1) Create a website business plan that integrates nicely with your overall marketing objectives; the content should be consistent with any offline materials (leaflets, posters, business cards), the graphics/images should be web friendly and consistent with your overall branding; same colours, fonts, basically, everything that makes your website ‘recognisable’ as a brand.

2) When creating a website, try not to get “geek crazy” – meaning you become so in love with the latest design technology, your web site gets bogged down with heavy graphics, add-on software and components, GIF animated image/tacky crap, etc. But, conversely, check your ego at the door when you work at your design. There are too many sites cramped with meaningless junk they literally turn visitors away.  A decent, clean design is what you typically need.  Keep it ‘fresh’.

3) Pay attention to your website’s “load times,” i,e. how long it takes a web site to load on the worst-case scenario: a 56 kbps modem (this is an industry average and some users will still be using this – even in today’s broadband world).  If its more than 12-18 seconds, you may experience the “click of death” – the site doesn’t load quickly and the surfer is gone… forever.   Of course if you are targeting broadband customers who are reaching your site via ISDN, DSL or Cable modem then you can build a website that incorporates multimedia-ready content that may include streaming audio or video, Shockwave or Flash capabilities.

4) Keep it simple – make a website easy to navigate, build an efficient menu structure that is consistent with industry standards.

5) Your visitors should be able to get to their desired area of your site within one or two mouse clicks; they will quickly get frustrated if they have to click around multiple menus to get to the page that they are seeking.

6) Develop content that is web-friendly.  People don’t read text on websites like they do in any other offline media. Keep paragraphs short ( no more than three or four sentences) and put in white space between your content, include links in your pages as well to other areas of your site as well.  this not only steers people across your site, but also helps with seo.

7) Make your site User-friendly.   Don’t use white backgrounds with yellow text, don’t have tiny, tiny writing.  This page is about the limit (I personally love this size, but the majority of people don’t).  Also bear in mind people who are colour-blind or visually impaired – can they still use your site efficiently?   Will they be able to actually see anything on your site?

8. Optimise your website for Search Engines by researching about 8-12 keywords that people will use to find your site from Google etc, then incorporate these keywords actually within your site content (to drive relevancy with search engine spiders/bots) and then get lots of links to your site (also known as ‘backlinks’.  It is estimated as much as 70% of all traffic to most web site comes through a search engine of some sort – mainly Google, Yahoo and Aol.

9) Check  into your log server files regularly to uncover “tracking” made through your website – your log files are raw data that show how and from, where people located  your website, where they went within your web site, how long they stayed there for, etc.  There are many products on the market that can achieve such purpose, such as Google Analytics.   With Google, you would simply sign up with Google for free, they then give you some god to add into the pages and it does all the reportig for you.

10) Think global, not local - in your overall site design.  Always think that the greatest Internet growth is occurring outside where you live, so it is essential to build a site that can be accessed easily by people anywhere around the world – assuming that the content can be useful for anyone.   You may also want to make your web site content readily available in diverse languages as well (especially if e-commerce), so your website can be utilized by all.

Hope you find this as useful as I did.   It may seem common sense, but it’s easy to forget one or more of the important factors.

1 – ‘Network’ with other web-business owners whose websites you like the look and feel of, and get the contact information for the companies that created those sites – normally a development or webmaster team.  Ask the site owners if they were satisfied with all aspects of the work and service, ask if they wold recommend them, and what they paid to have their site built.  Make comparisons between the size and functionality of their site compared to your idea and then work out how much yours could likely cost in a comparison.

2 – Look around the web and make a list of websites that you find attractive.  Make notes of layouts, colours and flash-based applications.  Be sure to copy the complete url for each site you like so you can easily refer back to it and send to the development team to show them what you mean.  Along with that list, make note of exactly what it is about the sites you like.  from what I found, developers can do anything you want, but it’s better to show something than to describe it yourself: after all, a picture tells a thousand words.  You might find one that has a color scheme you like, another that is easy to navigate.  

