Start Your Thought Engine to Get your Business on the Internet
Use of the internet continues on a rapid growth worldwide. There is no better way for small businesses to expand their businesses beyond their local markets than by expanding their business with a presence on the internet. Wow! Exposure to millions of potential customers at a price less than a phone book advertisement.
The opportunity is tremendous. So, lets discuss a little bit about the basics of what it takes to expand a business to the internet.
Most businesses decide the best way to develop a presence on the internet is by creating a web site. There are other ways to use the internet that do not require a web site, like sending emails to communicate with customers. The web site though seems to be the basis for most companies to make a presence.
So, lets assume you have decided you need to expand you business on the internet by creating a web site. Here are some things to consider.
First what do you want your web site to do ? The #1 use of the internet is to offer information. This cannot be over emphasized as the basis for a business web site. To start out, think about what information you want your web site to offer about your business. Answer some questions like:
- - what makes your business unique from competitors ? (best service, better product ...)
- - why do customers come in and do business with you ? (low price, easier to do business...)
- - what are the benefits of doing business with you ? (best solution to what they want...)
After you have the perspective of looking at your business with answers to the above questions, then figure out what information you need to put on your web site. This information needs to make potential internet customers feel the same benefits as your non-internet customers.
If you offer this information by developing it with this customer's perspective of how your business benefits them, then you should have an effective informational web site for your business. The next step will be to then get new customers to take an action after reviewing your information. This would be the second step in creating a web site.
What do you want your customer to do from the information you present on your web site. A couple of the more likely things you will want are: to contact you or to submit and order. For a web site to make these happen requires a site to have some interaction capabilities. For example: you might place a form on your web site for the customer to fill out and make contact by sending you an inquiry. Putting forms on your web site usually requires the implementation of some programming to make the forms work. This has been greatly simplified from the steps required to do this a few years ago, but it still requires a little different implementation than just offering information.
A more complicated degree of implementation is the ability to integrate a shopping cart on your web site. This has many issues beyond just the implementation of a contact form and is beyond the scope of this article. A future article is planned to discuss this.
In conclusion use this article to develop the understanding of what you want your web site to do. Then develop your web site from an informational point of view. Then add the features to your web site to make it easy for your customer to progress and do business with you from the information you present. If you build the foundation of your internet presence with this in mind you should be ready to move into the techniques of marketing your web site next.