Preparing to Launch a Website: Locked and Loaded

How to Launch Your Ecommerce Website - Explained by Web Hosting Provider

If you wait until after you launch your site to start working on search engine marketing, you’re going to be spending a lot of days watching the paint dry, according to this web hosting blogger. It takes time for even the best designed, most highly optimized site to start pulling traffic and getting a little notice.

So, before the development of your site and during its construction and tweaking phases, there are a number of SEM steps you should take so you’re locked and loaded – ready to launch a marketing blast the day you go live.

You want that commercial web site to start kicking out cash ASAP. Up to that point it’s been all outgo and no income so, while you’re waiting for your site to be completed, take the following steps so you’re ready to market your site the day it launches.

First, What Not to Do

Don’t start any marketing or SEO tactics until the site is completed, gone through beta testing, and is as viable and functional as you can make it at this point. If you market a half-completed site with lots of UNDER CONSTRUCTION pages, visitors are going to be annoyed and search engine bots will slam you for uploading inactive site pages. Don’t let any page of your site be Googled until it’s ready.

You can identify which pages you don’t want spidered in your site’s HTML code. Any way, if it appears on the navigation bar, there had better be something to read or see or do. Or, you run the risk of annoying potential, long-time customers and search engine bots that are always looking for ways to increase the relevance of search engine results pages. A blank page hinders a user’s search and you lose Google points.

Before (or While) Your Site Is Constructed

An archives section is a good place to start. Write up some general, informational articles on the topic of your site. These shouldn’t be sell pieces. Instead, they should provide the visitor with useful, unbiased information.

Build a Public Knowledge Base

Generate 10 pieces between 600 and 1200 words each. Provide each piece with a header that includes one (and only one) of your keywords. Upload these articles to the site’s archives. Keep adding new content every few days if possible.

You can also use articles from sites like helium.com and goarticles.com for free content of interest to a typical visitor. However, these syndicated articles won’t help your positioning with search engines. Bots know this content appears on 25 other sites so it isn’t green. But it is a service to your readers. So, build a big knowledge base of good information before and during site constructed.

While Your Site Is Being Constructed - Web Hosting Provider Explains Steps:

Time to get really busy. This web hosting provider lists the steps needed to jump start the launch of your website:

Seed Your Blog

Add a number of posts to your blank blog. There’s nothing sadder than an empty blog. It’s up to you to pepper those pages with provocative, pithy content designed to elicit responses from visitors.

Open and Fund an AdWords Account

Open an AdWords account. Google AdWords can be low cost but watch out for click fraud and track the placement of your blocks of blue. The minimum funding of your Google AdWords account is $5.00, which won’t get you very far if you’re paying 50 cents a click. Or how about a buck a click for certain keywords? Not at all unusual.

Develop a List of Second- and Third-Tier Keywords

Which gets us to another pre-launch step. You’ve, no doubt, developed a list of keywords that you want to appear in the site’s meta data and sprinkled throughout the site text every 200 words or so. Those keywords are fine for most SEO objectives. However, with AdWords, you bid for certain keywords and deeper pockets competitors will always outbid you.

So, develop a list of second and third tier keywords – keywords you can get for less. If it costs $1.00 for the keyword phrase “hand-knit sweaters,” it might only cost you a nickel for “sweaters hand knit.” You won’t drive as much traffic using a second or third tier keyword because fewer users will enter those keywords or keyword phrase. But, the PPC will be much less, thus stretching a microscopic SEM budget.

Build Links or a Weblet

Contact other site owners and do a little “links begging.” The only sites that’ll want to link to you will be low ranking sites and, with search engines, you’re known by the company you keep so don’t expect a PR7 site owner to be eager to hook into your PR0, in-the-process-of-being-built site. But it’s still good to make contacts for follow up as your PR rises through your SEM efforts.

