These are important decisions that need to be made in the planning of the project.    Without planning the whole aspect of starting a web-based business, spending too much on the build with no funds left for marketing will mean you’ll have a great site, but no-one will ever know about it.   Likewise, cutting corners on the build an design and ploughing most of the cash into advertising and other marketing might mean lots of people visiting your site, feel it lacks content or ease of use, and never return.

A good mixture of both will comprimise a good site and enough to launch the site and begin the awareness of it’s existance.

Whether your site is a blog, a shop or a self-perpetuating revenue-maker, funding that effectively is a priority to ensure the long-term success.   The costs of starting a web-based business is minimal if you compare it to a non-web-based business – you have no office or shop to rent, no staff (at first) and no utilities to pay eiether, but a good business and development plan is necessary for every web-based projects’ survival.  The most difficult part of starting a web-based business is the time and effort to build the business and continue growing the site.

Think of it like a snowball:

Imagine, you’re at the very peak of a snowy mountain.   You roll a snowball in your hands and place it on the floor.  It will take effort to begin rolling it down the hill as it weighs almost nothing and will take manual pushing to start building it up with more snow, always pushing it towards the slope.   After you’ve been pushing it a while and it has doubled in size, it becomes easier to then give it a tap and it begins to roll on it’s own for a short distance.  You may need a bit of energy to keep it going , guiding it down,  steering it slightly on track and constantly help it build and gain momentum.   Once that snowball is at an appropriate size, the weight accumulated then means that the snowball has it’s own weight to help momentum and begins rolling non-stop down the mountainside on it’s own accord.   As it rolls, it gets faster and faster – gaining more snow and growing in size as it plummets down the slope.  Before long, you couldn’t actually stopped it getting bigger if you tried.

The hardest part of getting your website going, is at the start…. the big push.   See a rough guideline below for simple purchases needing on any website:

Domain Name

Registering a domain name is necessary for any online business.  Once a business name is established, the domain name is registered at websites such as Dotster.com, Register.com and GoDaddy.com.   The cost of a domain name is dependent on the extension (the .com, .co.uk, .net etc).   For most business owners, a .com extension is beneficial because it is the most commonly known extension among people.   A one-year registration service for a .com domain name is around £7-9.   This service needs to be renewed every year.  Buying it for an extended period will save you money.

Hosting Service

Hosting services have a wide range of prices, and prices are determined by the platform the business uses. Programming a website in .NET is usually more expensive, whereas a PHP website can be hosted for as low as £5 to £10 a month.  Free hosting services are available, but free services require ads or popups, which is not professional for business purposes.  Be aware that you will get what you pay for.

Database

Database services are for websites that host dynamic content.  The most common databases for Internet websites are mySQL and SQL Server; the former is usually a free or minimally charged service from the host of the website, and the SQL Server costs slightly more and is used with .NET websites.   SQL Server costs can be as low as £10 per month.

Programming and Design

Unless you as a web-business owner have programming and design experience, it’s necessary to hire a professional programmer and designer to do it for you.  Most design agencies have both services in-house.  The programming and design can be accomplished using separate service providers.  The designer can provide a design that the programmer works with to create the web pages.  The cost of a programmer and a designer is dependent on experience and the complexity of the website.  Some professionals may charge as low as £20 per hour.   More advanced sites may need a highly skilled programmer and designer, which can cost £50 to £75 per hour.   Large, complex sites for this reason can take 100’s of man hours at the higher rates, so negotiate costs up-front.

PC Resources

Owning a web-based business means that you need a computer with high-speed online service.  These costs are also dependent on location and type of service.   High-speed Internet access is necessary for the business owner to communicate with clients, conduct research and upload new pages and images.  The cost for Internet connect can run from £30 to £100 per month.   If your site goes down, your business is down so invest in a decent service to ensure that you remain a happy business-owner.

