Beginners Guide for Business and Financial

Posts Tagged ‘Internet marketing’

What if, What if, What if. This question comes at us every day. What if I said this, What if I did that or what if I didn’t. It comes down to decisions. We all have decisions to make every day of our lives. We all make good and bad decisions. That’s life. When you look back on your life you can think of some really great decisions that you made, decisions that have altered the course of your life. You can also remember some really bad ones that have affected you in a negative way.

Life is never static, it’s always changing and opportunities come and go. Doors open and we have to decide whether to step through and seize the opportunity or not. When you are standing in front of that open door of opportunity the question arises “What if?” do I or don’t I. We need to make a decision. How do we make decisions? This depends on our background, education, life experiences and sometimes advice from others.

We don’t know each other, but I would like to give you some advice. Suppose I said that I knew something that could change your life forever for the better. Would you be interested? Suppose I said I knew someone that was showing other people how to acquire something like real estate for free. Suppose you could also learn how to build on your “land” something like a five star hotel. You would also learn how to market your “hotel” and collect rent from guests that pay to stay. Would you be interested?

What am I talking about? It’s called virtual real estate. Your own space on the World Wide Web or Internet if you prefer. If you own a space there it can turn out to be very valuable property.

The most expensive house in the world is a 12 bedroom mansion in London England for which an Indian steel tycoon paid $128 million.

The most valuable web page in history, to date, will probably be thesixmilliondollarpage by Alejandro Saavedra and Robert Kanaat. Now here’s the difference. The tycoon paid $128 million for the house. How much did these two guys pay for the page. Next to nothing. Maybe a couple hundred bucks at the most depending on how they went about it.

I am going to open a door for you that could literally change your life. The only cost is your time and effort. Now you must decide! Ask yourself the following question:-

“What if” I click on this link:

It could make all the difference.

I was referred to a prospective client recently that had their website redesigned. They paid $60,000 for a site that really does nothing for them. It is a simple brochure site that provides visitors nothing and it certainly does nothing to convert traffic into sales. Since all their budget went to design, they have no money left over to properly market the site. Mistake #1, don’t pay $60,000 for a branding exercise.

A corporate website is about supporting the business. The beauty of the Internet is there is no guessing. You can measure pretty much anything. What are you trying to accomplish? Increase traffic? Generate leads? Increase sales? If it is yes to one of these questions, then a $60,000 investment should get you another $600,00 to your bottom-line? Can a brochure site deliver a 80-95% ROI?

Web design is a commodity today. The cost of design should represent about 25% of your total spend. Design costs are competitive today, so spending more than you have to should be the last thing you do. There are excellent open source Content Management Systems (CMS) that give you the power to manage your own content. The cost of the software is $0 to you. We recommend using either Plone or Joomla. Both of these platforms provide you with Web 2.0 compliant back-end at low cost for setup and maintenance.

The value in web design is working with companies that can properly market what you do. To properly market the site, you should be spending 10-12x what you should spend in design. So, it is possible to get a Web 2.0 website at an affordable cost. If you are a small company that is spending $4,000-$8,000 on a basic website, you should plan over 12 months to spend an additional $30,000-$80,000 on marketing. The dollars spent on marketing brings the traffic to the site. Simple rule, more traffic through the front door means more business.

Unlike other advertising, you can control your spend and measure your ROI pretty quickly. You can turn your marketing dollars on and off depending on the performance, it is all measurable.

DeFabis Photography is an example of a client that went through the redesign process. We built a Search Engine Friendly website that allows him to manage content on the site. Prior to working with us, his website was not listed in the top 100 on Google for the popular keywords. Since working with us, his visitors and page views have increased. But most important, he has doubled his bookings from this time last year. And, he did not spend $60,000 on his web design.

If you need help in evaluating a prospective vendor, here are some question that may help you understand their knowledge:

1. How do capture visitor traffic off the Internet? Can you track their movement through my site? If so, how?
2. How do manage pay per click advertising dollars to ensure I am maximizing my spend and not wasting money?
3. How do you measure whether my site is friendly to my users?
4. How many page views would you estimate my site would get to determine the right level of hosting?
5. What things will you need to change on my website? What things can I change on my own?
6. If I want to change the look, does it require changes to the backend scripting on the site?
7. What will it take to add a new page to match an ad we are running to the new site? For instance, I want to advertise a special and build a page specific for it, what will it take for us to do this?
8. What do you anticipate the average cost per lead for the website to be?
9. Who owns the source code to the site?

So, think about your objectives. Think about what you want to accomplish and spend your money according to the results you want to achieve. A pretty website just does not generate the type of results you should and can get using the Internet. Don’t get mugged for $60,000. It’s bad for your business.