faqs

By obtaining an easy to remember domain name and including this in all your promotional materials - business cards, yellow page ads, newspaper and radio ads. Any form of advertising that you have found effective in promoting your business will be more effective when you include the address of your web site. Someone who sees your ad and is curious about your business will be able to find out more about you at their convenience and at a small cost to you.

Just as important as the number of people visiting your site (hits) is their relevance to your business. For instance, if you are a local painting contractor, you could spend $2000 a month to present a banner ad to every person who searched for "paint" on the Yahoo search engine. You would be guaranteed thousands of hits, but would it do you any good? No, because most of these people would be outside of your geographical area, and you couldn't service them. Your promotional money would be wasted. For a client of this type, the most effective use of your web site would be to leverage your existing advertising with a Web Site that would showcase the quality of your work to local people who are in need of a painter.

A web site should cost no more than you budget for it. We recommend that you set aside a percentage of your marketing budget, 10% to 50%, depending on the nature of your business. Monthly hosting and maintenance fees average $50.00 per month for your own domain name; design fees depend on your needs and budget.

This depends very much on the way you present your site. There are dozens of "search engines" on the Web that catalog and organize Web Sites by keywords and the body text of the site. Each search engine has different requirements and priorities, and it often takes weeks or months for your site to be cataloged. For large businesses with international scope, you can purchase banner ads on these search engines that will be presented to people searching for products that you sell. You pay for the number of "hits" that the banner ad generates.

A Web Site can deliver in-depth and up-to-date information about your business to interested people. You can showcase your business with color photography without the expense of glossy paper, you can change your prices and business hours when it suits you, and your customers will have the latest information. You can use animation and sound (try that with a brochure or yellow page ad!). You can deliver useful information to potential customer's 24 hours a day, seven days a week, wherever they may be.

The World Wide Web is rapidly becoming the "Yellow Pages" of choice for over 50 million affluent, well-educated, regular users (according to the Iconoclast newsletter). Your business needs a web site to tap into this growing market, and to keep up with your competitors who have or will have web sites of their own.

A professional Web Design company has tens of thousands of dollars invested in hardware and software, and has already done hundreds of Web Sites. They can have a polished site up in a few weeks, generating sales and income for you, while you concentrate on what you do best. They will be keeping up with the latest developments, making sure your page stays up to date.

You need to ask yourself "what kind of image do I want my business to project to the world?" Do you want to present a polished, professional image, or an amateurish image? Did you paint your business sign yourself or did you hire a professional? Do you really have the time to do a good job? Do you have training as an artist and marketing experience on the Web? If you are really determined to do it yourself, we recommend you try doing a "personal" page for yourself first - experiment by putting up pictures of your kids, or your stamp collection - and see how much work is involved.

They may not have access to the Yellow Pages for your area; maybe they're tourists planning a trip, maybe they live 50 miles away and don't have your local book. They prefer the speed and convenience of computerized searching, and they prefer the in-depth information available on the Web.