3 – Normally, the bottom of the page in question will have a link to the design/development team who created it.  If so, contact the companies whose work you like and ask them for a quote – mentioning you love the look of one of their sites.

4 – List all the keywords and phrases for your business.  This will be used for the meta information when the developer and designers work on your website and it’s a good idea to also have different titles for each page as well (this is used for the search engines and means better seo for your site).  If you buy search engine advertising, use the tools provided by the search engines to help you discover important keywords.

5 – Decide whether you’ll sell directly on the website, or just use the website to get leads.  This needs to be decided early no as changing half-way through a project will delay things considerably and more than likely add cost.

6 – Decide on and prepare all the editorial information and marketing copy your website will contain.   Basically, write all the content and text your site will have so when the design team are ready, you can simply forward it on instead of starting to do it at that moment.  At minimum, you’ll want a homepage (the main page for your site), a page or pages describing your products and services, an “about us” page and a “contact us” page. 

7 – Write or have a professional writer create the editorial content as soon as you decide what you want on the site.  The purpose of your website is to represent and market your business, and bear in mind web developers usually just design and program sites – they are not salespeople and (especially) if you’re using an off-shore development team like me, english may not be their first language.   Remember, the web developer can’t finish the job until you give them the copy that goes on the website, so save yourself time and do it in advance.

8 - Don’t cut corners by simply forwarding a brochure or flyer for your business to add text onto your site.  A websites aim is very different from a flyer.  A website’s job is to get attention AND get the prospect to take action. In other words, to sell.  The flyer will just be generating interest.

9 – Decide which photos, graphics and drawings you want on your site, and make it clear whether you’ll provide the graphics or whether the web developer will need to do it.  Nowadays, there are some great sites to buy royalty-free photo’s, images and videos at a small cost – but means you won’t infringe copyright.  Main player in this field is iStockphoto, which I have used countless times and is dead easy to use.  Graphics you may need to provide yourself would include photos of products, people and other graphics for use on your site.  Most stock photo sites have buttons users can click on, and all are almost always customisable as well.

10 – If your website is ’selling’ or at least taking payments for your products or services, be aware that you will need to get a ‘merchant account’ that can be used on the web to handle taking payments from users.  PayPal is probably the best one to use and handles any card that the customer may have.   You will be charged for using such a service, but I found Paypal has some of the lowest charges with the highest flexibility.   Paypal also have a great way of integrating their payment system directly into your site, so users won’t have to leave your site to make their purchase. 

11 - Ensure you sign a contract with the developer that highlights all the features and details you have discussed with the developer.  Leave nothing out.  This should include a breakdown of the price and milestones.  Milestones are key parts of the project that you can check you’r happy with and move on to the next (also known as ‘deliverables’.  I do this with my own web design clients, and expect nothing less when I’m the ‘customer’.  By setting milestones, you can check whether the overall project is on time for completion deadline.   Google ‘web development contract templates‘, and find one suitable to your requirements.

12 - Make sure you stipulate that you have full copyright ownership of your site.  This is important in the case you decide to change web developers or hosting companies at any time in the future, you will be able to do so without having to have your site recreated.  The copyright ownership must be written into the contract.  Otherwise, under copyright law, the developer may own the work they created for you.   ‘Source code’ is different, as if the development team are writing components or code from scratch they usually have the right keep that component in it’s basic form, but any content, trademarks, logos, text and features that are specific for your site – remain yours.

Make sure that you keep on top of the development team throughout the project and answer any queries they have promptly.  Remember, if they need to know something important, they may not be able to proceed any further without that bit of info.   Follow all the above steps and your website will turn out exactly as you want it, and more importantly, when you want it completed.

