Your Best Approach To Web Site Development - Build A Business

An effective web site is essential for business success today. Whether you are a startup entrepreneur or an established business, web site development, deployment and maintenance must must play a central role in your planning to use the Internet to grow your business (both locally and "globally"). In the following I focus on web site development for startups and established business, both with and without existing web sites. 

A bit about my qualifications. Since 1997 I have developed a number of web sites to support training programs to improve the skills of managers and business entrepreneurs. My objectives in these sites has been to develop them into one-stop-shopping centers for business training and support services. To that end over time I have added a number of related member/customer services including web site development and hosting services. I'd like to share with you what I have learned.

Until relatively recently my experience with my own sites was similar to what Sharon Fling reports in her new book "How To Promote Your Local Business On The Internet." For many small business owners, web sites do not seem to help the bottom line. I agree with Sharon that the major reason for these web site development failures is that the sites were not designed to produce tangible business results. 

Another important insight about the latest in approaches to selling on the internet and web site development is provided at the "New Selling Rules" tab. Click there to find out what Bob Serling has to say about his session on "The New Rules of Internet Marketing." If you really want to sell products or services by leveraging the Internet -- this is a must read (and if you do not wish to enroll in the full course, do take a look at the sample).

Whatever your monetary investment in web site development, the site must produce measurable business results in the form of greater sales, better service and/or increased customer satisfaction. Most importantly, your web site should conserve your time so that it can be devoted to increasing sales and product offerings. Highly successful online entrepreneur Corey Rudl explains in Your Four Steps (to online success) why it is essential that business owners set up their business processes to automate online (and other) activities. (If you don't, you are doomed to drown from business growth.)

Your objective in marketing your website is to get growing numbers of targeted traffic to your site. The key for doing this is to provide outstanding content for your prospects. Syndicated newspaper columnist Jim Edwards outlines an excellent strategy in his new e-book Turn Words Into (Targeted) Traffic. 

On the mechanics side, you would want to use a tool such as WebPosition Gold -- the best stand-alone software for site/page submission to search engines. Or you can use a bundled site development tool.

In a recent issue of the Web Marketing Today (click here for your FREE sign up) Dr. Ralph Wilson provided the following comments about web site development investment costs:

    Costs also vary regionally and from country to country. However, small business websites can begin as low as Yahoo! Web Hosting packages costing US $11.95 per month plus a US $15 set-up fee which includes a domain name.¹ These sites are built using wizards that take very little skill. 

 

    I'm quite excited about Ken Evoy's Site Build It! system, also a wizard-built site. Site Build It! not only provides site hosting, but the kind of step-by-step guidance that will teach you to build a profitable online business and integrated tools to boost your site's ranking in the search engines, manage Pay Per Click advertising, track results, etc. The price is about US $299 annually. This fall they'll add the ability to sell e-books, though you can add PayPal order buttons to make sales immediately. I'm currently setting up a site and will probably review the product when it is available.

 

    If you have a web designer custom-design a website for you (which will be necessary for many businesses), expect to pay US $1,000 to $5,000 plus $20 to $50 per month for hosting. High traffic sites and sites that demand lots of custom database programming will cost substantially more.

For most smaller and startup businesses I recommend starting web site development (whether or not you have an existing web site²) by taking Ken Evoy's free Service Sellers Masters course. You then can easily follow-up by using his Site Build It! software (click here for a quick tour of the concept) to deploy a site guaranteed to support your business. Let me tell you why you should do this.

Stated simply, there is no web site development tool comparable in any way to Site Build It! It stands alone in the marketplace because:

• It requires no technical knowledge to deploy a highly professional and functional website that keeps you focused on building your business with each step in the web site development process.³

• The Site Build It! web site development process eliminates costly errors in page development and submission to search engines.⁴

• The pay-for-click manager makes is easy to optimize your investment targeted online traffic building (a tremendous benefit to selling your own products/services).⁵

• The E package includes your own merchant account, sophisticated fraud screening, perfect pricing, secure digital e-good delivery, a 2-tier customizable affiliate program, extended Mail Out ability (to customer and affiliate lists), and extensive "reporting and managing" back-end tools.⁶

All of this for about $300 per year (including hosting and domain name renewal) plus about another $200 for the e-commerce module.) As Ken puts it, "Why build a Web site, when you can build a Web BUSINESS?" And, I'll add this, "for a fraction of the cost to just build a web site including the individual components included in Site Build It! -- less the integrated management module."

If you wish to get a jump-start into making your web site development efforts work for you from the very start, join Ken Evoy’s 5 Pillar Program (click here for a FREE download of the Action Guide to making your web site development efforts focus on achieving immediate business results). It is the best action guide to cost-effective web site development planning. 

So, just get started and don't stop making your business more profitable -- and having a great time along the way.

I look forward to seeing you again soon on another of our pages.

Regards,

President, Best Managers on the Net, www.BestManagers.Net, home of My Journal©

We are a business consulting, training and development company dedicated to helping good managers and their companies prosper by reaching for the top.

__________

¹ My company provides a substantial hosting package for just $49 per year, including domain name. Click here for additional information.

² For example, I applied the principles covered in the course to my existing corporate site (www.TecSERVE.com) and doubled its traffic in less than 60 days. NOTE: any business of any size can benefit by applying the outlined principles. 

³  The Site Build It! process forces you to concentrate on those factors most critical to your success. Indeed, its approach is in many ways similar to the highly acclaimed Balance Scorecard Method (with the implementing software and implementation costs being in high multiples of an investment in Site Build It!)  developed by two Harvard Business School professors and now used by many of the world's most successful organizations.

⁴ Site Build It!  includes an "Analyze" function which tests each draft page against the ranking criteria used by the major search engines. This function will warn you if there are errors in your proposed page submission. This function has "saved" me any number of times in my development of new pages to be added to this site. NOTE: if you submit a page that does not meet the search engine requirements for ranking it may take you 3-4 months to discover the reason. Let's suppose you developed a page to promote the sale of your latest product/service. Your error in submission would delay the sales to be generated search engine traffic by that page for another 3-4 months. 

⁵ The Site Build It!  pay-for-click manager gives you a direct handle on how much to invest in targeted traffic and what your return is at any given time.. This will allow you to invest the optimum amount, maximizing your returns. 

⁶ Let me reiterate that you do not have to be a computer techie to use Site Build It!  If you use your computer for email and web surfing you have all the skills you need. Site Build It! comes will detailed instructions and examples of each step you must take to get you site operational and providing the benefits outlined above. I have a number of other software packages and can attest that Site Build It! is the best and easiest to use I have encountered. And -- if you need any help that Ken's folks don't provide -- give me a yell and I'll help you get started to your path to success (no charge, by the way).

Go go Best Online Business overview page from web site development