Before you do any shopping, consider learning a little about web technology. At a minimum, you should have some general knowledge about hosting accounts, domain names, shopping carts, image formats, databases, Flash graphics, HTML, PHP and XML. You don’t need to know exactly how they all work but you should understand the purpose of each component. You’ll need to purchase a hosting account if you don’t have your own server for storage of web pages. You will also need to choose a domain name if you don’t already have one. Do you need to store dynamic information in a database? Do you really want your website in what they call Flash graphics? It will perform slower and might not be suitable for those with mobile devices if it does. Anything you can quickly learn about web technology will help you in the long run.

Next, know what you need in a website. Ask yourself if you need only a brochure-style site or if you need one with interactivity. Web designers sometimes make reference to static and dynamic websites. Static is where the content does not change. But no matter what type of website it will be, there will come a time to do maintenance like fixing broken links or updating product and contact information. So, at this stage, determine if you will need a web designer over a long period of time or if you have the skills in-house to make changes after site implementation. If the latter is true, you will only need to choose a web designer for the initial site roll out which could be easy on your budget.

Once you determine what you want, begin looking for a designer. This task can appear overwhelming because there are many web designers offering different services and pricing schemes. Many small businesses don’t know what to look for in a web design firm so they look at something they understand: price. Unfortunately, they look for the lowest priced design firm without understanding the real cost of their decision in the future. Prices that are set too low can indicate many things. It could be that the web design firm is just starting out therefore it may not have the experience you are looking for. It might also be that the web design firm set its prices low because it picked up a bad reputation from previous clients. Prices set to low for an extended period of time oftentimes results in the design firm going out of business which could leave you hanging if support is needed in the future.

There are a massive number ways that you can promote yourself online. As a small business you probably have a limited budget so the trick is to make the most of the free and cheap resources that you have. The main way to do this is to take advantage of social networking. Make a fan page for your site or product and invite all your friends, ask them to invite all their friends and you can already how the fan page can grow to epic proportions. Other places are websites such as twitter and blogspot which can grow viral very quickly.

Depending on what you are selling you can list yourself on free directory websites. You should be able to find some one that does that for you in bulk rather than you needing to do them all individually. You will have to pay for this service but you didn’t usually have to pay massive amounts for that service.

You could also look into options such as distribution press releases and articles to relevant websites and directories. These help in that people can stumble across them and click the link to the site. However, search engines also like it when you have relevant websites linking to you, so this will help you get ranked higher on search engines such as Google. Most of these are free to submit too and even just doing a few a days can make a difference to your promotional campaign.

Of course another option is to find related websites and ask them to swap links. It isn’t wise to find websites that are exact the same as you but related ones are fine and you could both benefit from the extra targeted traffic.

1. Don’t rush things. Search engines like to see websites to grow naturally so if you buy traffic and go from getting 1 to 100,000 visitors a day they will know something is not right and will more than likely bump your rankings downwards rather upwards. It can take ages to recover from this penalty so it stands to reason that this is best avoided.
2. Start blogging. This approach is best for the short term as well as long term. It is wise to have a blog of some kind that you can regularly add content to. The search engines see this as an active site as long as the content is relevant to the site then you should see improvements in the number of visitors.
3. Back links are a massive part of getting rank well in search engines such as Google. Just like other approaches this should be done slowly so that it will appear more natural. Don’t limit yourself to a single method of getting back links, you can get links from directories, social networking sites, forums, blogs, community sites and many more.
4. Web 2.0 content. This is a great way of getting quality backlinks to your site above and beyond those from article directories. Creating something like a Squidoo Lens or HubPage will really boost your rankings. These would take less than an hour to create and will be there forever. It is well worth investing some time into creating at least one per week.
5. The content of your website is vital. Everything needs to be relevant to the keywords that you are trying target. It is important that you include these in the copy and have keyword-rich links within the site. Never force the keywords in or use them excessively because the search engines are now clever enough to spot tricks like this, and they will put a mark on your website to drop its ranking or worst, take it off the database completely.
6. If you haven’t done anything like this before then no one is going to say that you should be an expert. There are lots of websites, forums, e-books and tutorials online that will give you hints, tips and advice on what you should and shouldn’t do to help your website grow and be profitable. You should spend a few hours going through these to pick up some worthy tips.
7. Check for broken links. If there’s any broken links on your website the search engine bots will have problem with indexing some of the pages. You can use this tool to quickly check for broken links.

Now the email is just an example the same thing could be done via phone calls, SMS text message or filling in a form. Either way you need to make it as simple and hassle free as possible for your customers to ask you for more information.

If you aren’t already doing this on your website you will soon see that it is vital that you implement this to your website.

By having this easy way for customers to contact you, you are collecting contact details of the people who came to your website but didn’t buy or call. If you have captured their contact details you can then build relationship with them and send them special offers.

They may not be interested in purchasing something right now but that doesn’t mean they won’t be in the future. Maybe they are too busy now or too distracted by something else to make a purchase. If you email them once a month with either a special offer or information that are useful to them, and sooner or later they will be interested in what you have to offer. Of course there will be ones who may never buy from you, but that’s ok because they are not your target customers and you probably want to remove them from your list after a while.

