Facebook Advertising And Marketing – Is An Excellent Business Tool For Any Kind Of Online Business

If you have a good look around, you may notice quite a bit published on itt tech student portal. But what is useful for you will depend on a few variables. Your specific situation will affect what additional areas of study you have to consider. So it can occasionally feel like you are not making improvement because you may not find specifically what you need. This can prove to be a challenge for anyone if you need very unique kinds of information and help. Here are a couple of things we have discovered about this topic, and ideally it will be a few more pieces of the puzzle for you.

The direction of social networking has reached the greater part of us over recent years and there is little question that Facebook has emerged as the icon of the industry. Six million users could become one billion in the not too distant future if you take into account it was only 2004 when this all began. This sort of growth is impossible to ignore when considering the marketing potential of such a huge global audience and big businesses are already using this to market their brands. There are those that claim this is now essential for success on the internet and we will examine this in greater detail.

If you question many people about Facebook, they still consider it a location to catch up with friends and look at what they have been up to in their everyday lives. The social side, nevertheless, is where marketing opportunities can be found since people will often give negative or positive reviews of being a consumer themselves. The sheer period of time that people spend on the network is an crucial element to this and if your marketing message becomes part of the dialogue, you have a potentially powerful business tool.

A recent pattern in advertising in the media is the method that not only is a website address displayed but also a Facebook address for the organization. In reality, this is often now given precedence and this address is actually the business page for that corporation which is different to what we currently have as a personal profile on Facebook. The fact that personal users can help market a Facebook business page is where real relationship marketing can certainly come into play. Pages for a business present a way for anyone to “like” them and in doing so their ring of friends will see that they have done this. Facebook can as a result take a business right across the world wide web and this is why social sites are looked at as so important.

A page that is created in the right way can have many other marketing features. We have covered a few basic things about itt virtual library, and they are essential to consider in your research. Of course we strongly recommend you learn more about them. However, you will find them to be of great utility in your search for information. Getting a high altitude overview will be of immense benefit to you. But we have kept the best for last, and you will understand what we mean once you have read through. For example if you are looking to build a list of subscribers it may be that another person needs to like your page to have a chance to access a free report. Therefore, as well as accumulating email addresses, the page is being liked on a regular basis. This marketing and advertising approach can definitely speed up your successes on the internet.

Paying out for traffic is also an alternative with Facebook as opposed to the free techniques generated through business pages. Google ads have become expensive and so the Facebook alternative has become more appealing especially in the way their adverts can be set up. The need to keep an eye on the performance of your adverts in terms of money spent and the returns made, is something you would need to do.

Facebook indicates no sign of slowing up and if you are serious about profiting online, then using its marketing power is something you should make the most of now.

The details in this article really only presents a small fraction of all there is to know about itt tech student portal. As usual, you can increase your efforts when your knowledge is more comprehensive and deeper. In a moment, we will talk about this deeper kind of knowledge that we feel greatly develops upon the above. You will be able to judge your particular needs as you assess this deeper treatment on this subject.

Weddings

How To Effectively Search In Facebook

There are several on-line communities and several online networks on the internet. Occasionally, these networks and communities also have smaller communities as well as networks within them. And all these are reliant on what the people concerned have in common, like the same taste for clothes, for example. In case you wish to become a member and take part in the talks and activities of such networks and communities, then there are ways you could do so. Also, you can start seeking individuals. One such way is doing a Facebook search

The most well-known social networking community is Facebook. In the confines of Facebook, you would be able to search for that certain group or individual you want to be a part of. To find people on Facebook, the very first thing you ought to do is to create an account on the site. Your Facebook search for individuals could start once you have a registered account.

Facebook has many features that can help you in your search for groups, networks, and even people. One feature you can use is the “advanced search” option. When you utilize this searching option, you can search for anyone, anywhere, and at any time. You can do a Facebook search for people you know by location, profession, and school among others. This is just one way for you to search for somebody on Facebook.

If you want to search for something else, like a group you have something in common with, then all you have to do is to type the group’s name in, press the enter key and your search will be returning each and every result which has something to do with the group you searched. If you’re not sure of the group’s name then just type a portion of it and Facebook will still be able to look it up for you.