A weblet is a collection of linked sites that offers products and services to the same demographic. So, if you sell sunglasses online, it’d be a good idea to link to a cruise site, a travel agency site, an eyewear site, a wellness site and so on. By gathering “partners in parallel,” you create a larger web presence without competing among each weblet member. Weblets build synergies of marketing, not competitive marketing.

Contact site owners via the “Contact Us” page of their websites. If there is no direct contact information on the site (which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for a commercial website, but who knows, the site could be a DBA for another corporation) use Whois – the public directory of site owners. You may not find all of the product sites at first but as your weblet grows, more site owners will hop on board. It’s a great way to build links quickly and much of the spadework can be done before site launch.

Get a Couple of Newsletters Done

Newsletters are great for pulling opt-ins and for keeping your company’s name in front of potential buyers – people who traded their web addresses to you for good information. Have at least five issues stored on your hard drive. Select topics for beginners and vets within your product sector to broaden the newsletter’s appeal.

Create a Couple of Podcasts

Get a decent microphone, write up a few five-to 10 minute reports, record them and upload them to your site. Beta test as usual.

Create Payment Gateways

Open a merchant account, not always an easy thing to do – especially if you have a few credit hiccups on your credit report, or your selling certain services or products. For example, if you’re a stock picker who provides actual recommendations, you may have difficulty obtaining a merchant account.

Open and verify a PayPal account in the company name. This will take a couple of days so do it before you start seeing PayPal orders.

Connect Up to Your Order Fulfillment House

If you plan to outsource shipping to an order fulfillment house, your content management system (CMS) has to synch up with the fulfillment house CMS so an order is sent to both parties and you can track shipping activities with a click. This is a step that’s often overlooked and the result is a bunch of emails flying back and forth until you can synchronize both content management systems. A waste of time and effort after launch.

After Website Launch

You may fire when ready. But maybe not fire all at once.

You’ve created a bunch of content. Maybe upload five original articles to the archives and then upload a new one every few days. Makes your site look active, fresh and green.

Same with blog posts. Salt the blog with five or six provocative posts but keep a few pieces in abeyance and add over a period of a couple of weeks. All that new content, delivered regularly, impresses site visitors and bots.

Link into your weblet and hook up with other site owners who have taken you up on a links exchange offer.

Blast your AdWords. Push these even if you have to count the pennies in the penny jar. Despite concerns about click fraud, you still only pay per click so arrange for as many impressions as the budget will allow. Go with second-tier keywords. Use the Google Keyword generator to determine the most popular keywords used for the topic of your site. Select keywords and phrases from the 10th position and lower. You’ll pay less per click and you eliminate some heavyweight competition that doesn’t use second tier keywords.

Put all of your articles out for syndication the day you launch. Track the results as best you can. Cut and paste the first line of each article into the Google search box for the most detailed view of how this content has spread through viral means.

Finally, get up early each morning, pour that coffee and settle down to work in front of the computer. You can front load your launch for maximum SEM impact, but then there’s that follow through…

Welcome to the world of e-commerce.

Web Hosting Blog

Visit the web hosting blog again soon. Read, learn, and exeperience the steps needed to setup a successful website, with or without ecommerce.

Five “Can’t Miss” Ways To Cut Client Care Costs

Web Hosting Provider Lists Ways at Which to Reduce Costs for Client Care

Whether you retail services or goods, client care is an important part of the equation for long-term, online business success - web hosting provider explains. Keeping the customer satisfied is more important than ever given that you operate in the hottest, most competitive market in history. You don’t just compete with the store or service provider down the street. This is competition on a global scale.

And without good client care, at least some of your clients will buy elsewhere the next time. Conversely, if clients and customers feel their needs have been met without a glitch, they’re going to return with the same expectations of the client care team.

But client care is expensive. Direct services – services in which YOUR employee answers the phone when customers call – are very expensive, and out of reach, even for moderately successful sites. So the job is usually outsourced to a professional “answering” service. The company may provide commercial answering services for hundreds of clients, all of which provide scripts to be used when a customer calls with questions.

