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7 Questions To Planning Your Business Website

Posted on 14. Mar, 2011 by Faye Bond in Blog, Website Design

Many small business website owners create their own website and upload it to the Internet and wait for visitors to arrive. In reality the creation and uploading of your website should be the result of your planning.  Here are…

1.    What is the purpose and goal of your website?

Before you start planning your website you need to define the purpose of your website. Your Business Plan will have defined what products and services you are selling, along with the goals of your business. This way you can easily see where your business is at now and where you see your business being in the future.

2.    Who is my target audience?

Researching your target market is often overlooked by businesses but is vitally important and should be one of the main elements of your Business Plan.  If you don’t know your target audience how will you know what type of website they respond to. For example if your target audience is the elderly, they need a larger typeface and more modern-friendly pages than if you are targeting corporate executives.

3.    How much will I depend on search engine traffic?

Search engines like lots of regular and relevant text and videos that are placed on popular sites, e.g. Youtube). By using keyword rich articles and pages you can achieve page 1 on the search engines. When you researched your target audience you would have found many keywords and keyword phrases that are being searched for. Tip: Please search for solutions to their problems and pains. Put these keyword phrases as headings in your articles.

4.    How much time do I have for updating the website?

Websites that are content related need to be added to and updated to stay fresh for search engine friendliness and to keep your customers happy. Content management systems and tools can make this process easy as your products and articles can be added to a database and with one click you upload it to the Internet.

5.    How are visitors going to contact me?

To show that you are a credible business your email addresses should be attached to your domain name, e.g. info [at] yourdomain [dot] com. The use of free email accounts does not portray professionalism and should not be used.  The physical address and phone numbers of your business should be on your website. A good rule of thumb is not to put personal information online as you will be hounded by some ruthless individuals.

A contact form where visitors can contact you is important. Research has established that if you have a contact form and your business details are on your website you are perceived to be a professional business entity.

6.    Which e-commerce payment structure works best for me?

Two e-commerce payment systems are PayPal and Worldpay. PayPal has over 230 million accounts worldwide. Signup is free and very easy. During signup you can link your bank account or credit card to your PayPal account and uses the latest anti-fraud technology.  You can easily add the standard Buy Now, Subscription and Donation buttons, or your custom made buttons, to your website. You can accept credit or debit cards and best of all you do not need a merchant account.

7.    Who will I use for a web hosting provider?

Web hosting is leasing space where your website pages and files reside so that they are accessible to people on the Internet. There are a number of web host providers. Internet marketers use and recommend Hostgator. They host millions of domain names, have excellent 24/7 customer service and are very affordable at just under $10 per month.

With careful planning and strategizing you will get your business online and achieve growth.

For further information please contact me at faye@bondglobalenterprises.com or go to www.bondglobalenterprises.com and see more ways to easily and effectively build your online business.

Faye Bond

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Tags: Business Start-Up, Planning, Website Design

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