Apart from the advanced search option that Facebook has, there’s another search option which you can use if you wish to look for networks. Type “facebook.network/network.php” in the browser bar or URL and here, you can search for that network you are searching for. Also, you can key in the network’s full or partial name then press the enter key after which, the search is going to do what it does best.

KuleSearch, a social media keyword tool and search platform, developed by Phil Basten and Jane Mark, permits users to locate what they are searching for at Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Sokule, Bing, Google, KuleSearch, all from one convenient location. Visit http://www.kulesearch.com to findout more.

Facebook Groups and Facebook Pages

Facebook began out as a network to allow friends and acquaintances to keep in touch. But lots of users own businesses and want the opportunity to advertise their services to other members. Facebook Groups and Facebook Pages are two of the methods employed to call attention to a business, service, cause or organization.

What is a Facebook Page?

A “Facebook Page” can also be called a “Fan Page” or “Business Page”. A Facebook Page allows the owner to concentrate on a particular subject or cause. These are typically used to advertise some product, organization, or celebrity.

Both of these things (pages and groups) can form part of a marketing campaign, but the distinctions between the two can be hard to understand. It doesn’t help that Facebook has made regular changes to the way Pages work.

For more online marketing advice for local business visit the Local Business Marketing Blog. Expert courses available in SEO, Link Building, Pay Per Click Advertising, Twitter and more.

Anyone with a personal Facebook profile can make a Page. A Page shares some similarities with regular individual Facebook profiles. A Page can have “friends” – previously referred to as “fans”. It also has a wall which friends (fans) can write on. An important difference between a regular profile and a Page is that a profile is limited to 5000 friends, while a Page has no such limitation.

It is also fairly important that “friends” don’t have to be individually approved or accepted by the admin of the Page. They are more like “followers” in the Twitter sense. That makes it quite a bit easier to get friends for your Page.

The Page owner can enter updates which then show on the page as well as on each friend’s wall if they have set it to allow that. This is an easy and effective way for the Page owner to communicate to all friends at once.

>>> What is a Group?

A Facebook Group is something like a club in the offline world. A Group can be open to anyone to join, or its membership can be tightly controlled by the administrator.

The Group’s content is also directly associated with the Group administrator. In a way the Group is an extension of the administrator. Group admins can also send messages to group members (maximum 5000) which then show up in their inboxes. This is not the case with Pages.

>>> Differences and Uses

Groups are ideal when interaction between group members is important. The Group interface is also not as versatile as that in Pages. For instance, applications can be added to Pages, but not to Groups.

Groups are usually ideal for group causes – For example, “Save The Waterloo Moraine”. Pages, on the other hand are better for building brand recognition, promoting your business or band, or interacting with your fans.

You will notice that when setting up a Page you will be asked whether it is for a

- Local Business

- Brand, product, or organization

- Artist, band, or public figure

This is an acknowledgment by Facebook that Pages are especially appropriate for local business owners.

For more details on promoting your local business online see the Local Business Marketing Blog.

How To Find Social Networking Websites

Each day, in the US, millions of Americans communicate with one another online .  As well as conversing with other USA citizens, many are talking with those on the other side of the world.  This communication is due, principally in part, to online social networking web sites.  If you are interested in joining the growing number of Internet users who use social networking internet sites, you will have to find a network to join. 

When it comes to finding social networking websites, you’ve a number of different options.  Perhaps, the easiest way to find a social networking website is by performing the standard web search.  You may need to search with the words social networking or social networking websites.  Whichever search phrase you select, there is a good chance that you’re going to be presented with an extensive list of web sites. 

You may find and familiarize yourself with social networking websites by speaking to those that you know.  The web, as well as social networks, has speedily increased in popularity.  That recognition suggests that there is a good probability that one of your relatives, friends, coworkers, or neighbours has exploited a explicit social networking site during the past.  In fact, many may have even used more than one.  If you know someone who has, you’ll want to ask them their recommendations.  You’ll find that most social networking websites come highly rated, but there are some out there that might not even be worth spending the time. 