So, your choices are few. If you sell online, client care is the foundation of long-term growth and expanding business revenues. So, that leaves two options, right? Either you spend the day on the phone answering client questions, or some minimum-wage-college-student-half-a-world-away may answer the telephone and represent you and your business live on the telephone.

Neither option is ideal so what’s a small site owner to do to manage customer care costs? Here’s what you do:

1. Go for the per call plan.

When working with a commercial client services company you usually get charged a monthly service fee plus a per call fee. If given the choice, stick with the per call plan rather than a flat rate plan. The objective is to find ways to cut service calls and queries to reduce customer care costs. Going with the flat rate plans defeats the whole purpose. You pay a fixed rate per month no matter how many calls are taken on your company’s behalf.

2. Develop a simple script.

The individual who answers your client care call won’t know anything about your services or products. It’s up to you to provide these client care outsourcing services with a detailed script that the phone rep follows.

When your script is delivered to the service provider, phone reps will be trained in delivering quality customer care based on your script. It’s the only reference they have so keep it simple and make it clear.

The most effective scripts are developed as a serious of questions that can be answered yes or no, i.e. is the computer plugged in? Yes. This forks to the next question and the next until the rep, reading from your now computer-loaded script, answers the customers query.

It’s also important that these reps be provided with service alternatives in case they hit a dead end. Things like an on-line trouble ticket (email) or other text messaging system can alleviate some customer frustration if the paid rep is unable to fix the problem. The last thing you want is an unhappy customer bad-mouthing your site. Negative word of mouth is like bubonic plague for web sites. You don’t want to go there.

3. Some assembly required.

If the products you sell require assembly, insertion, integration or some other techno-step, your customer care costs will skyrocket as customers call to ask how to fit Nut A onto Bolt B in step number five.

Using the call service, you’ll soon discover the most common questions received by those expensive reps answering “your” client care phone. It’s usually the same four or five questions over and over – and each personalized answer nibbles away at your business’ revenues.

So provide online directions to cut down on those “how do I” calls. The most fool-proof method (and at least some of your site visitors will fit that description) is to create a simple video showing each step of assembly. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Use your DV camera, create a small set and go about putting together whatever it is you sell – from outbuildings to RAM chips.

In your instructional video use text to highlight key steps and to answer those four or five most commonly-asked questions. Expect the user to pause “during assembly” to follow the steps you’ve outlined and demonstrated on screen.

If all of that sounds like too much work, provide printable directions that employ diagrams. When some assembly is required, nothing explains a critical step like an illustration, or better still, a DV showing the step being performed properly.

4. Provide detailed, specific product descriptions and pictures.

Returns are expensive because they take time to process. You can eliminate some of the need for direct customer service by answering buyers’ questions in product descriptions and product pictures.

Show the item from a couple of different angles, provide perspective (a small ruler, for example) and use arrows to highlight features.

5. Spell out your terms in plain English.

This, more than any other single issue, is the source of the bulk of your client care calls. How do I return the item? Why can’t I exchange it for a credit to my charge card? What do you mean you only give store credit?

If you offer a guarantee, spell it out. If you don’t offer a guarantee, make that clear, as well. If buyers know what to expect before they buy they won’t call client care or tech support after their purchases.

The more information you provide on the website, the lower your customer care costs. So, if it costs you $500 to create an instructional video showing how to assemble your top-seller racing bike, you’ll see a $500 drop per month in client care costs because buyers can watch the assembly steps as a DV on your site.

If you have to pay a copywriter $100 to write clear, unambiguous product descriptions, you’ll save $1200 the first year in client care calls. It’s a real no brainer.

You want unhappy or confused customers to contact you and you want conflict resolution quickly to keep that buyer active in the future. That costs money. But, by providing the instructional tools required “for assembly,” you cut your client care costs – a lot.

Oh, and as a side benefit, your buyers are happier because questions and problems are answered and resolved quickly – even before the purchase is made.

Web Hosting Blog

Visit our web hosting blog again soon for more relevant webmaster articles.

