Website Basics for Business – How to Attract New Clients Using the Internet

[Success Pro]

Website Basics for Business – How to Attract New Clients Using the Internet

In this session, we will discuss website basics for business. Our discussion will benefit people who are considering a website for their business, and those who want to get better results from their existing site. This is not meant for the technically savvy, but rather for people with little or no design skills, who want to learn some affordable ways to use the internet to attract new customers.

We will cover the basics of web design, briefly review the many options and functionality that can help you attract new clients, and provide resources to further assist you in growing your business using the internet.

Reasons Why You Need A Website

1. A website can be an effective way to attract new clients. Even if you own a traditional brick and mortar establishment, you can attract clients in your local area that use the internet to search for what they need.
2. Being accessible on the web allows your business to reach a wider audience of prospective customers.
3. A presence on the web can also help you stay in touch with your existing customers. Informing your customers in advance of special sales and events can help keep them coming back to you, and help build customer loyalty.
4. A website builds credibility. This can be especially helpful if you are a new business. A website can help introduce your products and services, and to help persuade potential customers to learn more about your business.

What is Web Design?

Web site design facilitates communication between the users and the content of the pages. Your website should be designed to attract customers and entice them to take action such as contact you for more information, or place an order.

We’ve broken websites into several different categories—Basic, Ecommerce, and Hi-Tech sites.

Basic Websites

Basic websites are a great way to get started if you don’t currently have your own site, or if you are working with a limited budget. I highly recommend that everyone in business have at least a basic website. Basic websites can be created quite inexpensively and don’t even require a lot of technical knowledge to develop. There are some basic elements, however, that every effective website should include.

A basic website consistes of 4 components:

1. Clear Content

2. Simple Navigation

3. Answers to Commonly Asked Questions

4. Consistent Design that is visually appealing

A basic website has simple design and focuses on communicating your message to the visitor. It should include content that clearly communicates what your business has to offer. The idea of clear content is to quickly convince the visitor to stay on the page and to want to learn more.

Your message should provide information they want and need to know before buying from you. When writing your web page content, remember to think like your customers and what their needs may be.

Does your product meet their needs?

Your content should clearly explain how you can meet their needs and provide what they are looking for.

If you are unsure about what your customers want, check out our Blog for tips on how to better connect with your customers. Knowing your customers better will dramatically improve all of your marketing efforts.

A Basic website should be easy to navigate. Customers need to be able to easily find out more details about your business and how to contact you for more information. An effective website will include details about your company, products and services, special events or sales, hours of operation, and location (if you have a physical location). A menu bar near the top of each page, or along the side that links to each of these areas is typically used for this purpose.

Your home page is the main entry point into your website and should include the most important details about your business—company name, location, brief description of your products and services, your hours of operation, and how to contact you for more information.

Your products and services pages should provide more detail on the specifics of what you can provide. Here you may want to include more photos of your products, and give item specifications. Anything your customers would want to know before buying the product goes here.

Other pages you should consider adding include an “About Us” page that details something interesting about your business. This is great for building credibility for your business. On this page you will want to highlight any industry records and awards, your company’s history, mission, and values.

Your contact page should include multiple ways for potential customers to connect with you directly—via phone, fax, and email.

If your business is hosting an event or special sale, a web page describing this can be a great way to give the details to prospective buyers about upcoming events.

Throughout your web pages, your content should answer questions about your business that customers may want to know. Knowing your customers well will be a vital part of providing the answers to questions commonly asked. You may want to include a specific page on your website that contains all of the answers on a single page.

Having a consistent web design that is visually appealing is also a key element in basic web design. If you use photos on your site, make sure the photos or graphics are clear and clean. A fuzzy photo of a product will NOT entice a visitor to buy, but rather to continue shopping for a site that appears more credible.

Be careful if you use a background graphic in your design, as many times a background will be repeated like tiles in a person’s browser. This can be very distracting to the eye. You want website visitors to focus on your content and what you have to offer. The idea is to get them to want to take action and learn more.