As well as talking with those that you really know, you may seek suggestions from those that you do not personally know.  You can do this online .  Online, you should be capable of finding a number of websites that debate social networking websites.  Many of these websites have reviewed a collection of social network websites.  In addition to reviews and other articles, you also should be able to talk with other net users on online bulletin boards.  Like chatting to one of your buddies, many Internet users would be more than ready to let you know what social networking websites are worth using the time and which are not. 

even though it is good to receive suggestions from those that you know or other web users, you are advised to make your own decision.  Whether or not a social networking web site comes strongly recommended, you are still encouraged to look at it first.  A sizeable number of social networking websites are free to use ; there are no risks associated with giving the site a try.  Despite the fact that most online networking websites are free to use, there are a few that you have to pay for.  A sizeable number of these internet sites offer free trials.  Even if the test period is only for a few days, you must simply be in a position to get a feel of the site’s environment and identify whether it is good for you. 

In your hunt for a social networking site, whether you perform your own web search or rely on recommendations from others, you should be able to find a number of popular internet sites.  Those websites may include, but shouldn’t be restricted to, Yahoo!  360, MySpace, Classmates, and Orkut.  The excellent news about this is that if you aren’t satisfied with the social networking web site you joined, you don’t have to worry ; there are numerous more available for you to make a choice from.

Related Blogs

• American Idol Season 9 Eliminated PredictionTags: <a href="http …
• Khmer Blogs Blog <a Href="Http://Www.Adsonlineblog.Info …
• Download Internet Explorer 9 Preview
• Let The Internet Recommend Who's In And Out Of Your League …
• Internet Explorer 9 at MIX10 – Windows Experience Blog – The …
• Spotify Consumes More Internet Capacity Than All Of Sweden
• Carl's Electronics Oakland » Blog Archive » Xbox Thumbstick …
• Web Site Programming Services Outsourcing to India | Autopilot Mastery
• Mobile social networking in London
• Social Networking: 5 Ways to Grow Your Social Network – Online …
• GenevaLunch » Blog Archive » Social networking outpaces …
• Facebook Surpasses Google As Number One U.S. Site
• Facebook Surpassed Google as the Number One WebSite for this …
• eBanking Victim? Take a Number. — Krebs on Security
• The Number « Drama For Mama
• Report: Facebook is Now the Number One Most Visited Web Site in …
• Dress by Number: Jessica Simpson's Lace Dress and Nude Pumps – The …
• Who's Number One? Elliott Starts vs. Toronto | The Hockey Writers
• Record Number of Candidates In Nevada – Real Clear Politics – TIME.com
• Nexus One's slow sales blamed on online-only strategy | VentureBeat

So You Want to Start a DVD Replication Service, Huh?

Why would you want to do business in DVD replication? After all, everything is moving to iPods and smartphones, right? Think again. Most music is still listened to on a good old CD. So if you thought CDs were on their way out, do not count on it just yet. But are not

DVD duplication business just for folks who need thousands of discs…I ca not handle that many CDs! Not necessarily. In fact, the big companies often focus on mass production often at a fairly high cost. That leaves the door open for you. I mean sure, you may not make a million dollars a year, but you can bring home a respectable profit if you work at it.

Software vendors, music artists, and companies who need to secure their data all need a place to turn to for CD duplication needs. It is time for you to be that person. You may already have most of the equipment necessary for production. First, you will need CDs (no kidding, heh). Next, you will need a computer (either a desktop or a laptop should do the trick) that comes with CD burning capabilites. Third, you will need the software to actually burn CDs. Finally, you will need the most important thing…the customers, silly! Even if you do not have the equipment, it iss not hard to obtain. Most computer companies and general merchandise outlets (Sears, Wal Mart, etc.) offer computers and software of all sorts. And the cost is not out of this world, either.

Now, back to those customers…who should you go after. Find out what local bands are in the area. Where? Check MySpace or Facebook. If you are attending school or college (or have a friend or relative who is), ask around there. Bands are looking for someone quick and easy to get their music mass produced. They maybe can not afford a professional company, but you might be just what they are looking for. Another target is a small business. You would think someone in the company would handle it, would not you? But you would be surprised at the number of companies who do not have the time or computer knowledge to handle their own data backup. Usually when that is the case, they simply decide to do without the backup. As we both know, that is a bad idea!

My suggestion is to go online and see what the big wigs charge, then use that as a template to figuring out how much you will want to charge. If you set a sensible price, nice turnaround time, and superior disks, you will not only have customers coming back, word of mouth will really get you jump started. So if you are interested in starting your own

CD replication , now is the time!