Starting An Online Business?What’s the Plan? The Business Plan?

Web Hosting Provider Offers Tips for Your Business Plan

There are over six billion websites out there. That’s a lot of entrepreneurs all gathered in one place – the cyber marketplace. And if you plan on joining this dynamic collection of giant retailers and small, one-person shops operating out of the basement, you’d better have a plan – a business plan - web hosting provider explains.

I Have a Plan. It’s in My Head.

Are you kidding? Most of us have trouble remembering our kids’ birthdays much less inventory costs six months out. No, a business plan isn’t some general idea, some amorphous blob of dreams and ignorance. Your business plan is your road map to success. And without one, you might just as well stay home.

What Should I Include in My Business Plan?

Of course it’s going to depend on the type of business. Are you selling goods or services or some combination of both? What are your best (and least expensive) marketing channels? Who’s your ideal buyer – your target demographic? All of these questions, along with many more, will shape the information in a business plan.

However, all businesses operate on the same economic and marketplace principles – profit and loss, expanding competition, economic viability and other ABCs taught in Business 101.

At the very least, your business plan should include:

• a vision statement – where you see the business in five or 10 years and how you intend to get there. Keep it concise. The shorter the better, in fact, because if you can state your vision in a sentence, maybe two, it’s at least worth pursuing. If you have to write a book just to explain your business vision, try another business or another approach to the business.

• business scope. How big? How many employees? Remote sites? Market reach?

• a short explanation of the business concept

• feasibility analysis (do you have the resources to pull this off and if so, what are those resources?)

• market analysis. Who are your biggest competitors? How many online competitors are there? How do you plan to compete against this more established and perhaps better funded competition?

• business structure. This includes the people who will be working on the business along with detailed job descriptions. Detailed.

• manageable finances. Nice thing about a web-based business is that you don’t need a ton of cash to open the store front. Getting people inside the store, well that’s another matter altogether. You can start on the cheap but you’ll have to spend money to make money eventually. Got $10K hidden in s shoebox? How about $500 in the penny jar? Either way, you better know, going in, what it’s going to cost to design and build a website, pay web hosting costs and the cost of administrating your business.

Mistakes That’ll Doom Your Business from Day 1

The biggest mistake prospective business owners make is being overly optimistic. They over-estimate revenues, underestimate start-up and operational costs and they rarely prepare for the unexpected. Be realistic. Be pessimistic and if you can still show a profit on paper, move forward.

Ignore the plan’s weaknesses. The whole point of a business plan is to identify and address soft spots and fix them before you undertake the plan. If your approach is, “I’ll deal with it later” chances are you won’t deal with it at all and it may form the underpinnings of your entire business plan. Face problems head on and develop solutions before you start, not as you go along.

Focus on long-term projections. This one is a bit more subtle but if you project turning a profit in five years and you’re losing more than you ever imagined possible, turn some of your attention to short-term projections and get your costs under control.

Lack of testing. You and your dad think it’s a great idea but is the world ready for your vision to become reality? Test market. As much as you can. And don’t just ask friends and family if they think this is a good idea. Ask professionals.

Aren’t professional business consultants expensive?

They can be if you go with the guy in the $2,000 Hugo Boss suit, but there are lots of very knowledgeable people who will give it away – free. There are experts with literally decades of real world experience who will show you precisely how to design a successful business AND put it in writing.

SCORE.org hooks up fledging business owners with experienced, often-retired business people just looking to give a kid (you) a break. This site has an “Ask the Expert” feature if you’re just looking for some quick information on a single topic. Or, you can enjoy online courses, receive SCORE’s newsletter filled with solid information provided by experienced pros and even get hooked up with a local SCORE volunteer with the site’s zip code search.

The federal government offers free advice and counseling (including a business plan template) through the Small Business Administration. A lot of folks believe the SBA will bankroll a new business no matter how off-the-wall it is. Not true. In fact, the SBA should NOT be viewed as a viable lender for an online business.