]]> http://www.theonemanmission.com/featured/your-website-start-up-the-costs/feed/ 0 http://www.theonemanmission.com/marketing/turning-an-idea-into-fortunes/ http://www.theonemanmission.com/marketing/turning-an-idea-into-fortunes/#comments Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:29:36 +0000 Phil http://theonemanmission.com/?p=469 Many entrepreneurs, both new and established, now promote their ideas on a much wider scale thanks to the power of the internet.  Harnessing the world wide web means that even the small business entrepreneur can put their ideas on a huge global market, research their markets and predict the success of their idea on the general population by research, research, research.

The amount of leverage that this gives to even a small home business entrepreneur to brainstorm and act upon big ideas, simply can’t be over-estimated.  The ability to put those ideas into the homes of literally millions worldwide is what it truly amounts to.  That’s the sort of power that was previously only available to large corporations.  But not any more.

Already successful but traditional entrepreneurs can look forward to their ideas creating even bigger pay days by utilising the internet.  Now they can have a voice and sell their products in places that were simply out of reach previously.  No other business medium has had the impact or afforded such opportunity before.

But thats only the beginning.  Slick entrepreneurs know that they can test their ideas whilst cutting their advertising and promotional costs down to virtually zero.  Saying that, they can still reach a bigger target market than ever before.  That market is still growing and is still very sustainable.

In real-life terms, that means that no matter what an entrepreneur is selling - digital or physical products – if its a good idea, it can literally make a fortune in a very short period of time.

Plus there’s so many ways to promote and advertise and a lot of them are free, certainly nearly all are very inexpensive.  So a clever entrepreneur can promote a new idea using free advertising methods and then re-invest the profits to promote a good idea further and generate even more sales and bigger pay days.

If you’re thinking of entering the world of entrepreneur business then just one good idea could truly change your life overnight.  Really, thats not cloud cuckoo-land.  Naturally you need to hit upon the right idea but even small ideas can lead to bigger things, and sometimes, even the daftest idea can be what makes it big.   So for entrepreneurs full of big ideas the world wide web truly is their oyster and there’s a very big pearl in the middle of it.   I advise you all to think hard and reach out for it.

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.

Obviously there are so many different types of business to get going with – but for the purposes of this post, let’s divide this simply into 2 sections: an online business and an offline business.

Offline Business

This is the normal route most people would consider firstly when they think “I’ll start my own company”.  Maybe that means starting a retail shop, maybe a call centre, or maybe a trade service like an electrician, engineer etc.  Either way, you will have plenty of overheads whether that be from renting office space, shop space, or buying stock or equipment, hiring staff (if required) and stationary.

If you deal B2C (business to customer), your hours will be sporadic, maybe daytime hours, maybe evenings and weekends.  If you work B2B (Business to business) then you’ll typically work 9-5 monday to friday.

Online business

An online presence for business is a very powerful marketing and communication tool.  It is also an incredible source of cost-efficiency, an environmentally friendly way to work and a sign of professionalism which is pretty much a requirement today.  Powerful, fast and efficient make this a marketing and communication tool medium.  Here are a few reasons why I (and you) should consider an online business:

• Minimal startup time & investment. Search engine optimized websites pay themselves off very quickly as long as they provide customers with valuable products or services
• The most environmentally friendly way to run a business. Telecommuting reduces the number of cars and car miles. You can test your sales strategies and offerings without wasting precious paper and other valuable resources. Put your invoices, newsletters and catalogues online and save numerous little green trees.  Plus, you can run your business in your pyjamas if you want.  Who doesn’t want to work everyday in the pj’s?
• Very inexpensive – A great way to reach new markets and interact with them on numerous platforms.
• Office & transportation cost savings – no office space, no staff and no stocktaking.  Your bedroom is your office.
• Unlimited possibilities for automation of your business – You can automate your orders and payment processes, inventory management, your customer support tasks and more.  Lazy? Love spending time with friends and family?  This is a HUGE plus (one for me was not having to commute anymore in gridlocked traffic)
• Freedom to live and work where you like – You can be travelling while running your online business and run multiple businesses simultaneously!  Take your laptop on holiday and run your business on the beach if you want.  Sweet.
• Global presence 24/7.  Your business is making you money while you sleep.
• A sign of professionalism – AND the fact that you can appear as a huge multi-national company – even though it’s just you.