How To Avoid A Nervous Breakdown Updating Your Website!

Introduction

When I decided I needed a website for my business I had no idea of the planning involved. Like most people, I thought web design meant deciding on the graphics and the look of the pages and then by some magic it would all happen.
I have a friend who is in the business of web design and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) so I approached him for a quote. As a complete novice who is computer literate up to a point, I was amazed at the depth of initial questioning required to find out exactly what my requirements were.

I had no idea about the various aspects and the structure of the site and I found it mind blowing when I learned about the amount of work involved. So I thought other people would be interested to know more about this complicated process and I have asked my friend to supply the technical information for this article.

Stages in the Process

Target Audience

Before building a website there are important questions to consider. I was asked who would be my potential audience. Who are my customers likely to be? Would they be children, businesses, home owners, sales people, parents or teenagers and so on?

The objective of the website

Then I was asked, what was the objective of my website? Did I want to sell products on line or use it to market my business and get more leads for possible customers? Maybe I would want to use it as an online brochure to showcase products. Another possibility was to use the website to foster a community so that I was in contact with other like-minded people, with chat rooms, online discussion and being supported by advertising on the site.

I hadn’t quite realised the scope of a website but as I was asked these questions it became clear that a lot of careful planning went into the preparation before building a website.

How to be Found on the Web

One of the first questions I was asked was, ‘Do you want it to be found by Google the main search engine?’ If I did then there was a whole process of establishing Keywords. So finding the best keywords are vital if you want to be found in Google. Generally most users only look at the top ten results so you will also want to promote your website to get on this page for your chosen keywords. By using a keyword research tool you can find the single most popular keyword for your industry.

Your Domain Name

Choosing a domain name is often quite a challenge because every name you initially come up with will almost certainly have been taken. Domain names ending in .com are by far the most popular and internationally recognised; the snag is that it’s very popularity means that the majority of the shorter names have already been registered.
So looking at names with endings such as .net; .co.uk or .info may be able to provide you with the domain name you are after.

When a building is scheduled for demolition part of the process is to undertake asbestos survey research which our company does, we were able to register a domain name with the word demolition in it back in 2004 because we were given good advice and this ties in quite well with the service meaning we get quite a few enquiries about it via our website, apparently these days there are less choices for really good domain names but given enough time and creativity you can usually find something suitable.

When choosing your domain name it is very important to include one or more of your keywords if possible as this can apparently help with search engine rankings. So although the name of your business is the obvious choice for a domain name, it is not necessarily the only option.

Creating a Site Map

As with any project you must have a plan, the better the plan the better the project turns out. A site map for a web site is part of the plan for the site. The importance of creating a site map is to get it clear in your mind of all the pages you will have on your website so you can prepare the content for each page and begin to design the flow through the website, such as when a user adds a product to their basket, then enters their delivery and billing address and makes the credit card payment in the correct order.

The aim is to make the site as simple to use as possible so that there are no barriers to getting into the website. For that reason often user name and passwordz are set for the customer so that they are not put off making a purchase by having to register.
For a non e-commerce site things are simpler with a contact form which allows you to receive enquiries by email without publishing your email address on the website, thus avoiding spam.Web forms can also validate the information before you receive it, so ensuring that the phone number provided does not contain words, and that the email address is in the correct format, for example. These things may sound very technical to us lay-folk but I assure you everything has to be decided in advance before starting on the construction of the site.

Copy

The next stage is preparing the content. This is not the design of your website – just the words and visuals you want to have one each of the pages.Having gathered all the above information you will need to decide what imagery you want to use within the website content. As we all know, a picture speaks a thousand words and remains in people’s memory far longer than just words.For each image you could also have a caption, as the caption of an image is the next ‘most read’ words on the page after the page title. Images and their captions need to be clickable. When you click on a picture it should take you to the next stage of the process such as the sale page or placing an enquiry if your website is for lead generation.

Navigation

Another important consideration when building a website is how you want your navigation to work. You can have links within the content of your website, in the text, so there are not just links from the menu. You will need to decide whether the links will open into a new window, retaining your original page open. Next time you go online, you will realise how much thought has gone into the way in which a website works.