However, the SBA should be viewed as a terrific source of information and personal consultation. The SBA site offers small business planners, a long list of business services, an expansive menu of tools and even local resources. Want to talk to a successful site owner a few towns over? The SBA may be able to help.

Industry Organizations

In a free market (and the web is the freest by far) industry organizations recognize the need for expanding competition. That’s how these organizations grow themselves as they share industry information with corporate and individual members.

One helpful site that provides links to hundreds of trade and industry associations is Google’s Business Directory > By Industry. You’ll find associations for professions from accounting to web design.

Mentors

The best. These men and women have learned the ropes and they’re happy to share what they’ve learned with you. SCORE employs a mentoring system but you can also find your own mentor through business day networking channels.

Join the local Chamber of Commerce. It’ll cost a little but the networking and mentoring opportunities are priceless. The Jaycees, Elks, Lions and other community service organizations are excellent sources for excellent mentors. There’s no experience like real-world experience and that’s what you gain from your own mentor.

Just Because It’s an Online Business Doesn’t Mean It’s Not a Real Business

Whatever route you choose in the development of a business plan, you must have that plan. Written down. With pessimistic projections (you’ll make less and it’ll cost you more to do so. You can almost bet on it.). With resources, hurdles and challenges, problems and solutions.

No pie-in-the-sky dreams. Facts and analysis. The real deal.

Finally, the most important point of all and the best reason to develop a business plan:

If you don’t have a business plan, you won’t have a successful business.

Now, wasn’t that simple?

Web hosting blog

Visit our web hosting blog again soon for more relevant webmaster articles.

Designers’ Notebook: How to Compete With Outsourcing?

Web hosting provider explains Web Design Outsourcing - pros and cons

If you’re looking for someone to build your website – a designer – chances are you’re going to go with the designer who offers the lowest price - web hosting provider explains. And chances are, that individual will live in India, Pakistan or one of the former states of the USSR.

Think about it. You have a complex site map, you need a secure checkout and you need to update the site daily with different product offerings. That’s an active site.

Now, you start shopping around for a designer. You’ll find one company in Bangalore that will build your site for $1,000 – a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool bargain. Then you talk to an independent designer in Denver who will build the same site with the same features for $10,000. There’s no way the designer in Denver can compete on price. That’s almost a given.

So, what the Denver-based designer has to do is convince the potential client that s/he will deliver at least 10 times the value that the Bangalore outsource will. The fact is, when discussing development costs with any client, the discussion shouldn’t be about money. It should be about the benefits of working with you versus working with someone half-way around the world who’s designing 12 sites at once.

Educating the Client

If you’re a client looking for a site designer, apologies in advance.

Most clients don’t know what they don’t know. They have an idea (good or bad), a vision of an online business that’ll generate a little extra cash each month and, ultimately lead to an early retirement.

What they don’t know is anything about web hosting, types of hosting, SSL certification, OSS software, the World Wide Web Consortium’s Open Standards and all of that technical stuff.

Most new online owners don’t know much about SEO or SEM or, they think their real-world business acumen will translate directly to a web-based business model. It won’t.

A big (and often time-consuming job) is to educate the client on why off-shoring site development isn’t a good idea at any price. Sure, it’s going to cost 10 times as much to have a U.S.-based designer construct the site but you, the client, will end up with the site you want with a lot fewer headaches.

A design job is never about cost or even quality. You can get it clean and cheap.

Cheap Doesn’t Mean Cheesy

You can contact a local ad agency and have them design you a logo. $500. Maybe even $1,000. Or, you can outsource the graphics to Romania and end up with a great-looking logo for $50 – and that includes all revisions!

So, as a designer competing in a world market where $50 buys a great looking logo, what do you bring to the table that makes you worth so much more than the designer in Romania?

The Answer is Value

Sure, the client can spend less on site construction, less on elements of design, even less on site text by outsourcing. It’ll cost less to develop the site – but at what cost?

