Website Design and Development WebMasterRalph

Today no matter what your personal life or business is you can not ignore the Internet as a media force.  Especially a business today needs to have a website.  Even if you don't want to sell over the internet. Your presence on-line makes a big difference.  People can still check out your business online and then decide to do business with you in person or on the phone.  All because you answered a few basic questions with a well developed and designed website.

A business website is a necessary tool of any business today.  Websites allow you to at the absolute least ... just communicate information about your business to existing and potential customers.  A website gives people who can't physically make it to your business a way to connect with you, maybe even to just find you at all.  People can't make it to your physical business location for many reasons.  The three most basic reasons are disabilities that prevent people from visiting you physically, distance, and time.

Even on a totally simple static webpage, you can place your business address, phone number and email address on your site where your customers can send inquires about your products and or services to you.  Website email is especially helpful for people in different time zones and for dealing with very detailed inquires.  

When a web surfer writes down your telephone number from the website and calls to get more information or to make a transaction .... It was because of the website that the customer became interested or even aware of your business and then you made the transaction and or sale.  Even if you don't sell online you can still generate sales online. 

Now what can be done on the internet with a website today is almost without limits.  You can make business transactions of all different types on your website.  Everything from arranging a business transaction to actually going through with the sale online.  Some of the most common sites that sell online are called e-commerce sites.  These sites feature a cyberspace shopping baskets for customers online to fill with items and then check out online as well.  Your website could feature each item or service you have to offer.  Or your website could just feature certain sales, promotions, or even special online events.  Your website can include text of course, images, Audio files, movie files and a lot more.

You could even place ads on your site to generate revenue.  Besides information about your individual business your website could have content about your industry in general, even live content like Live Web Cast.  It is ideal to make your business website become known for having interesting industry related information.  A website that becomes popular as a resource has a greater audience and then becomes even more valuable as a business asset to the owner and to others like advertisers.

There are really an endless number of reasons why every business should have a website.  I am just going to touch on some highlights from this point on.  Here are some possible benefits of having a business website. 

• You can stay in touch with your sales people or colleges in a way that just can't be done over the phone or using just email.
• Your business website can contain interactive media.
• Your website is a like a 24/7 service window.
• Even if the website is just basic information about your business. A business website can change as fast as you need it to.  Not even the best designed business card or brochure could ever hope to do that for your business.  A well developed and designed website will.
• Your business website also gives you yet another way to get customer feedback.
• A website is an open market for testing products and or services.
• You can target a particular market using your business website as well as serve your local market area.
• Finally how business is conducted has changed. In order not to be left behind today a business needs to be internet ready.

I've taught many people how to set up and manage their own websites.  However, most people lean towards getting a reliable webmaster that they can count on and work with, and also help you maintain your website.

Here's how it generally starts.   First you establish a Generic Top-Level Domain or gTLD. These Top-Level Domains or TLDs are used on the Internet's Domain Name System or DNS to create an internet web address for your business website.  This address is more commonly known as a Uniform Resource Locator or URL also know as Uniform Resource Identifier or URI.  Often it is the name of a business or organization itself with a (.something) after the name.  All domain names have a suffix or extension after the name that tells you a little about the nature of the site.  These extensions appears after the last dot or period in the name.  There are many different types of website extensions.  The type of website it is can be seen in the website's extension.

Next it is time to find a Web hosting service somewhere in cyberspace for your website to use.  Think of the hosting service as the place where your website is stored online.  There are many different hosting services.  You have to do your shopping and find one with a good prices and services. 

After setting up your domain name with a hosting service you at the very least setup a home page with the information about your business available on your website and then people can look find your business information at your URL or Domain Name. 

People can also find you through internet searches.  People use Search Engines everyday to find solutions for their business or for themselves.   Please click here to see much more on search engine placement or rankings. I have an entire section on strategies used to list your website with search engines.

 With a well developed and designed website you can answer the basic questions easily and inexpensively that most customers need answered.  That can and often does lead to sales for most companies or whatever goal it is that your business wishes to achieve. Your goal may not be sales.  You might be looking for let say ... volunteers.  In that case the website's presence online could very easily lead to finding those people.  On the issue of search engines I have a rather extensive section covering this issue. 

Now what is basic business information?  That is a little difficult to pin down absolutely.  For starters, The name of your business online is a great beginning.  What your business does, Your company logo for immediate visual ID purposes, Your company name in a particular font style again for immediate visual ID purposes, Your physical address location, Your business telephone number, Your business hours, Methods of payment accepted, current sales or deals going on, up coming events, how someone could contact you, (your name), etc.  As you can see there really is no end to what can be considered basic business information.  It depends very much on your business.  The idea then becomes to cover the basics for your industry.

I sure hope this little bit of information has wet your appetite and got you thinking.  Now it's time to call me so we can talk about your website and the possibilities...  Call me 808-269-8933.

Aloha,

Ralph