Before You Start

Web and Business Consultancy – Before you Start

You've decided on an Internet venture, where do you go from here?

Web technology and web users are always moving forward and looking for more and more services. The first thing we will do is to help you develop an 'Internet Business Strategy' which will take a short, medium and long term view of your web business project and take into consideration the changing advances in technology.

Our approach is both practical and friendly, our first meeting will last around two hours in which we will talk generally about your business to gain an understanding of how your company operates and the services and or products that you offer. An essential part of these initial discussions is to get a clear view of your target markets and how the web can be used to promote your business.

After this meeting, inevitability there will be many more questions than answers! We will ask you to consider our discussions, undertake some research on the web, possibly have chats with some of your favoured customers and build up some ideas for our next meeting at which we will start to discuss a professional web strategy.

This meeting should include those members of staff who may be directly involved in implementing or running the web site. Please allow around four hours for this meeting. After this meeting we should be able to give you an approximate cost for the work required.

Understanding the benefits of the web

As you are reading this document you are obviously be interested in the Internet!

The Internet only starts with a web site. Email is becoming increasingly important in communicating with customers. All enquiries whether taken over the phone or in person should include the prospect email address and ask permission to use this medium to stay in touch with the customer.

Smart Epos can offer useful training on email marketing as well as the tools needed to stay within the guidelines of your ISP.

The web can allow potential customers to understand the services and products that you offer, if you enable ecommerce they can even buy online. You can allow them to download documents or files or they can upload files to you if need be.

The web is now not an optional extra – it is now firmly part of the business process. The Government is ensuring this by web enabling all Government Departments.

Understanding marketing on the Internet

There are several costs centres involved when considering becoming involved with the Internet.

• The time it takes to prepare and consider the resources you need to produce and maintain a website
  The time and cost of the web developer to produce your site
  Possibly upgrading your hardware and Internet Connections and networks
  A marketing budget to ensure a Return on Your Investment (ROI)
  You can have one of the best sites on the Web but if potential customers don't know you are there it is a expensive and pointless exercise

There are four approaches to marketing and advertising your web site

• Using traditional methods such as advertising in papers or magazines
  Ensuring all your stationery and vehicles have your web and email address
  If you already have a customer database you can send them a postal mail shot telling them about the launch of your web site. Better still if you have email addresses you can send out emails
  Using Web marketing and the Internet as a tool – we can advise you on the Google and other toolsets
  

You should pursue three courses

• Ensure that your web site is optimised for search engines using your selected keywords and phrases – Smart Epos offers a comprehensive service with monthly tracking to ensure your site gets maximum exposure
  Look at building relevant links to and from your site and selecting affiliates
  Using pay per click systems such as Google Adwords, Overture, etc. You bid for positions and pay a fee every time some one clicks on your advertisement. This is the fastest and most effective way of bring your site to the attention of web customers. This is especially effective for E-Commerce sites

Smart Epos will be happy to prepare a quotation for all your web marketing requirements

See also:

Overture uk
Google Advertising
Open Directory

Preparing Web site navigation

An effective site not only has to reflect your business in its design elements, but most important of all is to give the customers an effective and easy to understand navigation system. Smart Epos can assist in preparing your navigation using our HCI experience in designing to suit user behaviour. We recommend a tool called a Mindmap.

In setting up the navigation we always bear in mind the requirements of the search engines as well.