Website Design

Finally we come to the design of your website. Obviously everyone is different and what we like differs from person to person, web design is no exception to this rule and so when it comes to designing websites for SEO it is hard to please all the people all the time, unless you are an exceptionally talented designer.

What one person might like, another person might not like. If you are setting up a website for yourself alone then you will probably have some idea of what you want to see on the site. But if, as so often happens, the website is for a large corporation there will be inputs from many people or departments and you can be sure that they will never all agree!

There are a number of ways to approach website design but ultimately you need to create a design brief for the designer(s) to work from. Look at other websites and your competitor’s websites to find out what you like or dislike. The design brief should give reference to the logo, any existing brand guidelines or schemes and fonts and colour schemes, and should also detail which pages of the website that the designer is being tasked with creating visuals for.

The very best results will be achieved by using a graphic designer, and beware – not all graphic designers are the same. A graphic designer who designs specifically for print is working in a different discipline than a graphic designer who designs for screen and specifically the web. So choose your designer carefully, look at other work that person has done and determine whether or not you like their style.

If you are working in the big time and budget allows, use multiple graphic designers who have all been given the same design brief and request three concept designs from each designer. If the client themselves also do a graphic design, even if it’s a back of the envelope scribble, you will then have 10 concept designs. The next step is to get them all together and select the preferred elements from each design. Then give the work to the preferred graphic designer to work up as the final artwork.

The artwork should be finalised and agreed on by everybody before construction of the site begins.

Production

Finally the preparation has been done and the site is ready to be constructed. Now for the more technical stuff! You will need to have decided which programming language to use to build the website. There are two main types for developing a website, one is Unix based, and the other is Windows based. Each one has pros and cons. If you are starting from scratch then it probably won’t matter, so you can go with the preference of your professional doing the work. My website is built on the Unix platform (apparently!) which is the same as many of the more well known websites such as Ebay, Facebook, Google and Amazon. Also your website hosting must be compatible with the development language with which your website is built.

Accessibility and Compliance

The website has to meet the current standards for website coding and doing so insures that disabled users, such as the visually impaired, can still access the entire website if they are using a screen reader.

Website Development

The best way to develop a website is on the web Server where the site is going to live. This way, those involved in reviewing the work can see work in progress and provide comments throughout the development.

Unforeseen items

There are always some things that arise in any project which you suddenly realise you have forgotten, so no matter how well the web developer prepares and asks the right questions, there will always be a last minute change or addition. The main aim is to minimise the number of glitches that might arise because they aren’t calculated in and they could cause extra costs and delays on the date of the web site going live.

Going live

The moment of excitement comes when your site finally is published to the internet and you see the results of all the thought that has gone into the whole process. After all the hard work it was great to get our website launched. Who would have thought so much work would have to go into a little old demolition project website.

Reporting and Monitoring

Once your website is up and running, you will want to know how many people visit your website and from that number how many actually buy the products or place an enquiry. From these statistics you can work out the ratio of hits to sales and gradually make changes to improve the ratios. There are some reliable statistics packages such as Google Analytics or Web-Stat.com which allow you to collect and review website visitor data in near real time. All you need to do this is to have a small block of code inserted into each web page on your site.

Another useful service that Web-stat.com provides is to monitor the website and warn you by email or text message if the site is offline. Google Analytics doesn’t yet provide a comparable uptime monitoring service, maybe they just decided it was too much of a headache as it is an intensive service checking a website every 5 minutes to make sure it is still responding and indeed web-stat do promote this difference as one of their unique selling points but it is pretty hard to compete with free. In fact Google Analytics is not quite free, which makes it an even better marketing decision for Google because sometimes it is harder to give things away for free than it is to sell them! Google Analytics is a free service available to Google AdWords advertisers, you don’t actually have to have any AdWords campaigns running but it will cost you a one-time activation fee of £5 (or similar in your local currency) to open your AdWords account, but once you have done that you can go on to use Google Analytics for as many websites as you like.(I am sure there probably is an upper limit to how many websites you can monitor from one account but my web design friend says he has not yet hit that limit and he’s got about 50 sites being tracked in his account!)

