Wizard of Ads Clay Campbell

10 Steps to a Better Website-# 3 Establish a budget

This series of 10 steps to a better website is intended for the novice. For people not very savvy to “Internet stuff”
It just gives a little help on things that I needed help on when I first decided we needed a website.

The cost of creating a website depends on a lot of things. Many I covered in earlier posts. Cost will be determined in large part on the purpose of the site and how many pages. (Decide up front how much you should spend.)

The other key factors are high quality and high performance. There is no point spending any amount of money on a website that presents an amateurish image and does not function properly. Although a general rule may be that the larger your investment, the better your result.

I had lady in my office and she was asking for help with her website. She said friend of hers did her a favor and built her a website for “just a few bucks.”
I told her it would take less time to build a new one than to fix all the problems with here current one. She complained about spending money on the old site and now spending more for a new site. Probably all small businesses have had this same thing happen in some fashion or another.

If you want a professional looking website be prepared for it to not be cheap.
I do advise people get the best bang for their buck, but I learned from bitter past experience that hiring the lowest bidder to build a website or anything else is also running the risk of maybe having to do it all over again and paying for it twice.

Creating a website can be less expensive if you do it yourself, but only if you have the time, inclination, and tools to do a good job. Otherwise, get several bids from highly recommended designers and developers.

Clearly define your goals, style, and expectations for these Webmasters. As I suggested in another post and it’s worth repeating here, “Look at several sites that your potential Webmaster has built. If you don’t like the others he/she built, you probably won’t like yours when it’s finished.”

After you have what you feel is an acceptable bid, add in promotion and advertising expenses. As your company grows, you can expand your site, spreading your investment over time.

Buying advertising on Yahoo and Google to get more visitors to your site can get very expensive quickly. Decide on a monthly budget. Money spent on good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a wise investment. Good SEO work can bring your website up in the search engines to the first page and many times in the top three.

It’s been my experience and that of my clients too, that if you’ve had good SEO work done on your site up front and your website is in the top three or four for your chosen key words, and then you also have an ad from Google or Yahoo right above it, or right beside it, you will get fewer clicks on your ad. Because people are becoming savvy to the fact that those sponsored results are ads.

Attracting customers for very specific ad words on search result pages where you are not in the top three is a good idea if the adwords are not too general.

For tips on getting the best use of your ad dollars in all your advertising, read 12 steps to More Bang for Your Marketing Buck.

My new book came out this week titled Get Big Results From Your Small Ad Budget it has some very good tips making your advertising dollars go farther. You can order it through Wizard Academy Press in Austin Texas.

Check out Vess Barnes seys Hello at:
http://www.mondaymorningmemo.com/?ShowMe=Vess_Barnes_Says_Hello

Contact me at Clay Campbell.biz

10 Steps to a Better Website -#2 Plan your content

This is number two in this series. These ten posts are for all the people that say to me, "I'm just not savvy to Internet stuff"
What is the purpose of your website? What do you want to achieve with your site? You need to establish your goals and priorities up front.

Do you want information about your company, products, and services? Or do you want to actually sell your products online? Or maybe influence and motivate potential customers to visit your store or do you want them to just call your phone number? Do you want to brand your company and refine its image? Provide great customer service? Or do you want some combination of all the above?

How you answer these questions will guide the design and development of your site.

You don’t need an elaborate plan. Just sit down with a pencil and a legal pad and answer some of the questions above plus these.

· How many pages do I need?
· Do I have the content already? (* Note-the best investment in your website is to hire a good writer)
· What would be the titles of those pages?
· Find three or four websites you like and tell the Webmaster designing your site that you want something like that. That will help with colors and layout
· Look at several sites that your potential Webmaster has built. If you don’t like the others he/she built, you won’t like yours when it’s finished
· The content will attract or turn away the visitor quickly, and will also play a large part where you rank in the search engines. (Yahoo Google etc)
· Make very sure your text content is not an exact duplicate of another site.

10 Steps to a Better Website-# 1 Choose a domain name carefully

# 1 Choose a domain name carefully

From my own research, my own experience as a business owner, and my experimenting with ten of my websites; I am offering some ideas and tips on having a better more effective website. You’ll really need this info if you need to build a new site, remodel an older one or want your site to rank better in the search engines.

In today’s marketplace, a website is often the first point of contact for new customers.

While poor design can possibly drive prospects away, a professionally designed and well-managed site is an advertisement telling visitors that your company is well run and successful. That will give people the confidence and trust to do business with you. Your website is a key component of your overall marketing and it should advance your overall business strategy.

Your website needs to communicate to your visitor with words, graphics, and information about your company. Information that you feel that gives visitors your vision, your purpose, pertinent information on products, and/or service. Why not make it easy for customers to get the information they need or buy the products or service they want?

I hope these10 Steps to a Better Website will be helpful for you. They will later be made into a PDF and made available on my blog and website

10 Steps to a Better Website

# 1 Choose a domain name carefully

A domain name is your unique Internet address for your website such as www.claycampbell.biz Choose an easy-to pronounce, easy-to-spell name. Some say choose a name that reflects your business. However ebay does not reflect an online bidding site. Neither does the name google convey that it is a powerful search engine. I had a name problem with one of my sites. I had what I thought was a great name until I was running a radio campaign to promote it. It was going to take the whole commercial to explain how to type in the address. So I had to buy two new names, and use a redirect on those, to make the radio ads work.

You can have several web addresses all going to the same website. It’s not a good idea to have several web addresses going to websites with the same content. Google, Yahoo and other search engines will give search results for just one index page. (Home page) They will not give search results for the others. Trying to have multiple sites with the exact same content, and others like filling up your home page with keywords, could very well get your site banned because the search engines may see that as you trying to manipulate the search results.

You can register your name in your state before you even put it on line. If your company is already established, you should register that name asap however; you’ll find many common words and terms and great names are already taken.

I always suggest if you can, choose a domain name that has key words in it that will appear on your home page. This will help potential customers find your site when they search for those words in search engines. To find out if a domain name is currently registered, go to http://www.internic.net/whois.html Or I usually go to www.godaddy.com or www.dotser.com and just type in the search bar a name I am interested in. If it’s available I buy it right then. The cost is usually in the $5-$10 range. If the name you want is taken, be creative or find a creative person to help you. Any of the Wizard of Ads Partners could help you. Or bounce your ideas off an associate. Keep trying until you have a name that “works” and…is available.