The important thing to note here is that if only 30% of your website visitors want more details and give you their contact details, just think how many extra leads you could be generating by implementing this simple yet powerful idea.

You can just add a capture form on your existing company website, however, the most effective way is to have an unique website (different domain name) that focus on just capturing leads. This type of website should be no more than one page and contain only the essential elements on it.

What you need is a decent website that attracts people’s attention and gets hits from the right types of people. Of course to do this you need to advertise your website in the right places. The places that you choose to promote yourself will of course vary depending on what it is you are selling and who you are targeting. For example if you have a local driving school business then it is well worth investing in advertising space in local newspapers and magazines. Your audience is well targeted and you will be in a great position to convert those hits to sales.

If however you are starting a massive mail order company that advertising is going to be on a much grander scale. It is worth looking at the search engine optimization of your site to ensure that you are getting as much traffic from search engines as possible. You will probably also want to consider submitting things like press releases and articles to directories and news sites to grab both the attention of the people reading the sites the search engines that you need to rank you so highly.

Creating backlinks from web 2.0 sources such as Hubpages and Squidoo Lenses can also help in your mission of getting ranked higher in the search engines. This in turn will get you more targeted traffic and that way you can turn more of those hits into sales.

A successful website require more than just the skills of designing and using the software; it require a combination of graphic design, web programming, copywriting, search engine optimization, and marketing knowledge. If you believe you have these skills then by means do it yourself, otherwise don’t force yourself to do something that you’re not comfortable with.

There are many advantages of hiring a professional to design your website. A professional web designer is likely to be able to design a more professional looking website and in less time than you, so you will be able to focus more on your business. Depending on the value of your hourly rate, you’d most likely be spending less if you hire a professional web designer, and you can get more other things done. A good web designer can put together a professional website, with search engine optimisation, in less than a week. You will be able to get the marketing campaign started sooner, which means the sales will appear sooner also. If you are lucky you will find someone who can do more than what you asked for.

Many freelance designers have skills other than web design, and are happy to do extras for you. The advantage of building a good relationship with freelancers is that you can go back to them for updates, new features on the website and small design jobs and they will most likely give you good rates because you are loyal customer to them. Not only that, they’re more likely to work outside office hours and able to deliver work quicker than big companies.

If you can, do make sure your website is built by someone who understands SEO, otherwise you will need to hire another person for this. If you are tight on budget, you can leave this out in the beginning or try to learn and doing it yourself. The good news is search engine optimisation is easier to learn than web design. You can read books to pick the fundamentals and try to do what you learnt on your own website. So if you have more time than money then I would suggest you do this part yourself. The other advantage of doing SEO yourself is that you will save money in the long run, even if you’re not planning to do all the work yourself! So if you are serious about your business you should let a professional web design agency handle the building of your business website.

1. They track and test everything with the help of tools like Google Analytic. They track the number of visitors, what keywords were used, how long people stayed on site, which is the most popular page, etc. They use this information to guide them for making the right marketing decisions as well as to find out which methods are working for them and which ones are not. Not only do they track their website visitors and marketing methods, they also test different layout designs, headlines, images and promotional offers.
2. They do not rely on their own ‘experience’ or a friend’s recommendation in choosing advertising methods, instead, they would try out multiple methods, both online and offline, and to let the audience decide which ones are working for their website. Because they are tracking everything, they will be in more control of their budget and know exactly which ones are profitable quickly.
3. They are constantly looking for ways to squeeze more profit out of every visitor because they believe there is no such thing as a perfect website. They use blogs and social media sites to communicate with their audience and find out their wants and needs, then they use this information to shape their website’s design and marketing message.
4. They understand their target audience, know what their wants and problems are, what magazines they read, where they spend their free time, etc. They never tried to guess their audience’s wants and needs because they know they will most likely be wrong. Instead, they would gather this information by asking the audience themselves. Some choose to give away products or services and some choose to pay a surveying company to do the job. Whichever method you use, you need to make sure the answers are from your target audience.
5. They understand the importance of marketing, and they treat it like an investment. Whether it’s search engine marketing or traditional marketing, it can take a few weeks, a few months or even a year before results are noticeable. Success website owners understands this, and they are patience. They do the research, write out a plan and commit to it. They advertise consistently, so if their budget is tight they will run an ad every Sunday for 7 months instead of running it every day for a full week.

I was talking to a prospect on the phone this morning and she said that all web design companies seem to be offering the same service and she’s not quite sure which one to use. Anyway, I’ve given her some advice on phone and she said she will think about it and call me back tomorrow.

I’ve decided to write a blog post about it because I think many people are having the same problem/question when choosing a web site design service. The short answer is, no, not all web design services are the same. The good news is that you can find out if the company or designer is right for your business by asking a few simple questions. But before you do so you need to know what you want to get out of the website, in other words, what is the main purpose of having a website? Do you need your website to inform people or to sell products or services? What is your business’ unique selling point? These are the type of questions that you should have answers to PRIOR contacting any web design companies or web designers. If you already have the answers then I hope you will find the following part useful.