Marketing

Once the website is live there are lots of things you can do to market your product or service. The first step is to submit it to the search engines and at the same time write articles, and press releases. Getting links to the site from forums, blogs and other social networking spaces are other options. For more on this subject ask your designer about SEO

Conclusion

Wheww. What an amazing amount of work! I hadn’t realised when I started the process of getting a website up and running, how complicated it all is and how many factors you have to consider before even designing the website. The word web design is really a misnomer, as people often think it’s just about the graphic design on the home page, and the branding of the product. Unless you are a computer buff, most people have no idea how much goes into designing and building a website and the systems that support the work you want it to do. I hope that this article will give readers an understanding and insight into the whole process of website development from start to finish.

Twitter Worm

Blink182Tweets.com is a safe way to keep up to date with band Twitter updates without leaving yourself open to malicious attacks that are currently going around Twitter.com

A “worm” spreading spam messages promoting another website was first introduced into Twitter in the early hours of Saturday.

Within hours it had spread across the network, infecting scores of accounts and forcing administrators to delete 10,000 messages to stop it infiltrating further.

Users spread the virus simply by clicking onto an infected page.

They then began unwittingly sending out messages – or “tweets” – to other users promoting the site StalkDaily.com.

Despite efforts to curb the virus, Twitter was hit by a second, more intense, bout of attacks later in the day and another early on Sunday.

Twitter then announced early on Monday that it was facing a new “manifestation” of the worm. Messages advised users not to click on links until the problem was rectified.

The website emphasised that no sensitive information such as passwords or telephone numbers had been compromised and suggested it would take legal action against the perpetrators.

A worm is a computer programme which spreads through a network by making copies of itself when users inadvertently click on something.

According to the Twitter news service BNO, a teenager from New York claimed responsibility for the worm “Mikeyy” saying that he had been bored.

He said that he had been trying to highlight ways in which the phenomenally popular site could be vulnerable to hackers.

“I did this out of boredom to be honest,” he was quoted as saying.

“I usually like to find vulnerabilities within websites and try not to cause too much damage.”

Twitter – a so-called “micro-blogging” service – has seen phenomenal growth in the last year rivalling Facebook and MySpace as one of the most popular social networking sites among British users.

It played a key role in the US election with candidates including Barack Obama posting messages on the site and British celebrities such as Stephen Fry have also become high profile users.

Users post short tweets either directly onto the site or by mobile phone.

These are then forwarded on to their network of friends and contacts.

My New Website

Introduction

When I decided I needed a website for my business I had no idea of the planning involved. Like most people, I thought web design meant deciding on the graphics and the look of the pages and then by some magic it would all happen.I simply hadn’t had any exposure to the planning and build process which I now know to be extensive!

I have a friend who is in the business of SEO web design and web content management systems so I approached him for a quote. As a complete novice who is computer literate up to a point, I was amazed at the depth of initial questioning required to find out exactly what I wanted to achieve.

I had no idea about the various elements and the structure of the site and I found it mind blowing when I learnt about the amount of work involved. So I thought other people would be interested to know more about this complicated process particularly if you consider yourself a non computer person and have to get a website built. I have asked my SEO friend to supply the technical information for this article.

Stages in the Process 

Target Audience

Before building a website there are important questions to consider. I was asked who would be my target audience. Who are my customers likely to be? Would they be children, businesses, home owners, sales people, parents or teenagers and so on? If you are not clear on your target audience then you are not going to be able to set the tone of the site correctly so this is a very important consideration.

The Objective of the Website

Then I was asked, what was the purpose of my website? Did I want to sell products on line or use it to market my business and get more leads for potential customers? Maybe I would want to use the site as an online brochure to showcase my services. Another possibility was to use the website to foster a community so that I was in contact with other like-minded people, with chat rooms, online discussions and being supported by advertising on the site.

I hadn’t quite realised the scope of a website but as I was asked these questions it became clear that a lot of careful planning went into the preparation before building a website. I realised it is like any project, the majority of the work is in the preparation, a bit like decorating really!

Creating a Site Map

The importance of creating a site map is to get it clear in your mind of all the pages you will have on your website so you can prepare the content for each page and begin to design the flow through the website, such as when a user adds a product to their basket, then enters their delivery and billing address and makes the credit card payment in the correct order.

My friend who specialises in SEO UK services, says that all the best websites they have built have been where the client has planned the site out with a sitemap even before they have contacted him.

