Getting your business online
and creating an online presence By Clare Rogers, Medden Website Design

Why Do I Need to be On-line?

• Can you afford not to?  Online retail sales in the U.K grew at 14% from April 2008 – April 2009.  Nearly £200 million per month in the U.K. alone is spent online
• A website can be more than just an advertising brochure for your business.  You can have a shop, community, customer support, feedback etc.
• Think about your customers and how offering them online facilities is encouraging their loyalty
• For some time and effort and initial outlay, you can have your product available to the WORLD, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

Planning Stage – How Do I Start?

• Domain name
• Availability - www.123-reg.co.uk - www.GoDaddy.com
• Suitability
• Originality & Infringement
• Location
• Sitemap and flowchart
• Call to action – 3 click rule
• Competition – check it out, what works, what doesn’t? 
• Do you have a USP (unique selling point) that you can market?

Example Sitemap

Developing Stage – Do it right!

Hosting Considerations

• Bandwidth
• Disk Space
• Processor Speed
• Ram
• Linux/Windows

Hosting types

• Shared (adequate for basic brochure sites)
• VPS (virtual private server) for shops/dynamic sites
• Dedicated for large companies and worldwide corporations      

You or an Expert? - Do it Yourself?

• It’s Cheaper!
• Don’t use online website creator/wizard.
• Don’t use WYSIWYG software.
• Learn to code clean HTML/CSS.
• http://validator.w3.org/

You or an Expert? - Get an Expert

• Compare at least 3 companies
• View portfolios
• Contact existing clients
• Use their expertise
• NEVER feel stupid
• Keep up to date with web trends

Design – Stand out but don’t confuse your audience.  What do you want the users to do – put yourself in their shoes.

• Copywriting – the right text – the right message.
• Speed – Does it load quickly enough?  If not, change it or risk the loss of potential customers.
• Usability – Does it work in all browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Mobiles). 
  Testing is key.  Get your friends and family to test it and give feedback.
• Update – Make sure you update your site regularly to keep people interested and help with SEO.
• Security – Hackers, Spammers etc.
• Legal Requirements, Terms & Conditions, customer privacy – www.businesslink.gov.uk - www.website-law.co.uk
• Information Commissions Office www.ico.gov.uk
• Integrity and Recovery.  Is customer data always safe?  Is the website backed up, how regularly?

Going Live

• SEO
• Links – inbound and outbound
• PageRank
• Pay per click
• Adsense and banner ads

Promotion

• Articles
• Offline promotion

Keep It Going

• Keep updating your site
• Keep promoting
• Keep on top of current trends/competition so that you are ahead of the game
• Keep up to date with new technologies

Enjoy It

• Being part of the growing internet industry is exciting as well.
• The feeling of that first sale or enquiry that comes through your website is fantastic – someone has found me!!!!
• Do it right and reap the benefits
• You will probably fail a few times, cry a few times and laugh a few times but mistakes are for making and goals are for reaching!