There are so many benefits of an online business compared to a normal business blueprit.  For freedom, ease of use and low costs and overheads, make an online business plan to seriously think about.

Now the first few sites I designed were pretty shabby looking in retrospect, but not a bad start either (like www.evo-power.net), but that website alone helped me loads and gave me a firm understanding of how design works, google adsense, forum building and embedding media like video in the web pages.  

All this is all very well, but the very basic concept to get a grasp on is the site’s layout.  Layout plays an integral part in the look and feel of the site.   Users need a good layout which makes it easier to navigate, easier to read the whole page and is making use of all space (not leaving any white spaces empty).  Once you have a decent layout, the rest is just filling it.  It’s the framework and skeleton and typically forms the basis of the template your site will adopt. 

Designing a website requires that you are pretty familiar with basic website layout and structure.  After all,  a website is (in effect) a folder or directory containing files (web pages, images, scripts) and other folders.  Website layout is about creating a structure for these folders and files and how they are linked together.  The more websites you build, the more creative you will become and effectively be able to push more boundaries.  It sometimes takes a lot of adjustment to get it right, and can be a pain playing around with css stylesheets to align columns and <divs>, but like everything – practice makes perfect.

Although the actual layout of a website varies considerably depending on size, they all follow the same basic principles. Websites consist generally of three types of Web pages – the home page (index), Intermediate pages and content pages.

The homepage is the starting page of the Website and acts as the site guide.  It is the page presented to site visitors who do not specify a web page and will give them the first impression of who you are and what you do.

For small to medium-sized Websites, the layout will generally be two tier ( no intermediate layer) and with larger websites ( +25 pages) having the three tier layout.  The pages are ‘linked’ together in any order, but remember - some general design rules should be applied here:

• All pages should link back to the home page – usually the logo on top left of site should do the same.

• Website navigation is vital – for most websites, this consists of a navigation menu/bar at either the top, side or bottom with many having several navigation options.  It is always a good idea to use plain text navigation menus when possible as it makes it easier for search engines.  Recommended minimum menu options are:

• Home page - starting page
• Contact – your contact details usually minimum email address
• Site map————List of the important web pages
• Links – Links to other sites and useful resources.
• About Us – Your company profile with background or history

The home page menu option should not be included on the home page itself – or at least ‘unclickable’ i.e not a link.

• Any page should be a maximum of two clicks away i.e. 2 links.  Don’t have users click 4 or 5 pages to get to your ‘pricing page’ for example.

• Try not to have more than 20 links per page.   Too many links looks cluttered and confusing.

• Web Page names should be descriptive and contain keywords. 

• Links to Internal pages should obey normal linking practise and have descriptive anchor text. I.e. keywords should be used in the link name.

• Every page should have at least one other page pointing to it (i.e an ‘incoming’ link).  Don’t have pages with no links to them (obvious – but not always followed).

• A link to a sitemap should be included on each page so as to aid user navigation and make indexing by search engines easier.  A sitemap is just a page which has every page on your site linked.  See my OwenDevelopment sitemap page here. 

• A link to a contact page should be included on each page so users can always get in touch.

Using Folders or directories

Web pages can contain text, pictures, audio, video and scripts. Generally almost all web pages contain text and graphics, many also contain scripts. It is normal site design to divide the Website into different folders on the hosting server.  The scripts and graphics have their own folders and the content pages are directly under the root folder normally.  This isn’t a neccessity, but makes life easier.

 Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)  and JavaScript

If you use Cascading Style Sheets and/or JavaScript  then always use external ones were possible. Using external ones makes them easier to change as only one page needs to be edited to effect the entire website and it is also much better for the search engines.  The CSS sheet holds all the information such as text size, image borders, column widths, colours and more.

Once you have these basic layouts sorted, each page should be the same layout to keep consistency and will help users navigate effectively.  I also advise to check out your competition to see an understanding of the colours they use, the layouts they use and make improvements on all the above.

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…