Contrary to what some people may believe about Google across the interweb, the general consensus is that you can still make really good income streams from some cleverly thought-out sites and optimising them for a lot of traffic = pots of gold.  It can be done easily with the correct strategic approach…

Lets skip the theory and get to what I know works from time proven methods on Google. I know the following system works 100% of the time with Google to attain rankings across a wide range of keywords. This is what I do with clients to build a successful site and has worked every time. The level of success will depend largely on the subject matter, it’s potential audience, and it’s level of competition on the net. The following will build a successful site in 1 years time via Google alone. It can be done faster if you are a real go getter, or everyones favorite a self starter.

A) Prep work and begin building content. Long before the domain name is settled on, start putting together notes to build at least a 100 page site. That’s just for openers. That’s 100 pages of real content, as opposed to link pages, resource pages, about/copyright/tos…etc eg: fluff pages.

B) Domain name:
Easily brandable. You want “google.com” and not “mykeyword.com”. Keyword domains are out – branding and name recognition are in – big time in. The value of keywords in a domain name have never been less to se’s. Learn the lesson of “goto.com” becomes “Overture.com” and why they did it. It’s one of the most powerful gut check calls I’ve ever seen on the internet. That took serious resolve and nerve to blow away several years of branding. (that is a whole ‘nother article, but learn the lesson as it applies to all of us).

C) Site Design:
The simpler the better. Rule of thumb: text content should out weight the html content. The pages should validate and be usable in everything from Lynx to leading edge browsers. eg: keep it close to html 3.2 if you can. Spiders are not to the point they really like eating html 4.0 and the mess that it can bring. Stay away from heavy: flash, dom, java, java script. Go external with scripting languages if you must have them – there is little reason to have them that I can see – they will rarely help a site and stand to hurt it greatly due to many factors most people don’t appreciate (search engines distaste for js is just one of them).
Arrange the site in a logical manner with directory names hitting the top keywords you wish to hit.
You can also go the other route and just throw everything in root (this is rather controversial, but it’s been producing good long term results across many engines).
Don’t clutter and don’t spam your site with frivolous links like “best viewed” or other counter like junk. Keep it clean and professional to the best of your ability.

Learn the lesson of Google itself – simple is retro cool – simple is what surfers want.

Speed isn’t everything, it’s almost the only thing. Your site should respond almost instantly to a request. If you get into even 3-4 seconds delay until “something happens” in the browser, you are in long term trouble. That 3-4 seconds response time may vary for site destined to live in other countries than your native one. The site should respond locally within 3-4 seconds (max) to any request. Longer than that, and you’ll lose 10% of your audience for every second. That 10% could be the difference between success and not.

The pages:

D) Page Size:
The smaller the better. Keep it under 15k if you can. The smaller the better. Keep it under 12k if you can. The smaller the better. Keep it under 10k if you can – I trust you are getting the idea here. Over 5k and under 10k. Ya – that bites – it’s tough to do, but it works. It works for search engines, and it works for surfers. Remember, 80% of your surfers will be at 56k or even less.

E) Content:
Build one page of content and put online per day at 200-500 words. If you aren’t sure what you need for content, start with the Overture keyword suggester and find the core set of keywords for your topic area. Those are your subject starters.

F) Density, position, yada…
Simple old fashioned seo from the ground up.
Use the keyword once in title, once in description tag, once in a heading, once in the url, once in bold, once in italic, once high on the page, and hit the density between 5 and 20% (don’t fret about it). Use good sentences and speel check it Spell checking is becoming important as se’s are moving to auto correction during searches. There is no longer a reason to look like you can’t spell (unless you really are phonetically challenged).

G) Outbound Links:
From every page, link to one or two high ranking sites under that particular keyword. Use your keyword in the link text (this is ultra important for the future).

H) Insite Cross links.
(cross links in this context are links WITHIN the same site)
Link to on topic quality content across your site. If a page is about food, then make sure it links it to the apples and veggies page. Specifically with Google, on topic cross linking is very important for sharing your pr value across your site. You do NOT want an “all star” page that out performs the rest of your site. You want 50 pages that produce 1 referral each a day and do NOT want 1 page that produces 50 referrals a day. If you do find one page that drastically out produces the rest of the site with Google, you need to off load some of that pr value to other pages by cross linking heavily. It’s the old share the wealth thing.