When a client outsources, the only value s/he can count on is monetary. It will cost less to build the site. That’s it. Many of these site-building-text-writing-SE-optimizing overseas companies simply don’t have the time to deliver the value of the freelance designer in Denver.

To turn a profit, many of these off-shore coders operate much like factories churning out one digital store after another. The quality may be good. Maybe not. You won’t know until you start seeing bits and pieces. Changes may be slow in coming, especially if the site-building factory gets a nice, big fat order that makes your job look puny. The object, with these off-shore-low-ball designers is to get the job done to spec as quickly as possible. It’s the only way to turn a profit.

Now to that freelancer in Denver. When you call, she picks up the phone. When you call, she answers your questions and takes the time to educate you on why a certain something is being done a certain way.

The local designer will take the time to ask the right questions: Who are you trying to reach (your demographic), what is your unique positioning statement (UPS), what makes your products or services the best, when’s your launch date? In other words, personalized attention. Your web site isn’t just another job. It’s the job at the moment and, right there, you’ve added value.

More time will be spent in initial discussions (the discovery phase). Sample pages will be developed for client reaction, the designer will take the time to explain what a search engine algorithm is and do as much hand-holding as necessary.

The final result? The website the client envisioned. The quality. The professionally-written content and beautifully lit product pictures. The stateside designer doesn’t create a $1,000 site and pocket the rest. Some of that expense ends up on the client’s computer monitor where it can mean the difference between sale and no sale.

Yes, there are cheaper solutions and if you’re operating on a razor thin budget, you may have no choice but to outsource and hope for the best. But also remember, this is your online storefront – the digital space that’s going to make or break your business model.

So, it just might be worth it to pick up the extra, personalized value you get from a freelance designer or small company. It’s always nice when the boss answers the phone and never puts you on hold.

To the big outsourcers, you’re job # H54011. To the small designer, you’re the only thing that matters right now. Can you put a monetary value on that?

No.

Web hosting blog

Visit our web hosting blog again for more webmaster articles.

Doing Business Online: Lessons Learned

Web Hosting Company Offers Example for Webmasters to Use

When Daryl and Lisa decided to get married, they looked online for everything from wedding rings to honeymoon destinations. They were living thousands of miles apart, and they were used to researching and shopping online. What they were and weren't able to find online provides insights into how websites and online businesses can serve their intended audiences better.

Online Wedding Planning and Shopping online for a wedding dress

A 40-something bride, Lisa didn't want a wedding dress that she'd never wear again. She wanted an elegant, mid-calf-length dress that she could wear for other formal occasions, and she had a few possible colors in mind. She wanted to be able to search for dresses by price range, style, length, and color.

At many sites, she was able to sort search results at a site by price. However, only a few sites provided options to search by dress color, and very few sites offered a sort option by dress length.

Most dress sites she went to provided more than one view of each dress. She was often able to view the front and back of the dress and sometimes close-ups of any detailing. On the other hand, some sites had photos of dresses without models in them, and she found it difficult to visualize what those dresses would look like on her.

After hours of sifting through hundreds of online pictures of dresses that weren't at all what she was looking for or that didn't have enough information about them, she found a suitable dress by shopping in person at local shops.

Searching online for a wedding location - Web Hosting Company Provides Example for Webmasters

Daryl and Lisa were having just a small wedding with a few family members present. They first planned to get married at a B&B in a beach area about an hour from where he lived. The area had many B&Bs with websites, many of which offered wedding packages.

They wanted the option to get married outdoors or indoors, depending on the weather. All the websites had photos of rooms for overnight guests, but only a few had photos of common areas and outdoor spots that could be used for small weddings. Their hours of searching yielded not one B&B in the area with a website that gave them enough information to choose it. Moreover, most of the websites had problems that created a poor impression — ugly designs, grammar and spelling mistakes, photos that took too long to download, and navigation that was poor and inconsistent on different pages.

