Kev Richardson's BizToolz Blog

In my last series of posts I went into a great deal of detail about search engine optimization (SEO). The response was great because the information provided was essential for your website to perform profitably, and also because I described in detail (i.e. step by step) exactly how You can optimize your website Yourself (which is information you would normally pay a lot of money for).

Recently though I have had people ask me to now provide a similar series of articles about the basics of how they can design a great website or improve their existing one.

So in the coming posts I will do exactly that. I will start with the basics of how to design a website step by step and also provide you a set of great tips, tricks, tools and insights that will assist you design a great website that works for your business.

Remember though, and I can’t emphasize this enough, when you need help discuss this with your webmaster. They are experienced with each step in the process and should be happy to discuss and assist you with all of them (if not then get rid of them and find someone who is)

OK so here goes …..

Step 1 - Understanding the purpose of your website.

Everything that goes into your web site must have a purpose. Every single element and decision must help your prospects and customers achieve their goals and support the site's goals.

The purpose might be things like capturing leads and prospects, selling products/services or maybe simply to provide information to prospects/customers such as how to contact you, prices, description of services, etc

If you don't know what your goal is in very clear terms, how do you know when you've achieved it?

Step 2 - Website Domain Name (this is the name of your website).

Your Domain Name is the unique name that identifies your website, or put another way it is your Web address (similar in function to a postal address for you).

Domain names are used to identify particular Webpages. Every website that you visit is stored under a domain name (eg Telstra.com, Goolgle.com, bizToolz.com.au, etc)

When someone types a domain name into a web browser's (e.g. Internet Explorer) address field, the requested webpage will open. For example Biztoolz.com.au is the domain name for my website, so by typing this into a web browser you will see my website.

Selecting your domain name is very important as it is your website’s identity (similar in nature to your business name). So selecting a name that reflects your business and is easy to remember and type is a good start.

When selecting your Domain name here are some other things to consider:-

· A good process to follow to select a Domain Names is to Brain Storm names, especially if you have a preferred name that has already been used and so you need to think of another one.

· Sharp, Catchy Domain Names are often good as they stand out.

· Shorter the better – time factor here is the advantage. Keep your domain name as short as possible and simple - it needs to be memorable, and preferably not contain hyphens.

· Names easy to remember are good – the ease for the user to remember here is the objective.

· Sometimes a ‘unique’ sounding name can also be good (e.g.Google).

· Easy names to pronounce are good.

· Shocking / Hard Core edge names can also work (eg Ghangus Khan, Hogs Breath, etc).

· Allowed characters - Domain names can only contain letters, numbers, and dashes. Spaces and symbols are not allowed. Domain names are not case sensitive.

· Another tip is if at all possible try to tie in together your business name, trade mark (if any) and your domain name. This will then provide you with a consistent Branding strategy (e.g. my business name is BizToolz and my domain name is biztoolz.com.au)

Just one final note on domain names, every domain name has a suffix that indicates which top level domain it belongs to. There is no need to worry about the technicalities now about why a suffix is needed, just accept at this stage that they are. The suffix often denotes a type of organization (though this is becoming more ‘blurred’ as time goes by) or a geographical area. It follows the ‘dot’ (e.g. the suffix in biztoolz.com.au is the ‘com.au’ part). Examples of some of the more common suffix’s:-

gov - Government agencies
edu - Educational institutions
org - Organizations (nonprofit)
mil - Military
com - commercial business
net - Network organizations
au – Australia

So when buying a domain name from a supplier you need to also use a suffix. Just another tip here – if possible when purchasing your preferred domain name also buy the domain name with the other main suffix’s (e.g. if purchasing newbusiness.com, think about newbusiness.com.au and newbusiness.net also).

This will cost more but this will ensure that no-one else can come in at a later stage and capitalise on your brand name using these names. Imagine for example the leverage someone would get from a domain name like Virgin.net if Virgin only registered Virgin.com as their domain name.

In the next post I will show you the most important customer communication tool you must have for your business to survive.

As always, wishing you every success for your business.

Kev Richardson

http://www.biztoolz.com.au/

Labels: marketing on internet