I) Put it Online.
Don’t go with virtual hosting – go with a stand alone ip.
Make sure the site is “crawlable” by a spider. All pages should be linked to more than one other page on your site, and not more than 2 levels deep from root. Link the topic vertically as much as possible back to root. A menu that is present on every page should link to your sites main “topic index” pages (the doorways and logical navigation system down into real content).
Don’t put it online before you have a quality site to put online. It’s worse to put a “nothing” site online, than no site at all. You want it flushed out from the start.

Go for a listing in the ODP. If you have the budget, then submit to Looksmart and Yahoo. If you don’t have the budget, then try for a freebie on Yahoo (don’t hold your breath).

J) Submit
Submit the root to: Google, Fast, Altavista, WiseNut, (write Teoma), DirectHit, and Hotbot. Now comes the hard part – forget about submissions for the next six months. That’s right – submit and forget.

K) Logging and Tracking:
Get a quality logger/tracker that can do justice to inbound referrals based on log files (don’t use a lame graphic counter – you need the real deal). If your host doesn’t support referrers, then back up and get a new host. You can’t run a modern site without full referrals available 24×7x365 in real time.

L) Spiderlings:
Watch for spiders from se’s. Make sure those that are crawling the full site, can do so easily. If not, double check your linking system (use standard hrefs) to make sure the spider found it’s way throughout the site. Don’t fret if it takes two spiderings to get your whole site done by Google or Fast. Other se’s are pot luck and doubtful that you will be added at all if not within 6 months.

M) Topic directories.
Almost every keyword sector has an authority hub on it’s topic. Go submit within the guidelines.

N) Links
Look around your keyword sector in Googles version of the ODP. (this is best done AFTER getting an odp listing – or two). Find sites that have links pages or freely exchange links. Simply request a swap. Put a page of on topic, in context links up your self as a collection spot.
Don’t freak if you can’t get people to swap links – move on. Try to swap links with one fresh site a day. A simple personal email is enough. Stay low key about it and don’t worry if site Z won’t link with you – they will – eventually they will.

O) Content.
One page of quality content per day. Timely, topical articles are always the best. Try to stay away from to much “bloggin” type personal stuff and look more for “article” topics that a general audience will like. Hone your writing skills and read up on the right style of “web speak” that tends to work with the fast and furious web crowd.

Lots of text breaks – short sentences – lots of dashes – something that reads quickly.

Most web users don’t actually read, they scan. This is why it is so important to keep low key pages today. People see a huge overblown page by random, and a portion of them will hit the back button before trying to decipher it. They’ve got better things to do that waste 15 seconds (a stretch) at understanding your whiz bang flash menu system. Because some big support site can run flashed out motorhead pages, that is no indication that you can. You don’t have the pull factor they do.

Use headers, and bold standout text liberally on your pages as logical separators. I call them scanner stoppers where the eye will logically come to rest on the page.

P) Gimmicks.
Stay far away from any “fades of the day” or anything that appears spammy, unethical, or tricky. Plant yourself firmly on the high ground in the middle of the road.

Q) Link backs
When YOU receive requests for links, check the site out before linking back with them. Check them through Google and their pr value. Look for directory listings. Don’t link back to junk just because they asked. Make sure it is a site similar to yours and on topic.

R) Rounding out the offerings:
Use options such as Email-a-friend, forums, and mailing lists to round out your sites offerings. Hit the top forums in your market and read, read, read until your eyes hurt you read so much.
Stay away from “affiliate fades” that insert content on to your site.

S) Beware of Flyer and Brochure Syndrome
If you have an ecom site or online version of bricks and mortar, be careful not to turn your site into a brochure. These don’t work at all. Think about what people want. They aren’t coming to your site to view “your content”, they are coming to your site looking for “their content“. Talk as little about your products and yourself as possible in articles (raise eyebrows…yes, I know).

