Commercial software can cost more but oers
more detailed analysis and far better reports. Some Web hosting companies, including Hometown
Marketing Group, Inc., oer inexpensive analysis software.

Listen and learn

Web sites oer many ways to obtain customer feedback in addition to web statistics, as mentioned
above. Two additional methods are customer surveys and community forums.

You can use customer surveys on your Web site as they are likely to oer feedback in this manner. Community
forums (also called message boards) can also be used to gather customer feedback. Customers
post messages on your site, most often to other customers, to discuss their opinions. This can be used to
respond to common misunderstandings and respond to possible complaints.

Invest wisely in your Web site and it will be a critical business tool that drives your company’s growth
and success. To learn more