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Move your business online in 7 steps
25th February 2006
So you have set up your company. It's fairly well established and generating some sort of revenue. Why should you go further and get your business online?
The online audience is massive - it's an information resource used by millions worldwide and continues to grow. Having your company information online can be a whole new way of attracting potential customers.
Step One: Choose a domain name
It is important to choose a domain name which is suitable for your business. Remember, if you want to be able to say your domain name over the phone then it needs to be short and easy to spell!
Usually, it's best to have the name of your website as your domain name, for example; www.yourcompany.co.uk. If your company name has already been taken there are several ways around this. Here are some examples:
www.your-company.co.uk
www.yourcompanyltd.co.uk
www.company.co.uk
You can also choose from .com or .co.uk which are the most common and popular types of domain. However there are different domains for organisations (.org.uk) and new types appear regularly such as .com.uk.
Whichever you choose you must check the availability on www.123reg.co.uk
Step Two: Host your Website
What does this mean? Basically, you need to find a space where your website can be built on the Internet. A good metaphor would be finding the land on which to build your house, where the house is your website.
There are three main things you need to be aware of when choosing a company to host your site:
1. How large your site is i.e. total sizes of all pages which make up your site
2. How much bandwidth it requires i.e. how many visitors want to access it
3. How your website is built - if your site uses PHP, ASP, other languages or is database driven this may increase the cost.
Step Three: Set Up your Email Accounts
Setting up your email accounts can be an easy stress-free experience. There are four main components to each account, these are:
Username
Password
Pop account
SMTP account
These will be provided by your hosting company and all you need to do is add an email account using the settings above. Your hosting company will help you through this process.
Step Four: Develop a Website
Either design the site yourself or hire a professional to design it for you. Ensure you capture all information you want to present to your visitors and make sure your website is easy to use and navigate through.
There are many aspects to consider when developing a website. The content of your site is incredibly important. You may want to hire a copywriter or someone who is skilled in this area. Another aspect is the overall design and look of the site. Depending on what kind of image you want to portray, a good eye for design is vital.
This is also the time to think about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Optimisation means creating and developing a website which can be easily read by search engines so that for certain keywords you can be listed at the top of a results page.
The final thing to consider is how you are going to maintain the content of your website. There are three basic options:
1. Website Maintenance - most web design companies will also offer to keep your website maintained for an hourly fee. So whenever you want to change bits and pieces you would get in touch with the designers who would up date it for you. This is best used for companies who may only want to change small amounts of their site from time to time.
2. Content Managed Systems (CMS) - if you think you'll want to update your site more frequently, you can add a CMS. This is a simple, user-friendly module that allows you to update, add, remove and edit your content and images.
3. DIY - of course you can Do-It-Yourself if you have some HTML knowledge (if your site is HTML) or are willing to put some of your time aside to learn. However, if your site is designed using Flash this is quite technical and should only be attempted if you feel confident you have the correct knowledge and skills.
Step Five: SEO Submission
Once your website is completed, you need to attract visitors to your site. The first step is to submit your website to search engines. The most important reason for this is so that search engines know you are out there - it's like telling everyone you've moved house. It can take some time to appear in search engine listings but immediately your site goes live on the Internet your customers can type in the full site address and see your website. Another important step is to add your web address to as many free directories as possible as this increases your page rank with search engines.
Step Six: Internet Marketing
There are millions of sites out there trying to get that number 1 position on search engines by optimisation, and unfortunately not everyone can have it! With the more common keywords, it's exceptionally difficult to rank highly and with search engines continually changing their methods for ranking websites this has become a less effective way of Internet Marketing.
A much more proven Internet Marketing technique is Pay Per Click. The majority of search engines have premium listings where they sell the top positions on their results pages. The way they work is explained in more detail in the article 'How does Pay Per Click work'. However in a nutshell, the general idea is as follows:
You enter a price for every keyword you think a potential customer of your company would enter into a search engine, on average it is around 30p. Every time a visitor clicks on that link they will be taken to your site. You only pay when someone actually clicks on your link. If more than one company put a price on a certain keyword, the company who has put the highest price gets the top position.
Another way to attract visitors to your site is to place banners on other related websites which have a larger number of visitors. The banner would then have a link to your website which counts towards your search engine ranking.
Step Seven: Include your website on any stationery and promotional material
Now that you are set up, you can start publishing your website on any printed material so that your customers and clients know where to find you on the Internet.
And that's it! Of course, this is just a summary. But it's the basic steps to help you make the most of the Internet and get your business online.
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