T) Build one page of content per day.
Head back to the Overture suggestion tool to get ideas for fresh pages.

U) Study those logs.
After 30-60 days you will start to see a few referrals from places you’ve gotten listed. Look for the keywords people are using. See any bizarre combinations? Why are people using those to find your site? If there is something you have over looked, then build a page around that topic. Retro engineer your site to feed the search engine what it wants.
If your site is about “oranges”, but your referrals are all about “orange citrus fruit”, then you can get busy building articles around “citrus” and “fruit” instead of the generic “oranges”.
The search engines will tell you exactly what they want to be fed – listen closely, there is gold in referral logs, it’s just a matter of panning for it.

V) Timely Topics
Nothing breeds success like success. Stay abreast of developments in your keyword sector. If big site “Z” is coming out with product “A” at the end of the year, then build a page and have it ready in October so that search engines get it by December. eg: go look at all the Xbox and XP sites in Google right now – those are sites that were on the ball last summer.

W) Friends and Family
Networking is critical to the success of a site. This is where all that time you spend in forums will pay off. pssst: Here’s the catch-22 about forums: lurking is almost useless. The value of a forum is in the interaction with your fellow colleagues and cohorts. You learn long term by the interaction – not by just reading.
Networking will pay off in link backs, tips, email exchanges, and it will put you “in the loop” of your keyword sector.

X) Notes, Notes, Notes
If you build one page per day, you will find that brain storm like inspiration will hit you in the head at some magic point. Whether it is in the shower (dry off first), driving down the road (please pull over), or just parked at your desk, write it down! 10 minutes of work later, you will have forgotten all about that great idea you just had. Write it down, and get detailed about what you are thinking. When the inspirational juices are no longer flowing, come back to those content ideas. It sounds simple, but it’s a life saver when the ideas stop coming.

Y) Submission check at six months
Walk back through your submissions and see if you got listed in all the search engines you submitted to after six months. If not, then resubmit and forget again. Try those freebie directories again too.

Z) Build one page of quality content per day.
Starting to see a theme here? Google loves content, lots of quality content. Broad based over a wide range of keywords. At the end of a years time, you should have around 400 pages of content. That will get you good placement under a wide range of keywords, generate recip links, and overall position your site to stand on it’s own two feet.

Article pinched from: www.webmasterworld.com, author Brett_Tabke

I had a chat with my brother-in-law who’s a game-developer and runs a team of programmers, designers and coders.  I have run though certain ideas with him – it only makes sense to – to which he has proven a useful contact.

Anyway, yesterday he came over for breakfast so we had a chat, and I’m glad we did.  He told me the reputation that developers have and to make sure to keep on top of them throughout the project management.  I hadn’t even accounted for that.  So I set off to learn about managing an internet development project and found this article really useful.

Credit goes to: by Jennifer Beever, Marketing Consultant from www.newincite.com:

After a recent talk I gave on Internet marketing, several people approached me and asked how to go about getting a web site designed. I realized that many business owners don’t understand what it really takes to design and develop a web site. This article outlines the steps required and gives tips and techniques for how to get the project done on time.

Whether you are developing a site from scratch or updating an existing site, the same steps apply. First, you need to identify your site’s objectives and requirements. Second, you need to select the right web developer. Third, you need to create a project plan. Finally, you’re ready to execute the plan.

Some will say that the uninitiated should start with a knowledgeable web developer before writing their requirements, because they don’t know what their requirements are! I believe businesses should start by defining their web site objectives and requirements in keeping with their larger marketing plan, and then allow the site scope to expand or contract based on budget and on feedback from a knowledgeable developer. The third step, the project plan, will define the scope that both you and the web developer agree upon.

I. Identify Site Objectives/Requirements

In defining your site’s objectives, step back to your marketing plan. What is your marketing situation or strategy? How can your web site complement the strategy? For example, if your product or service is new and your marketing serves to educate your marketplace, the web site should educate visitors. If you are in a mature marketplace with many competitors, your web site should serve to differentiate your product or service from your competitors.