Always ask to see their website design portfolio. Spend at least 10 minutes on their website and try to get a feel of how well their website was designed. Is it visually appealing? Did you find it easy to navigate around the site? Have they done any work for your competitors or companies that are in the same industry as you?

Most web design companies or website designers are not “Jack of all trades”. Don’t afraid to ask them questions like – “what do you think your strengths and weaknesses are?” The truth is that smaller web design companies or freelance web designer cannot provide the top quality service for everything that relates to website. Some are better at the graphic design; some are better at coding/programming and some are better at SEO (search engine optimization). You need to weigh each one of these aspects and pick one that is more important to your business than the others. For example, if you run a photography business then the graphic design would be the most important aspect.

How much after sales support will they provide? Never under-estimate the value of good after sale supports because if you are getting your first website then chances are you probably don’t know much technical things like CSS and HTML, which means if you want to change anything you will need to contact the company or web designer who built your website in the first place. One big advantage of using a smaller company or freelancer is that they can give you more attentions, and some would also give you advice on website promotion, SEO and other online marketing methods. So if you completely new to the Internet, you will find that these information valuable, even if they charge a little more than the others for building the website.

1. Start blogging for your business – you can have a third party hosted blog up and running in 10 minutes. Write quality contents that your customers would like to read. A regularly updated blog can drive not only traffic to your main web site, but can also help your website’s search engine ranking. If you are serious about blogging you should host it on your server and use an unique domain for it.
2. Offer free articles to other websites – most people know that search engines ‘love’ quality unique contents. Contact other website owners and tell them they can post your articles on their websites as long as they provide a link back to your website.
3. Email signature – by having a small call-to-action message in your email’s signature can greatly increase the chance of being found by potential customers.
4. Give away a free e-product – e-books or reports are great for getting the words around on the Internet. You need to make sure the information is top notch quality – something that people would normally have to pay for. Never be afraid to give away a lot for free!
5. Social networking sites – these are web sites where your customers ‘hang out’ and spend time on. If you try to advertise or sell your service or product.
6. Templates and themes – if you are a website designer you can do this yourself, otherwise you can simply hire someone to design the templates or themes for you. Make sure to put a link at the bottom of all the themes.
7. Use videos – videos are getting more and more popular on the net now. There are many ways of using videos to promote your website. One good example would be to make a video to show people how to do a particular task. So if you sell fishing rods, then you would make a video on how to choose a fishing rod, what should people look out for when buying a fishing rod and which one is good for beginners etc.

If you take the time to implement and study these seven methods, you will see the traffic of your website shoot up within weeks.

From the traditional media, most people are now aware that the digital media is steadily gaining momentum. If before pen pal letters seem to be the only way to create friends from a distance, you can now instantly connect with friends and even gain new ones through online messengers such as MSN and Yahoo. Little girls used to write their day-to-day experience in their diary. But now, thanks to technology, they can easily ‘blog’ about their experiences.

Statistics show that there are approximately 1.4 billion of Internet users worldwide. And every year, it is always increasing, with increasing hours of Internet consumption in a week. This goes to show that majority of the people nowadays are online.

The major implication of this phenomenon is on maximising the potential of the Internet as a business tool. And the great thing about it is that you, as an business owner, do not have to settle for the same old advertising tactics. After all, promoting your business online does not necessarily mean blasting advertisements out to the World.

One of the best things about promoting your business online is that you can use different strategies that will suit your needs. And the good news? You do not have to spend more or at least the same amount as traditional mediums. With the Internet, you can easily promote your business at a fraction of the cost, and the results are more instant and easy to track.

Social media is one of those tools that provide consumers a new way to manage information. Through social media, technology has allowed entrepreneurs and marketing people to provide consumers a voice.

Online communities have a closely connected group of users who can help promote branding and improve a consumer’s impression or awareness about a product. By utilising these social networks through an array of content targeting strategies or tools, businesses can significantly obtain a lot of interest and awareness.

The social media can also trigger word of mouth marketing. With consumer generated contents, people can tell the others whether they consider a certain product good or bad. And as they encourage everyone to participate, the potential of increasing brand awareness is definitely on its maximum.

If you want to start promoting your business through social media, you can start with blogging, forums, and social networking sites. Experts say that blogs became the platform for consumers to stop cursing whatever they see on TV. Through blogs, they can write about what they think about the product. At an entrepreneur’s point of view, blogs can also be a place where they can leverage other people by sharing their expertise on a certain matter. For example, if your brand has something to do with air-conditioning and you want to promote your product using blogs, you can write something about choosing the best type of air-conditioning system. When people regard you as somebody who knows the product very well, they will most likely trust you and buy your product.

Forums, on the other hand, can be a great place to manage your time while talking about topics related to your product or business. It’s also a good place to find out what your customers are looking for and their experiences with your product or service.

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter can also help you promote your business. Surveys show that nearly 80% of users would rather add the “brands” as their friend than letting companies advertise these to them.

The bottom line is that promoting your business through social media can significantly help you leverage sales by allowing your consumers to get more close to your business. Bridging the gap between consumers and the brands will create major impacts in your business. And the only way to do this is to let consumers be in control.