Remember to think about your website from a potential customer’s perspective. Your business website should look professional with a clear message and call to action. If designed properly, with good content, your website will attract new clients and help you build customer loyalty.

This does not have to cost you an arm and a leg. For as little as $14.95 per month, you can get a professionally designed website for your business. You simply choose a professional web design, type in your content, and click to publish your new site to the web. Savonhosting.net even offers a free 14-day trial so you can try it out. To learn more, or to sign up for a free test drive, visit www.saveonhosting.net.

If you plan to offer your website visitors the opportunity to buy your products online, you will need a more compehensive website, known as an ecommerce site. Depending on the extent of your products and your needs, you may need to hire a professional web designer to develop the tools necessary for this type of functionality.

An ecommerce website allows you to offer multiple products for purchase over the internet. It requires a shopping cart and a connection to some sort of payment interface. If you already have a merchant account for credit card processing, you can typically contact your provider for help in connecting your website activity to it. If you are operating a small business, however, you can use one of the many low-cost options for taking payments over the internet such as PayPal. For a small percentage of the total transaction, PayPal will allow you to accept online payments with a major credit card or check from your customers. They do not require you to sign a contract, and there are no monthly fees. Click here if you’d like to sign up for a free PayPal account.

If you want to accept payments on the internet for a small number of items, you may still be able to incorporate some of the elements of an e-commerce site with a basic website. To learn more about simple shopping cart options, visit www.SaveOnHosting.net. Sign up for a free 14-day trial and discover how a simple shopping cart works.

Now, many people think that a jazzy website, with lots of bells and whistles is the best way to attract new clients. A hi-tech site that has cool flash or video, music, and lots of interactive tools may make visitors stay on your page longer, but it does not necessarily mean that they will take action and buy what you have to offer.

If you are just getting started, I highly recommend that you start with a clean, professional site, and upgrade as your budget and results from your site allow.

Today, there is much debate over whether more technically savvy sites generate better results. The truth is, a clear message and content is much more likely to attract new clients than a site that is cluttered with functionality, but doesn’t drive the web visitor to action.

As people search the internet for what they need, they typically use a search engine--such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc. Once you have established a website for your business, the next step is to get it listed so that it appears in the search results.

A basic website is created using a code language known as Hypertext Markup language (or HTML). It provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a web page. It denotes certain text as links, headings, paragraphs, lists, and so on — and it also allows for interactive forms, embedded images, videos and other objects.

HTML is not that difficult to learn. Download a free HTML tutorial here.

On every webpage there is a segment of the HTML code known as meta tags. They are not visible to website visitors, but are vital to getting your business listed in the search results on the major search engines.

Meta tags are not a guaranteed way to gain a top ranking on search engines, but they do allow the web site owner to describe their site. They also offer the ability to prevent pages from being indexed at all.

Meta information is used to communicate information that a human visitor may not be concerned with. Meta tags, for example, can tell a browser what "character set" to use, or whether a web page has family-friendly content.

Three of the most important meta tags that your website should have are: title, description, and keywords. Think about the key terms that someone looking for your services might use when searching an engine.

Then, incorporate those terms into your title tag in a short, descriptive fashion. That text will then be used as your title in search engines, as well as the title in bookmarks and in browser reverse bars.

The Title Tag in HTML isn’t really a meta tag, but it is key to how your website appears in the browser and search engines. The title tag is also used as the words to describe your page when someone adds it to their "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" lists.

You can then expand your title with more detail to create your description tag. Generally, a description will have 200 to 250 characters, although only a smaller portion of them may be displayed—so choose your description carefully.

Key word tags are strings of words that someone might use if searching for your products and services. In combination, a title, description, and keyword strings with similar wording can help your site get noticed and listed in the major search engines.

Developing a website presence for your business can tremendously help you improve your company’s visibility, and attract new clients. It can add credibility and help spread the word about your products and services. Starting with a basic site, with clear content, and a simple visual appeal is recommended.