The aim is to make the site as simple to use as possible so that there are no barriers to getting into the website or making a purchase. For that reason often user name and passwords are set for the customer so that they are not put off making a purchase by having to register. How many times have you gone to buy something online and then been faced with having to choose a user name and password to create an account, and fill out all of your address details and decided not to bother in the end? Well they just lost a sale!

For a non e-commerce site things are simpler with a contact form which allows you to receive enquiries by email without publishing your email address on the website, thus avoiding spam.Web forms can also validate the information before you receive it, so ensuring that the phone number provided does not contain words, and that the email address is in the correct format, for example. These things may sound very technical to us lay-folk but I assure you everything has to be decided on before starting on the construction of the site.

Your Domain Name

Choosing a domain name is often quite a challenge because every name you initially come up with will almost certainly have been taken. Domain names ending in .com are by far the most popular and internationally recognised; the snag is that it’s very popularity means that the majority of the shorter names have probably already been registered. However, you can usually think of some domain name that is available, which is much less time consuming than trying to purchase a previously registered domain name from its existing owner, most of the time just contacting them, and getting a reply is a challenge.

So looking at names with endings such as .net; .org .co.uk or .info may be able to provide you with the domain name you want. When choosing your domain name it is very important to include one or more of your keywords if possible as this can apparently help with search engine rankings. So although the name of your business is the obvious choice for a domain name, it is not necessarily the only option. You will no doubt have heard the Hoover/vacuum cleaner story, where Hoover is actually a brand name of a certain type of vacuum cleaner, but these days most people still say they are doing the ‘hoovering’ ! This is an important concept to bear in mind when choosing your domain name as hoovers4u.com might be a much better domain name than discountvaccuumcleaners.com, also vacuum is a tricky word to spell so think about things like that too. Also how easy is it to give out your domain name over the telephone for example? Classic examples of this are paydotcom.com and Slashdot.org confusing or what?

Copy

The next stage is preparing the copy. This is not the design of your website – just the words and visuals you want to have one each of the pages. A good idea before writing the copy is to have created your site map and decided on your SEO keywords, see below sections.

Having gathered all the above information you will need to decide what imagery you want to use within the website content. As we all know, a picture speaks a thousand words and remains in people’s memory far longer than just words. It is a popular concept that people don’t read, and is even more true on the web today, so use as many images, diagrams, cartoons and illustrations as possible.

For each image you could also have a caption, as the caption of an image is the next ‘most read’ words on the page after the page title. Images and their captions need to be clickable. When you click on a picture it should take you to the next stage of the process such as the sale page or placing an enquiry if your website is for lead generation. All images should also have alternative text or alt tags. Alt tags will display the hover text when you position your mouse over the picture, but also they are used by screen readers to assist visually impaired users know what the image is about.

Website Design

Finally we come to the design of your website.

Creative web design can be one of the most difficult stages in the site build because unlike something technical, it is not a simple case of black and white, it is determined by how the person, or people, viewing the designs feel about it.

There are a number of ways to approach website design but ultimately you need to create a design brief for the designer(s) to work from. Look at other websites and your competitor’s websites to find out what you like or dislike. The design brief should give reference to the logo, any existing brand guidelines or schemes and fonts and colour schemes, and should also detail which pages of the website that the designer is being tasked with creating visuals for. See the Sitemap section below.

The very best results will be achieved by using a graphic designer, and beware – not all graphic designers are the same. A graphic designer who designs specifically for print is working in a different discipline than a graphic designer who designs for screen and specifically the web. So choose your designer carefully, look at other work that person has done and determine whether or not you like their style. It is also worth remembering that design is a personal thing, just because you have used a company before and liked their work, do you know the same person will be doing the work if you use that company again?

If you are working in the big time and budget allows, use multiple graphic designers who have all been given the same design brief and request three concept designs from each designer. If the client themselves also do a graphic design, even if it’s a back of the envelope scribble, you will then have 10 concept designs. The next step is to get them all together and select the preferred elements from each design. Then give the work to the preferred graphic designer to work up as the final artwork. Once you have reviewed the final visuals the artwork files will then be provided to the developer, usually in layered Photoshop files.

The artwork should be finalised and agreed on by everybody before construction of the site begins. Otherwise it can lead to costly and time consuming changes and frustration for both the developer and the client.