Who is your visitor? What is their demographic profile — are you hoping to attract potential clients in your local area? Nationwide? Worldwide? What is your customer profile — teenagers who like sports? Senior business professionals? Freelance software programmers? What experience do you want visitors to your site to have — fun? Education? Is it product-oriented? Information-oriented?

Outline the type of content you’d like to include on the site. Use a whiteboard, a flip chart, or a program on your desktop that creates hierarchical charts (MS PowerPoint, Visio) to do this. Start by drawing a rectangle at the top. This will be the home page. Write a few notes about the content here. Remember, less is more when it comes to text on web sites! On your home page, present statements that grab the visitor and menu options that provide links to more extensive information on subsequent pages.

From the home page, list the categories of information visitors may want to see. Examples include Products or Services, Customer Testimonials or Case Studies, News and/or Press Releases, Articles, Resources and Links (to other sites), About Us, and Contact Us. Your web site chart should look like the chart below.

From the chart, you can easily see how many web pages you will require. This is important information for web developers, as some provide quotes based on the number of pages a site will have. According to web developer Stephen Pogostin, of Dynamic Media, “Most pre-packaged deals have page limits, so knowing how many you need will give you a better idea of your options. For example, I recently saw an IBM.com commercial offering web sites for $499, but the price included only three pages.”

Look at competitor and other sites on the web. Make note of features you do and don’t like. Examples include menu styles, text styles, graphics, animation of text or graphics, navigation, etc. Bookmark the pages you like to show to web developers. Now, with your requirements, your chart, and your list of selected web site examples, you are ready to find a web developer and start work!

II. Select a Web Developer

As you start your project, find at least three good potential web developers and first inquire as to their interest level and ability. From the initial inquiry, you should send out a request for proposal to all three and use their responses to select the best one. As many businesses have had the misfortune to find out in the past few years, the quality of web developers varies tremendously. There are three main areas of web developer quality: responsiveness, technical capability, and design ability.

Your first clue on quality is how the web developer responds to your initial inquiry. I recently sent a high-level request for proposal (via email) to three web developers, two of whom I had done projects with. One said they were working on the proposal but never got back to me. One responded very pleasantly within a few days with a ballpark estimate and some standard information about how they work. The third first immediately acknowledged my request, and within a matter of days provided a detailed response. In the response, they not only provided an estimate, but they also provided some great ideas that were unsolicited and proof of their responsiveness and interest!

Some web developers create sites with the same technology time after time. A good developer will use technology appropriately for each site, and if they don’t know a certain technique or utility, they learn it! To test for technical ability, you need to look at sites the developer has done. Look for use of animation (flash technology, etc.), innovative navigation (cascading menus, etc), use of audio and visual where appropriate.

Not many web developers are strong graphic designers, and not many graphic designers are strong web programmers. Again, look at the sites a web developer has already done. Is there a good balance between graphics, text, photography, etc.? Are the sites appealing for the type of audience they serve? Is there good use of color? Do the graphics look new and custom, or are they standard web buttons and clip art?

Many people ask if a web developer must be in their local area and available for face-to-face meetings. I don’t believe this is a requirement if the developer is responsive via email and has the right experience. Requiring a local developer limits your ability to select someone with the right experience.

At the least, you should talk to a potential developer over the phone before committing to working with them. It will help build good communications before you get started. Get an understanding of when and where the work takes place so that when you request a change at 7 AM, you know that your developer may not implement it until 10 AM because they are on a different schedule or in a different time zone. Find out how many projects they work on at once so you’ll know how much undivided attention you will or won’t get.

Ask all three web developers to review your objectives, outline, and the web sites or features that you like and provide a written (email is fine!) estimate for developing your web site. Make sure you find out what program the site will be developed in (MS Frontpage, Dreamweaver, NetObjects Fusion, etc.). Do your homework on each of the programs proposed; each one has its own limitations and advantages. Some specific questions to ask might be, “Can text be laid out on each web page in any format or are you restricted to a basic style?” Also, “How will each page print: with graphics?”

