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GETTING A WEB PRESENCE FOR YOUR BUSINESS Almost every business can be enhanced with a website - even if you only operate in a small area. Most Internet Service Providers include web space with your subscription but if yours doesn't there are many free sites out on the internet you can use. Your choice of company will be affected by the geographical area you wish to attract. If you are aiming at a UK audience you will want a UK domain (a web address ending in co.uk), if you are aiming at an American or worldwide audience you will be better with a US domain - e.g.www.abc.com if you are to take advantage of the regional search engines. Below I have listed a selection of companies providing web sites for business use. Please note that many free web sites are for non-commercial purposes only. Most of the UK sites, excluding Tripod, require you to sign up for their free internet access. You will need to access the site monthly to keep it active, but do not need to use the company as your provider unless you wish to. All these companies will have the facilities to design your own web page without any programming experience, although you will find you are spending quite a long time on line. It may be more beneficial to obtain a web page program, for example Claris Home Page, where you can design your pages offline, with no experience and then upload to your web site. For inspiration for the layout of your site look at other sites on the web that appeal to you, and copy or adapt their ideas. Click here for recommended books for creating your own website.  Whilst you can get your site up and running totally free (excluding your own time and telephone costs) I would thoroughly recommend you buy two things: 1. Get your own domain name. Most companies will allow you to divert the address to your free site, usually at no charge so this will cost you no more than £10 for a UK domain or £30 for a US domain including registration fees. Check the small print though as some companies have conditions over transferring the name when you are ready to pay to host your site. 2. Splash out around £10 on probably the most important manual you will ever buy. Called "Making Your Site Sell" you get 800 pages crammed full of information on everything you'll need to know to make a success of your website, including a huge section on driving traffic to your site, written by somebody from his experiences not from theory. Go to http://www.sitesell.com/websuccessstory.html to find out more and download the full contents section and index.
Remember Keep it simple - people don't want to spend ages waiting for fancy graphics to load, so they won't! Make it clear what you are offering - don't spend 4 or 5 pages on fancy talk whilst forgetting to mention the product. Make it easy to navigate the site, with links back to, at the very least, the home page, from all pages. On long pages there should also be links back to the top of the page from the bottom. Make sure your contact details are on every page, whether this is e-mail, address, phone or fax. Click here for recommended books for creating your own website.
Once you have your site up and running you need to tell people about it. The way you do this will depend on your type of business. If you are only operating in a geographically small area, you need only use the web address in all other advertising and business literature so that interested people can access the site for more information. If you are hoping to get work from a wider area, then you need to get your web site listed with the top search engines - Yahoo, Altavista etc.Make sure you read "Make Your Site Sell" to ensure you maximise your chance of getting listed. You can either go to each site and enter your site description or you can use one of the many programmes or services available that will do it for you. Recommendations are below. You will need to resubmit monthly to ensure your site remains listed, but should be aware that it can take weeks or months to get listed by some of the bigger engines. Another option to consider is an autoresponder. Rather than asking potential customers to phone you for information that you then post out to them (slow and expensive on postal and printing costs), you can ask them to e-mail for information. An automatic reply is then e-mailed straight back with whatever information you choose. If neither your e-mail nor web site provider provide these services I have found a company that will provide one with no rental fees. A single payment of around £30 is all you will ever need to pay and the messages can be changed as often as you wish. For further details click HERE.
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One of the most effective ways of promoting your business is by winning awards. There are now in excess of 800 sites which give awards and it can be totally bewildering knowing where to start. To solve this problem, a site called Website Awards has collected them all together. Updated weekly, you can find the full listing here, together with ratings out of 5, or if you'd just like to view the updates since your last visit, visit this page. Remember to bookmark to keep up to date.
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If your ISP doesn't provide a website for business use, click on the links on the right to check out some of the best free sites for business use. www.tripod.co.uk - 100MB available for personal or business use. Join the appropriate "Pod" for your site and gain extra publicity.
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There are several products and services that will automate your web submissions for you. Many offer limited free trials which are worth checking out prior to buying anything. The one I use, which I have found is far more successful than any other is by a company called self promotion. You don't ever have to pay for the service if you don't want to, but if you decide it is useful, you can pay a fee of your own choosing. If you make a payment the details you have entered in the past remain on the server making it easy to resubmit each month. You can choose which companies to submit to automatically, and links have been included so that you can manually register when appropriate. They even e-mail you if the submission fails for any reason. I paid $10 (just £6) and can honestly say it's one of the best investment I've made on my business. For further details go to the website and try it out. http://selfpromotion.com Others to try include http://www.strontiumwebs.com/intro.htm http://www.powerpromote.com/cash.shtml
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You can advertise on the internet with hundreds of companies - many of them for free. Check out Yahoo or your favourite search engine for an up to date listing. UK companies include: http://www.findit.co.uk/uk.htm | ||
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E-mail me with your comments and suggestions. |
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