EI          

Web Plan

By The Nutfarm

            The success of any commercial web site, large or small, depends on many different parts of a web site.  Many web design companies will tout their ability to make you a flashy, colorful, eye-pleasing site.  While this is an important aspect of a web presence, it isn’t the ONLY important thing.  Nor is a great web Host the most important.  It IS important, but not necessarily the MOST important. Designing a web presence is much like starting a new business.  Sometimes the new web site IS the new business.  And just like the new business, a new web site must have a plan.  A well thought out plan. 

            The plan must be made before any designs, domain names, keywords, etc. are decided on.  You don’t necessarily have to know all the answers to planning a website unless you plan to do all the designing yourself, but even if you pay us or someone else to do your design planning for you, you should understand what is involved.  Here are some considerations that must be contemplated to create a successful web site.

• Products or Services
• Keywords
• Domain Name
• Payments Accepted
• ISP
• Web Host
• Design
• Site Submission
• Ad Campaigns
• Follow Through!

Products or Services

            What product or service you are going to sell on the web is the most important decision to be made when considering a web site.  This is, after all, the reason you want a web site in the first place.  Right?  Maybe you all ready have a product or a service and want to add online transaction to you already successful business.  If so, then this decision is already made.  If not, don’t worry, there are literally thousands of products you can market on the Internet.  Products that people will want.  All of the products sold at THE NUTFARM can be purchased for resale.  Whether you already have your own products/services, sell products purchased here at THE NUTFARM, or search out the World Wide Web for your perfect product to sell, this is the key starting point to designing a web site.

Keywords

            How do you find what you want on the Internet?  Like most people, you probably use a search engine.  You enter some words that pertain to the subject you want to find.  Right?  These are called keywords!  Keywords are not only the name of your product or service, but must be words or phrases the people will use when conducting a search.  Say for instance your product is “remote control airplanes”.  Your first three keywords are: “remote”, “control”, and “airplane”.  But not everyone will search by your words.  You have to think like a potential customer.  How about “toys,” or “plane,” or “rc,” or “r/c,” or “flying,” or “hobby”.  Then you might want some variations of these basic words such as “airplanes,” “toys,” “hobbies,” “fly,” “remotely,” “controlled,” “planes.”  As you can see, your keywords should be any and all words that pertain to your products or service that someone might use to search.

Domain Name

            The first thing a web hosting company will ask you, is what do you want your domain name to be, as in “www.yourdomainname.com.”  There are several domains you can use, “.COM,” “.NET,” “.ORG,” and there are new domains being introduced such as “.BIZ,” and “.TV.”  If you just have to have a name you are set on, you can search these domains to find out where it is available.  For instance, if “www.bobshobbies.com”  is already taken, maybe you can use “www.bobshobbies.net.”  One thing you should keep in mind, “.COM” is the most used and easiest to remember.  Even you browser will automatically add the “.COM” for you when you type a name in the address window.  So you are advised to use a “.COM” domain if possible. 

            Now, picking the name.  It should be catchy, easy to remember and pertain to your product.  Say your business name is “Bobs Hobbies.”  Your main product is “remote control airplanes.”  You could use a domain name “www.bobshobbies.com.”   But think, would a customer really remember the name Bobs Hobbies, or even use it in a search?  Wouldn’t it be better to use “www.remotecontrolairplanes.com” or “www.rcplanes.com”   or even “www.remotetoys.com.”  You can still have your business name plastered all over your web site, but your domain name should reflect what people are going to search for.  Using descriptive names for your domain name also helps in web searches because your keywords are also in your name.

Payments

            When you get this website going, then what?  Hopefully you are going to attract customers that want to pay you money for your product.  How will they do this?   The cheapest and easiest way for you would be to have an order form that the customer can print out and mail to you with their check.  Although this kind of order form should be an option for those customers that are afraid of online transactions or that don’t have a credit card, it is a poor way to do business online.  When a web surfer comes to your site, looks at your products and gets an urge to buy, he comes to your order form, maybe even prints it out, and there it sits, on his desk, while he goes on his web surfing way to other sites.  By the time he gets around to filling it out, writing a check and mailing it, he may have already bought it at another site, or maybe he has changed his mind about purchasing it at all.  Or maybe the order form just gets buried under all the other papers on his desk.  YOU JUST LOST A CUSTOMER!  You must be able to accept credit cards if you’re going to be selling online.

            The best situation is that you have a merchant account and your own shopping cart system and database to take care of your online orders and payments.  This is the best if you have a merchant account and already have customers making purchases with credit cards in you brick and mortar store.  But, if you are just starting out and don’t have a store except for your web site and aren’t ready to spend the money or go through the trouble of setting up a merchant account with a bank, there is another option.  It’s called PayPal.  You can set up a PayPal account with just your credit card and a bank account, instantly, with no setup fees or hassles.  All you need is accredit card, a checking account, and an email address.  They take your orders for you and send an email to you.  Then they send you an email when the payment clears.  You can receive payments and make payments to anyone that has an email address and a credit card.  There are other companies that will set up similar accounts.  PayPal is just the one we use.  Regardless of how you do it, to be successful on the net, you must be able to accept credit cards!