If you have a specific deadline, let the developer know. Even better, create milestones (or ask the developer to) and have the developer commit to dates for each. Milestones might include:

1. Develop 2-3 rough design ideas
2. Choose a design direction
3. Finalize the design
4. Provide final copy, graphics, and photography to developer
5. Alpha version available for client review and testing
6. Make revisions
7. Beta version available for client and select reviewer testing
8. Make final revisions/fixes
9. Go live!

III. Create and Manage the Project Plan

When you select your web developer, don’t expect to sit back and “let it happen.” You need to be involved every step of the way. Use the milestones you created in the selection process to manage your plan. Create a timeline and make every effort to stick to the dates. Make sure that your web developer “owns” the same dates you do.

The most critical step for a business having a web site developed is number four. Many web sites are “dead in the water” for weeks, sometimes months, because the site owner does not provide content on time. Finalize your content as much as possible before providing it to the developer. Sure, there will be a few words to tweak or sentences that just don’t sound right when you see them on-line. But stay away from total revises after you give your content to the developer.

One way to avoid delays is to ask your developer to review your content before they load it on the site. Because you have shared your web plan and objectives with the web developer, they can comment on the tone of the content (does it match your objective?) and on the length (remember, less is more!). Another way to avoid delays is to get a web content specialist or an experienced web copywriter to write or edit your content.

Once the text is loaded and the site is ready to look at on-line, your developer can keep it in a test location so that no one sees a partial web site. You and your developer should test every link and option on the site to ensure that it is working. A good developer should test every feature on the site and make sure it is working before it is turned over to you. Make this a key part of the plan, and your web developer will be more aware of his or her responsibility for quality.

Once it appears to you that everything works, ask some trusted friends and colleagues to test your site. Provide them with a script for testing based on what you expect site visitors to experience. You will be surprised at the additional things they might find. Web developer Stephen Pogostin says, “Depending on the complexity of the site, ask others to perform three or four specific tasks, such as filling out a form or ordering an item. This can help reveal interface weaknesses on a complex design much faster.”

When your site is done, announce it in a fun and exciting way. Send out postcards that extend a graphic or text theme from your site. Send a message in a bottle or a fortune cookie with your web address. If you liked your experience with your web developer, engage them on a monthly basis to maintain and update your site, including adding press releases, articles, and new technology as it becomes available.

With good communications, clear objectives, realistic expectations, a written plan with milestones, and a little give and take, web development doesn’t have to be a great mystery. Creating a new site or updating your existing site can be a good experience that results in a web site you are proud of and one that gets results for your business.

Author Jennifer Beever is a marketing consultant and founder of New Incite Marketing Analysis and Design. New Incite is the outsource marketing resource for growing businesses. The company provides marketing planning, implementation, results tracking and organizational development services for its clients. Contact Jennifer at 818-347-4248 or by email.

Every owner will undoubtedly have their own idea of becoming ’successful’ – some when they can afford their Bentley or Rolls etc.  I guess for me, a successful business is all the above, but a particular importance must be made on improving and offering the very best service tothe customer/client.  Without customer experience, people will leave your company for competitor A, who takes better care of them, thus reducing your revenue, reducing your profits.

The world revolves around customer satisfaction, and businesses must realise that the customer is always right.  There’s a known saying, that a happy customer will tell another person about you, but an unhappy customer will tell ten people about their complaints.  It’s true.

So how the hell are you meant to keep all your customers happy?  Surely you can’t please everyone… can you?

I scanned the internet this morning, and came across an interesting page at www.jobbankusa.com who list the top 10 criteria when choosing your market:

Whatever target market -TM- you choose, check to see that it meets the following 10 essential criteria:

1. Your TM has a big problem. They think about it all the time, it keeps them awake at night.

2. Your TM wants the problem solved. The impact and cost of the problem is big enough that they will act to solve it (some people have problems they are quite happy to live with!).

