The Easy Way To Create A Small
Business Web Site That Sells
Find Out How You Can Get Tons Of
Amazing Internet Marketing Products – For FREE!
You are not a techie? The idea of writing HTML code scares
you to death? You are wondering how you will get your own
website up and running?
Don’t worry, it’s really easy to create a small business web
site. And no, you don’t
have to be a techie. Everyone can do it, really, even my
grandma got her own website.
So, lets get started. What are the first steps?
First, you should get an idea of the basic layout for your
small business web site. You have to decide, what elements you would like to
have on your website and how you would like to arrange them.
Your site should contain at least the following elements:
A page header on top of every single page of your site.
You don’t have
to get too fancy with your header, just a
simple company logo - for
example a small logo and your
company name – with an appropriate
background color should do the job.
The site navigation: If you want to create a simple sales
site (a
minisite) you need one one navigation bar – either
horizontal or
vertical, that’s up to you.
Yet, if you are creating a content rich site (typically used
for pre-selling a
customer) with 30, 40 or even more pages,
you probably might want to
use a vertical navbar for the
main structure of your site and a horizontal
navbar with links like: “Buy Now”, “About my Company”,
“Get my Newsletter”…
The navigation of your site is a very important part. It has
to be simple,
intuitive and functional. A badly designed
navigation is one of the top
reasons, why visitors are
leaving a site – so keep it simple and don’t
confuse your
customer.
Contents area at the centre of your web pages: This is the
most
important part of your site. The web is about
information and not about
whirling gizmos. If you want a
site that sells, you have to focus on your
copywriting and
on the information you are providing.
Cool effects and
fancy graphics will not turn your visitors
into
customers, great
content will!
Most companies still don’t
get this, they are spending $$$ on great
design, but
nothing on powerful copywriting – big, big mistake.
When you create a small business web site, don't get
lost in any of
those super-cool graphical schnick-schnack. Keep it
simple and focus
on providing valuable content for your customers
- that's what they
are looking for.
Newsletter Signup Form. Not absolutely necessary at the
beginning,
but sooner or later you will need it. The
signup form should be
clearly visible on each page, for example on top of your vertical navbar,
just underneath of
your page header.
The signup form is very important in order to build a list
of prospective
customers which you’ll hopefully turn into
lifetime customers after
sending them great information
every week or every few weeks.
Newsletters are crucially important for gaining the trust of
your
customers and for building a long-term relationship
with them. I’ll give
you more information about this subject
a bit later.
Gathering Ideas
Ok, it’s time for you to go surfing – no, no, not to Hawaii,
I meant surfing the web to get some inspiration for your own
site design.
I suggest, you spend about half a day checking out all kinds
of small business web sites. Make some notes if you see something you would
like to have on your own page.
It’s also a good idea to make some screenshots (use the
print screen key – usually at the top right of your
keyboard) from sites you like and to paste them into a text
document (for example word). Later on, you can come back to
the screenshots and select the most interesting ideas for
your own sites.
One warning: You might come across all kinds of cool
graphics, stunning flash introductions and other effects.
Don’t get too impressed, most of these sites might qualify
for some “who cares” graphic awards, but they don’t get the
sale.
You want to create a small business web site that sells, so what you need is a simple and
user friendly site with a professional design that stays
consistent across all your pages.
Great, we covered all the important basics, so let’s get
started building your small business web site.
You have three possibilities to get your website:
Do all the HTML and java script coding yourself. That’s
the route you
might choose if you are an experienced
developer – nothing else to
say here.
Get a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor to
easily
create your site. That’s probably the best solution
for the majority of
people.
Get a program like Dreamweaver (powerful, but a bit pricy
and
complicated for a starter), Frontpage (cheaper and
easier to use),
NetObjects Fusion (very intuitive and easy
to use, but not very flexible if
you want to modify the
created code later one) or just do a search for
free WYSIWYG
Editor on Google or tucows.com.
These editors give you the possibility to create a simple
site fairly
quickly. You don’t have to be a techie and you
don’t have to know how
to do the HTML coding – it’s as
simple as choosing from already
available templates and dragging/dropping the the desired elements
onto your pages.
Ask someone else to create a small business web site for you:
You could post your project on
Elance or Guru.com. At these
sites,
professionals areproviding their services (website
creation,
graphic design, writing, translation…) for relatively low fees.
The process is relatively simple: First you have to place a
description of
your project, then professionals will start
bidding on your project, and
finally you select the most
compelling bid. Before accepting a bid, make
sure to check some references and previous projects done by that
person.
I highly recommend that you get at least some basic HTML
skills. Every now and then, you will want to make some small
changes on your web site, or add new pages. Knowing the
essentials of HTML will allow you to get your site
modifications implemented quickly without being dependent on
someone else.
Don’t worry, learning HTML is really easy - yes, even
my grandma became a HTML specialist, just kidding - honestly, it's really easy.
Do a search on Google
for phrases like “Beginners Guide to HTML” or “HTML
Tutorial” and you will find plenty of good information. You
could also look for HTML books at Amazon or in your local
bookshop.
Some words on graphic design:
As I already mentioned,
fancy graphics and cool animations
are not important for getting the sale. On the contrary,
they might even hurt the success of your site, because they
slow down your site and they might distract visitors from
your principal goal – getting the sale.
Basic guidelines for your design:
Choose a simple company logo. Look at the logos of
amazon.com or
ebay.com – nothing complicated or fancy, just
a simple text logo.
K.I.S.S. works, for the small guys as
well as for the big guys.
Choose colours that go well together and don’t use more
than 3 or 4
different colours on your pages.
Keep a consistent design throughout all your pages.
Your background should be white or in a very light colour,
choose only
dark colours for your text. Never use white text
on a black background
or something similar – this will scare
many of your visitors away.
To create your logos, you have three possibilities:
Get a graphic software package like Adobe Photoshop (for
professionals, pricy and difficult to learn), Ulead
PhotoImpact (cheaper
and easier to use)… do a search on google or tucows.com for free
graphic software (not as powerful, but might do the job).
Hire someone to do it for you at guru.com,
Elance or
gotlogos.com –
you should be able to get a simple logo for ~
$25
Go to Creative Connectivity (crecon.com), quickbanner.com
or a similar
site, select one of the free templates and
customize it for your own
needs.
Best of all, you can host up to 6 web sites under one account. That means, you can
operate 6 sites for the price of one – as far
as I know, no other hosting company offers this possibility.
Click here for more information about BlueHost.com
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All you really need is a clean, simple and well structured
site with a professional look and feel. Remember, it’s the
content and copy writing of your site that will
get you the
sale and not the graphics. So don’t bother too much with a
fancy design and cool effects -
focus on creating great content.
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Other pages in this section:
●
Why It Is So Important To Know Your Web Site Goal
●
Small Business Web Site Hosting - How To Select The Right Solution
●
Learn How To Choose A Domain Name That Will Make Your Online
Business More Successful
>>> Small Business Web Site Hosting - How To Select The Right Solution
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