They then moved their search to locations in Daryl's city. Tired of searching at this point, they looked at two locations to choose from. Both websites had good photos (although the more expensive place had an annoying splash page). Daryl visited both locations, took his own photos, and talked to the staff. The staff at the more expensive place were unwilling to consider the changes that Daryl requested, but the staff at the less expensive place were eager to accommodate Daryl and Lisa's needs. They chose the location with the staff that wanted to work with them.

Shopping online for wedding rings

Lisa had small hands. Daryl had large hands. They wanted matching wedding bands with the same design but with different widths. Unfortunately, they found that most matching wedding bands came only in different sizes of the same width.

Daryl then went to a local bricks-and-mortar jewelry store. He was shown some wedding rings that he thought might be suitable, and the salesperson assured him that the store website had pictures of the rings. It did, but the only pictures were in a flyer that was reproduced at the website, and the photos weren't good enough to show what the rings looked like.

Continuing their search online, Daryl and Lisa finally settled on a ring style that could look okay on large and small hands. But they were disappointed to find so few sites that offered different widths of the same design, which they thought that many couples would want.

Searching online for a wedding officiant

A search for a wedding officiant in Daryl's city produced only two results. The first site had visible script errors and poor navigation. It had the information that Daryl was looking for — after he hunted for it. It had no contact form, just a Yahoo email address and a phone number. The second site looked better, and it had good navigation and easy-to-find, useful information. It had a contact form, a phone number, and a calendar showing when the officiant was already booked.

Daryl called the officiant at the second site, and after talking with her on the phone, booked her services.

Searching online for a wedding photographer

About a dozen photographers in the area had websites offering wedding photography services. However, none of them offered packages for short, simple weddings; wedding package prices started at about a thousand dollars.

Daryl emailed the photographers at each of the sites. The first one replied with a price quote of under a hundred dollars. Daryl liked his work, and after talking with this photographer, booked his ervices. Other photographers also emailed Daryl back with prices in the same range, but Daryl had already chosen a photographer.

If one of those websites had had packages for very small weddings, Daryl would probably have chosen that package instead of contacting a dozen service providers to see if they offered something that wasn't at their website.

Searching online for a honeymoon destination

With just a few days for a honeymoon, Daryl and Lisa wanted to go somewhere quiet where they could relax and spend time together. Before they'd even started looking, they happened to read about an inn near a resort area that was tailored to provide a romantic getaway for couples. It offered features and amenities beyond what they'd hoped for. The suites were all unique, and the website provided several photos and detailed descriptions of each suite. The navigation at the site made it easy to get from any page to most other pages. Also at the site were links to information about activities in the area.

Because they had found what they wanted, they didn't look any further; they booked their honeymoon at that inn.

What Daryl and Lisa learned

Follow these pointers, and your business is less likely to be passed over.

Business websites

• Have a website, even if you serve only the local community. Increasingly more people search online locally before going shopping in person.
• Follow basic web design and navigation principles so that site visitors have a good first impression of your site and want to stay.
• Provide quality photos of your products. Include different views where applicable.
• Include detailed descriptions of your products and services. Find out what details customers might want that aren't listed at your site.
• Provide search options that allow people to narrow and sort their search results in numerous ways.

Products and services

• Consider everything that potential customers might be looking for. Look for needs that aren't easily met, such as different sizes of items or variations from standard packages. Be the company that can meet those needs.
• Be willing to customize what you offer, and indicate this at your website.
• When people contact you after visiting your site, provide fast, quality customer service.

Frustrated searchers will move to the next site. If their search produces dozens of search results, why should they spend time at your site if they can't easily find what they're looking for? On the other hand, if your site looks good, has exactly what they want, and the information is easily accessible, those searchers may stop their search and buy from you.

Related blog articles

For related information, see the articles in the following categories:

• Business Development
• Customer Experience
• Customer Satisfaction
• Web Design
• Website Content

Web Hosting Company Blog

We offer this web hosting blog as a tool for webmasters. The articles are free and intended to help the Internet community with valuable information for the success of your website.