ISP

            We won’t spend much time on this subject because more than likely you already have an ISP (Internet Service Provider).  If by chance you don’t have one, our suggestion is to look in the yellow pages, talk to friends or coworkers and find the most economical one that is reliable and has unlimited connect time with a local phone number.  If you aren’t sure or if you can’t find one, let us know and we will help you.

Web Hosting

            Stop Looking! We have it here! We’re the best!

Nothing like tooting our own horn, right?  Seriously, you want to find web hosting that is economical, but one that has all the services you will need as your site grows over time.  You want to have access to a secure server for credit card transactions, plenty of web storage space.  You may not need that much at first, but you don’t want to run out in the future.  You want to have a lot of bandwidth.  You want plenty of email accounts.  You don’t want to be stuck with 1 or 2 accounts.  You may need several to manage email for you site, such as, “Sales,” “Marketing,” “Customer service,” “Shipping,” or “Orders.”  You want a service that is connected to a backbone for net wide connections.  You want a service that has very little downtime.  Basically, you want the most services for the best price.  Check out our hosting packages you won’t be disappointed.

Web Design

            There are a multitude of avenues that can be explored with respect to web design.  You can design and manage your own pages if you have the desire and time to learn basic HTML.  With the variety of html text editors on the market you can have a simple website designed in little time, with little knowledge.  Of course, setting up an outstanding web presence takes time, knowledge and experience, all of which we here at The Nutfarm strive to supply all of our clients.  We have several design packages available, but we are also willing to work with clients that would like to try their own hand at web design.  After all it is YOUR web site!  Go out and surf the web and get some ideas!

Site Submission and Promotion

            This will be one of the most important parts of getting customers to your site.  We, as web hosts will do some site submission for you as part of our service, as will, most other hosting companies.  But after that it’s up to you.  This is an on going task that you can’t over look.  Most people on the Internet find web pages using search engines.  If your page does not come up in the first few pages of a search, you will not be found.  Go ahead and try searching a subject on yahoo!  See how many pages of search results YOU are willing to read through.  That’s why your keywords are so important.  Also, your content is very important here.  If you keyword is “toys” but nowhere on your sight do you mention “toys”, the search engine will rank you very, very low on the list.  On the other hand, if you mention "toys" several times on several of your web pages, the search engine will rank you higher.

            Your web site must be submitted to all the major search engines often.  There are many new web sites going online everyday.  You want your site ranked as high as possible.  Site submission should be done once a month.  More often at first until you get a good listing.  There are several site submission companies that will do this for you, for a fee.  Whether you do it or someone else does it, it most be done, and done regularly.  If you have us host and/or design your site we will help you get started with this.

Ad Campaigns

            Like site submissions, ad campaigns are used to get more exposure to your web site.  After all, the more visitors you have, the more sales you will make.  One form of advertising is Banner Ads.  You see them on other websites.  They are spread across the top or bottom of their page.  These Banners can be paid for just like any newspaper ad or they can be exchanges, in which you exchange your banner ad on someone else’s web site for putting their ad on yours.  Free For All pages (FFA) are also an inexpensive way of getting your site linked.  These links are also important to the search engines.  Besides keywords and content, many search engines consider how many links there are to your site from other web sites when ranking your submission.  Besides helping with search engine ranking, someone might even click on your link and visit your site.

            Another type of ad is an email list.  Sssshhh!  Not too loud!  People get very upset over “JUNK” email advertising.  But just like junk mail in your post office box and all those irritating telephone marketers, this can be a very rewarding way to get people to visit your site, if done properly.  We are not advocating, “SPAM.”  But many companies offer sending out ad letters for you at very reasonable rates.  Now, these companies are supposed to send ads only to email addresses that have put their names an email lists willingly.  Some companies are unscrupulous and some email addresses get on lists accidentally.  Some people sign their name on to a list and then they forget that they did it and can’t figure out how they keep getting email ads.   This type of ad will always get you a certain amount of complaints, but if done correctly, and ethically, they will be kept to a minimum.  What ever your view on email ads, it is a good way to add traffic to your website.  I would warn against buying a list and sending bulk mail out your self.  Because email advertising is receiving such negative press, most hosting services, including ours have policies against this type of activity, unless people have specifically added their name to YOUR list.  It would be best to pay someone else to send out your email ads for you from their site.  This also lets you use your time to concentrate on other forms of marketing.

            Another form of advertising is the old-fashioned way, newspaper and magazine ads.  Small ads can be somewhat inexpensive to use and they do get a lot of exposure. 

            One more note on this subject.  Put your web address on everything.  Put it in your signature on all your emails.  Put it on all correspondence.  Put it on your business card so you can hand them out.  Put it anywhere that people will see it.

Follow Through

            Marketing your business, online or off, is an ongoing process.  You can’t spend time and money on a big ad campaign and then just forget it and hope people will remember you.  There are new businesses starting up everyday, ready to take your place!  Don’t let them!  Anytime you get a customer, let them know you have received their order and are processing it immediately.  Thank them for doing business with you.  Save their email address, their mailing address, and what products they are interested in.  That way you can send them mailings every now and then to let them know of any specials or new products you may have.  Don’t give them a chance to forget you’re still in business.  Keep up on your site submissions, and banner ads.

            Marketing will be your most important tool, so get started trying different ways and refining them.  You have to keep trying and see what works and what doesn’t.

back to top