Navigation

Another important consideration when building a website is how you want your navigation to work. You can have links within the content of your website, in the text, so there are not just links from the menu. You will need to decide whether the links will open into a new window, retaining your original page open or just change the page to the one clicked on. Next time you go online, you will realise how much thought has gone into the way in which a website works.

Production

Finally the preparation has been done and the site is ready to be built. Now for the more technical stuff! You will need to have decided which programming language to use to build the website. There are two main types for developing a website, one is Unix based, and the other is Windows based. Each one has advantages and disadvantages. If you are starting from scratch then it probably won’t matter, so you can go with the preference of your professional doing the work. My website is built on the Unix platform (apparently!) which is the same as many of the more well known websites such as Ebay, Facebook, Google and Amazon. Also your website hosting must be compatible with the development language with which your website is built in.

Work In Progress

The best way to build a website and be able to monitor work in progress is on the web server where the site is ultimately going to live. This way, those involved in reviewing the work can see work in progress and provide feedback throughout the development.

Going live

The moment of excitement comes when your site finally goes live and you see the results of all the thought that has gone into the whole process.

When the demolition company website for my firm eventually went live I was really pleased, but also relieved that it was eventually done!

As soon as the site has gone live there is no substitute for real world testing though, so ask as many of your friends and colleagues to view the website from their own offices and give you their thoughts.

Accessibility and Compliance

The website has to meet the current standards for website coding and doing so insures that disabled users, such as the visually impaired, can still access the entire website if they are using a Braille web browser. It is also a good idea to also discuss conformance moving forward, particularly if you have a web content management system, because and accessible of compliant site may become un-accessible after six months of being edited by you if you do not add or edit the website content in an accessible manner.

Unforeseen Items

There are always things that arise in any project which you suddenly realise you have forgotten, so no matter how well the website designer prepares and asks the right questions, there is bound to be a last minute change of mind or addition to the site. The main aim is to minimise the number of glitches that might arise because they aren’t calculated in at the start and they could cause extra costs and delays on the date of the website going live.As a general rule it is always a good idea to get he site live to the original plans and then look at an update after it has gone live, unless it is a very small deviation from the initial plans.

Reporting and Monitoring

Once your website is up and running, you might like to know how many people visit your website and from that number how many actually buy the products or place an enquiry. From these statistics you can work out the ratio of hits to sales and gradually make changes to improve the ratios. There are some reliable statistics packages such as Google Analytics or Web-Stat.com which allow you to collect and review website visitor data in near real time. All you need to do this is to have a small block of code inserted into each web page on your site.

Another useful service that Web-stat.com provides is to monitor the website and warn you by email or text message if the site goes down.

Marketing

Once the website is live there are lots of things you can do to market your product or service. The first step is to submit it to the search engines and at the same time write articles, and press releases. Getting links to the site from forums, blogs and other social networking spaces are other options. For more on this subject ask your designer about SEO, remember that’s search engine optimisation.

How to be Found on the Web

One of the first questions I was asked was, ‘Do you want it to be found by Google the main search engine?’ If I did then there was a whole process of establishing Keywords. So finding the best keywords are vital if you want to be found in Google. He says there are two main types of keywords. The first is the trophy, or generic, keyword for the industry which in my industry is simply ‘demolition’. The second kind of keyword is the long tail keyword. These are not searched for as frequently but if you can get a match then they are much more likely to convert into customers. A good example of this in my industry is ‘factory demolition company Derby’. So it is very important to do a lot of research on keywords to find both those that are the most popular and the most specific. Generally most users only look at the top ten results so you will want to get your website promoted so as to get on this page for your chosen keywords. By using a keyword research tool such as the keyword lookup in the Google Web Master Tools kit you can find the single most popular keyword for your industry.

Conclusion

Wheww. What an amazing amount of work! I hadn’t realised when I started the process of getting a website up and running, how complicated it all is and how many factors you have to consider before even designing the website. The word web design is really a misnomer, as people often think it’s just about the graphic design on the home page, and the branding of the product. Unless you are a computer whizz, most people have no idea how much goes into designing and building a website and the systems that support the work you want it to do. I hope that this article gives you an understanding and insight into the whole process of website development from start to finish.Next time you type in a web address or click on a link to a website, remember all the above work that has probably gone into it!