3. You can easily find your TM. Do they belong to associations? Are there conferences for this target market? Are there publications? Where do they hangout? If it’s not easy to find your target market, it will cost you a lot of money to find them.

4. Your TM has money to spend. No point having a terrific service if your target market hasn’t the money to pay for it. I know this sounds basic but it’s often overlooked.

5. Your TM has a history of paying to have this problem solved. You want to focus on a target market where there is a proven track record of problems and people paying to solve them. A good sign is if your competitors are selling similar services to the target market.

6. There’s enough of your TM out there to sustain a business. How many people or businesses are in your target market? Realistically how many will become your clients and what will that be worth to you? Is that enough?

7. You enjoy working with your TM. Think about what types of people are in your target market and visualize being with them day in and day out. How does that feel? Will you feel energized or drained at the end of the day? Remember, you are also in business to enjoy yourself so make sure you will enjoy working with this target market.

8. You have a passion for helping and serving this TM. Passion is an essential ingredient for selling your services.

9. You have valuable expertise and experience you can offer. Your target market will want to buy from people who are experts in their field. Think about what specific expertise and experience you can offer your target market.

10. Your TM fits with your ultimate lifestyle package. What hours do you want to work? Where do you want to work? How do you want to work? Does this fit in with your target market? Ensure that working with your target market will enable you to live the kind of life you want to live.

Once you have found your target market, the next step is to refine it even further. Decide on the profile of your ideal client. What sort of person are they? Decide on their demographics and psychographics. Demographics are the basic facts like age, gender, income, location, etc. Psychographics are their characteristics, values etc. This will enable you to focus even more.

The clearer you are about who you want to do business with, the more you will attract exactly the clientele you’re looking for. You will then need your Sales Conversation skills to convert them from prospects into clients.  A handy tip I did when targeting an audience, was to visit review sites across the web for reviews of competitors, read people throughts: what they thought was good and bad.  I used the good stuff, and fixed the bad for Project X.  Win-Win.

Anyway, I have a few things on today, so this is Phil Owen, signing off…

Continuing with Project X, the last few weeks have been a little more quiet.   Reason for this, I need to think things through before submitting a definitive list of what I’m offering users free and paid. Once this is complete, development begins and I think that the reality of actually starting this venture really begins

After my previous entry bringing you up to speed, my efforts in setting up my business are reaching an end from the planning stage, and now beginning to move more into stage 2: development.

Tonight, I will compete my final project requirements for my site.  This includes everything … and I mean EVERYTHING.   Features for general users, lists of features for members on the site,  graphics and logo requirements, rules within the site (as far as processes),  Other requirements (eg, newsletter, mailing lists etc).

I’ve also been thinking hard about marketing the site once complete.  I believe internet marketing to be very effective in todays world of media communications, but pinpointing exactly what will work is the decision that needs making.  I have looked at the obvious Adsense from Google, releasing a PR announcement, Viral videos and I think a combination of all these will help launch.  Because of how I have thought through the workings of the site, a lot of the users will be spreading the word via word-of-mouth, with a ‘tell-a-friend’ scheme I also have in place.

True, I’m not the only site to offer a service like ‘Project X’, but it’s the way I’ll offer that service to them, and just how easy and simple I’ll make it to do so, will make sure cusotmers use the site to their full potential and enjoy using the service.

I also tonight, need to finalize my requirements of finding an affiliate who can contribute to my site with one or two articles, specializing in the content of my site in exchange for an advert promoting a book/dvd series etc.

I have also needed to find out lots of techie stuff such as an online merchant to handle the payments, dedicated hosting, SSL certification and potentially an SMS gateway for alerts (not final or essential to the site).  There is truly a good amount of thinking to setting something up like this.

I’ll be back on with more information on my success in completing todays tasks a little later…