Your customers expect you to have one.

Having a website is as important and necessary as having a phone number. It enables your business to reach potential and current clients 24 hours a day, 365 days a year!

Websites are affordable and cost effective and may cost less than a one-time print ad. For example, you can save time by reducing phone call inquiries such as “what are your business hours”.

Does your competition have a website? This is a perfect opportunity for you to differentiate your business, product or service from your competition.

So, what's the goal of your website?

• To inform?
• To build a community?
• To gain valuable market research?
• To reduce support and customer service costs?
• To reach a broad audience with a message?
• To find sales leads?
• To conduct e-commerce?
• To gain advertising revenue?
• To brand your company?
• To build trust?
• To reduce printing and mailing costs?

Decide what you want the website to do for you?

1. • Tell a story, describe your business or give information to your visitors.
   • Tell a story and collect information for a study or marketing information.
   • Sell a product or service on-line.
   • Communicate and publish information on specific or variable subjects.
   • Act as a portal to other similar or related websites.
   • Create a blog to publish ideas, thoughts and opinions on the internet.
   Decide which one you think fits your goal. Once you have this piece of information, we are ready to begin organizing what materials and web elements would best support your website.

2. Other Considerations

3. • Do you want to sell advertisements to other organizations or business on your site?
   • Do you have a number of dealers that you would like to list for your products?

Design Branding is all about the look and feel of your website. There are plenty of articles on branding as it relates to marketing and advertising, so we will stick with the design part. First determine if you have an existing brand or you need to develop one.

• Do you already have a logo for your business or organization?
• Do you have a "Tagline" you use to describe your business?
• Do you use certain colors in your store, advertisements, logo, etc.?
• Do you have a set typeface or group of typefaces you use in your print and adverstising publications?
• Does your business have a brand manual?

If you answered "Yes" to any of the above questions, you may have some of your branding elements already in place. If not, you have the opportunity to develop them now. I can help.

Domain Names

Your domain name is your internet address, the "www" and "dot com" that you see in everyones web address. Generally, you purchase a domain name from any number of firms and it is registered to you for a period of one year. Of course, you should sign up for longer periods, as you will plan on using it for your website for many years.

Selecting the domain name is usually a tougher challenge. Ideally, you want to have the name of your business or organization as the name, but sometimes they are already assigned to someone else, so you have to be creative to include your name. You also have the choice of using .com, .net, .org, .gov, etc. as the trailing identifier. Together, we can figure out the best solution for you.

Host Servers

The host server is where all your pages and content of your website are located to be broadcast on the internet. Basically, it is a large computer with a directory and sub-directories that are assigned to you and only you. Your domain name is then "pointed" to this directory and that is how your website is broadcast on the internet.

At SEED Internet, we do not host any websites directly, I rely on other third party partners to host the website and manage the pages and content securely. Hosting can be purchased on a monthly or annual basis, depending on your needs and requirements for the website. Pricing can range from under $10.00 a month to $50.00 or more monthly. If you plan on selling your products or services on-line, you will want to have an SSL certificate which encrypts your transactions and secures the information of the buyer from hackers and thieves who may intercept an otherwise unsecure transmission.

In addition to the SSL certificate for an e-commerce solution, you will need a shopping cart solution and an e-commerce merchant account to handle the transfer of funds from the buyer to your banking institution. Depending on your needs and budget, we will recommend the best solution for your application.

Copywriting

Reading on the Web resembles the way we read a newspaper. The eye jumps around on a webpage, looking at headings, titles and boldface text. If you want to make your content sticky, it must be brief, ripe with ideas and focused only on relevant content. Follow these tips for successful copywriting:

• Make titles clear and catchy - Distill the subject into a 3 - 7 word phrase for best results.
• Avoid wordy introductions - Get to the point quickly in every paragraph that you write.
• Be clear and to the point - Brief sentences and paragraphs make reading easier.
• Make copy easy to scan - When presenting a subject develop it in obvious steps.
• Use bullets and subtitles - Bullets and subtitles make ideas and points of interest stand out.
• Spelling must be correct - Poor spelling conveys an impression of ignorance and poor credibility.
• Use proper grammar - Always proof read your copy.

Photography and Illustration

Select pictures and images that are interesting and help tell your story. Ideally, they were shot with a digital camera, but if not, they should be scanned at a high resolution (greater than 300 dpi). In addition, keep the following points in mind:

• File format should be .jpg or .gif for the web.
• Images should be 300 dots per inch.
• Image size should be greater than 1000px wide by 800px high
• Keep a back-up of the images on a disk.
• Scanned images should not have any scratches, tears or blemishes

Incoming and Outgoing Links

Incoming links to your site are links FROM OTHER sites, TO YOUR website. Outgoing links are links ON YOUR web pages, TO OTHER web pages. Why are they important?

1. They generate traffic to and from your website.

2. The search engines love them.

Scheduling and the Timeline

Depending on the complexity of the project, the number of pages, the special functions required and the availability of all the materials (the content), the website could be done in as little as two weeks. But on the average, you should count on two months to have the site ready to launch.

If you have a certain date in mind to coincide with a business event, we can use that as the focus of the timeline.

Budgets and Estimates

You obviously have a budget in mind to develop your website from your own research and experiences. Some items to keep in mind for your budget that are divided into two categories: one-time expenses and on-going expenses. Here is a table to help you understand them:

One-Time Expenses	On-Going Expenses
Website Design	Website Maintenance
Stock Photography	Domain Name Registration
Special Licensing	Website Hosting
	E-Commerce Fees*

* Only for websites with e-commerce solutions

Incoming and Outgoing links

• Ask for Reciprocal Links with Other Local Sites. One way search engines determine what your site is about is who you link to and who links to you. It's not just links, but quality links you seek. Reciprocal linking is hard, tedious work, but it doesn't cost you a dime out of pocket!
• Ask visitors to bookmark your page. It seems simple, but ask visitors to bookmark your site or save it in their Favorites list. I use a widget called AddThis (www.addthis.com).

Local and professional associations

• Submit Your Site to Key Directories. A link from a directory will help your ranking and get you traffic. A directory is not a search engine. It is a hierarchical listing of sites, sorted according to category and subcategory.
• Submit Your Site to Trade Organization Sites and Specialized Directories. Some directories focused on particular industries, such as education or finance. You probably belong to various trade associations that feature member directories. Ask for a link. Even if you have to pay something for a link from the organization, it may help boost your PageRank.
• Write Articles for Other Websites and Newsletters. You can dramatically increase your visibility when you write articles in your area of expertise and distribute them to editors as free content for their e-mail newsletters or their websites. Just ask that a link to your website and a one-line description of what you offer be included with the article.

Advertising

• Create a free listing on Google Maps Local Business Center. (www.google.com/local/add) and Yahoo! Local (listings.local.yahoo.com). That way your business can show up on a map when people do a local search.
• Promote using traditional media. Don't discontinue print advertising that you've found effective. But be sure to include your URL in any display or classified ads you purchase in trade journals, newspapers, yellow pages, etc.
• Send Offers to Your Visitors and Customers. Your own list of customers and site visitors who have given you permission to contact them will be your most productive list. Send special offers, coupon specials, product updates, etc.

Stationary and Business Cards

• Include Your URL on Stationery, Cards, and Literature. Make sure that all business cards, stationery, brochures, and literature contain your company's URL.

Email signatures

• Install a "Signature" in your E-Mail Program. Most e-mail programs allow you to designate a "signature" to appear at the end of each message you send. Limit it to 6 to 8 lines: Company name, address, phone number, URL, e-mail address, and a one-phrase description of your unique business offering.