your website and how to market it

The Internet is the biggest marketplace the world has ever seen. As a small business owner you should be asking yourself:

How can I make the Internet work for my business?

·	The Internet is a place where you can start with a small investment and challenge the big companies out there.
·	The Internet can be a profitable place for small businesses.
·	The Internet is convenient for your customers as your business can be open 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
·	The Internet will change the way we do business.
·	The Internet will create international opportunities for many small business owners.

Before you decide to venture onto the Internet it is good idea to start out with a plan. Answer the following questions:

· Why do I want to be on the worldwide web?
· How much am I prepared to spend to develop a web site?
· How am I going to market my website?

Start-up Website

·	You will need an I.S.P. (internet service provider) to host your site, ensure that you ISP is reliable and that your customers will not have problems to get onto your site 24 hours per day.
·	You will need to register a domain name with an ISP. Your domain name is your address so try and be innovative so that you have a name that is easy to remember. To check if your domain main name has been used by someone else search the following site: www.co.za
·	You need to have your website designed. There are quite a few packages out there that allow you to design your own website but it is advisable if possible to pay the experts. Ask friends for referrals. Remember you want to project the right image on the worldwide web.

Web Site Contents

·	People will visit an interesting website so ensure that contents is so good that it brings visitors back to your site and shows that you are an expert in your field.
·	Ensure that your site has interesting information to keep the visitor there for a while, especially if you would like your customers to make purchases on you site.
·	Update your site as often as possible.
·	Ensure that you include your phone, fax number and email so that it makes it easy for the customer to contact you.
·	Ensure that the site is easy to click through.
·	Don't over fill your WebPages.
·	If you are going to use graphics on your website ensure that they are simple and that they download fast.
·	Many people are using slow modems in South Africa so keep this in mind when designing you site.
·	Ask customers for advice on how to improve your website.

Your Shopping Mall

·	If you are going to make sales over the Internet.
·	Ensure that you have a good payment system in place.
·	Credit card processing requires an Internet merchant account; most banks can offer you this service.
·	Contact your local banks electronic division about this and speak to your website designer to give you advice.
·	Ensure that your ISP has the required security to do transactions on the Internet.

Marketing Your Website

·	If want people to visit your website like any business you need to market it. Develop a marketing plan specifically for your website.
·	Always put your Website address on letterhead, business cards, and in your e-mail signatures.
	Promote your website on your vehicles, adverts in whatever media you use.
·	Get involved in online discussion groups. There are many of these groups that focus on specific industries.

Search Engines

·	Get listed on as many search engines as possible especially the South African ones. www.ananzi.com, www.aardvark.co.za and www.max.co.za
·	Submit your website to international search engines also if you are targeting those markets and why not? Visit www.addengine.com
·	Add Meta tags to your website to help you move up search engines. These are words that are hidden in your site which you don't see while surfing, speak to your website designer about this.

Swapping links

·	Ask sites complementary to yours to put links on their pages and you'll do likewise. You can also do this with your customers
·	Link to a web ring, this links related sites. www.webring.org

Banner Exchanges

· You can place a 3rd party banner on your site and your banner appears on their site.
· Visit www.linkexchange.com

Affiliations

· All you have to do is put their banner up on your site.
· For every click-through that results in a sale, you earn a commission.
· Ask visitors to your site if they would like to receive email from you.
· Develop a newsletter that you can send to subscribers regularly which contains useful information.
· Include links to interesting websites that you recommend.

Tracking visitors

· Ensure that you include a counter on your website.
You can obtain software that will let you know how often your pages are visited as well as information on the users, like which country they are from. Speak to your website designer about this.