One of the best ways to promote your business nowadays is to put up a website. Since the internet is spread all over the world, you can definitely get to reach more people, even those from other countries. And as it turns out, it is a very interesting work.

Probably the one thing that shy away many people from making their own websites is the belief that it is difficult. Hiring a web designer is also often out of the question since it’s definitely pricey, so it would be better to do it yourself. And you will find it actually is very easy once you know the basics.

The first thing that you need to think about when designing is what it is supposed to contain. This one will guide you in making choices during the actual design process. For instance, if you are selling or promoting stuff, then you will have to be more graphics oriented. If you are providing services, it is preferable to have more text describing you offerings in your site.

It’s at this part that you will also need to come up with the layout for your site. Decide on where your banners, navigation buttons, and images will go and put them down into paper. Remember that you need to have a consistent layout for the whole site to make it more organized. Also, remember that your site must be easy to view and read, so choose the position of the various site elements carefully.

Now here comes the challenging part, actually creating the whole site. You don’t really need to have any high end software to make your site, all you need is actually a text editor, like Notepad, and a basic grasp of writing HTML codes. Learning the codes is also easy since there are countless of free tutorials on the net which can read at leisure. Though you can make it easier by using point and click applications like Dreamweaver in building your site, it is still best that you know hand coding. This will give you a better grasp of how the thing works and where a problem might occur.

With that, it’s now time to check everything. Run your site and test everything to make sure that they all work properly. One rule of thumb here is that a dead link (one that doesn’t go anywhere or show anything) is bad for your site, even if it’s just a minor detail. Here, the above mentioned advantage of knowing hand coding becomes apparent. Also, to avoid such mishaps from happening, name your files and web pages in a simple descriptive manner to make it easier for you to remember them.

Once you have completed your site, don’t publish it yet. Show it to your friends and colleagues to get their opinions and suggestions. They will also probably spot errors that you yourself would have missed. These will definitely help you in further refining your site more.

Once you have everything done, you will surely take pride in your work. You will also find out that it is definitely easy. But don’t stop there yet. Try learning more about website design to improve on your own. You will find out that this one is definitely a good experience.

Using social networks is one good way of promoting and getting traffic to your own websites. Since the membership in these sites are constantly growing, you can expect traffic to also increase continuously to your site. And the best part of using such services is that they are free, which means you don’t have to shell out much to market your site.

However, since you are in a network consisting of actual people, you need to know how to interact with members properly. This not only establishes good relations between you and other users, but also do well for your site, since users are likely to link more to your site once they have established that you yourself are trustworthy. And so, here are some useful tips that you can use when socializing with people in online networks.

First of all, you need to know what the group is all about before you enter. This will save you from entering the group only to be rebuffed (and be banned in cases) just because you don’t know what they are talking about. Individual groups within social networking sites always have their own profile pages, which states their members and interests. Read this before you even sign up. Also it would be wise if you read up more about the group’s interest so as not to be out of place. As a hint, never go into a group if your intent is solely for marketing purposes. You will likely be kicked like a pesky salesman once they catch on to you.

Once you get in a network, then its time to interact with the people there. You can search out for people you know or chat with complete strangers. In Facebook for example, even though you are separated by countries, you are likely to “bump” into a friend in one way or another. You can also do many other things along with other. Your goal here is to be active, which makes you more visible. This works not only for your own credentials but also for your site as well, as it will be more visible.

However, as have been said, you shouldn’t do all these just  for marketing purposes. Though your site will definitely get the traffic you want, you yourself won’t get anything more. You should try to frequently update yourself about the group’s activities. You will be quite lucky at times and find useful stuff that you can in turn implement to your own site.

Thus you should also be very careful of the groups that you are joining in social networking sites. You should join only those groups that have the same interests with you or which are covered by your site. Also, though your goal is to be as visible as possible, it would be better if you keep your group memberships to a manageable number. Preferably five to six groups or networking sites. This way, you will be able to monitor and manage your accounts much better.

As you see, knowing how to use social networking sites properly will be to your advantage. You not only will get the traffic you need for your site, but will also get plenty for your own use as well.

Mutual understanding is a very important factor in the effectiveness of the designer’s work and the satisfaction of a client. We, Splotch Designs, have always used a questionnaire to find out the client’s needs and avoid any misunderstanding in the design process. Our regular questionnaire would look like this:

• Ordered service:
• Detailed information:
• Name of the site:
• Url of current site:
• Company background:
• Tag line for website:
• Target audience:
• Main competitors:
• Colors you like:
• How many pages your site will need:
• Examples of the sites you like:
• Which style would you prefer? (for example: clean corporate/highly creative/urban/simple elegant/minimalistic)
• Do you need a new logo?:
• Do you need promotional banners?
• Additional info

A design brief should primarily focus on the results and outcomes of the design and the business objectives of the design project. It should not attempt to deal with the aesthetics of design… That is the responsibility of the designer.

The design brief also allows you (the client) to focus on exactly what you want to achieve before any work starts on the project. A good design brief will ensure that you get a high quality design that meets your needs, providing you have chosen the right designer.

What does your business do?
Tip: Never assume that the designer will know anything about your company. Be clear and concise and avoid jargon when replying.

• What does your company / organisation do?
• What is your company’s history?

What are the goals? Why?

• What is the overall goal of the new design project?
• What are you trying to communicate and why?
• Are you trying to sell more products or get awareness of your product / service?
• How do you differ from your competitors?
• Do you want to completely reinvent yourself or are you simply updating your promotional material?

Who is the target market?

• What are your target market’s demographics & phychographics? ie. the age, gender, income, tastes, views, attitudes, employment, geography, lifestyle of those you want to reach.

Tip: If you have multiple audiences, rank them in terms of importance.

What copy (text) and pictures are needed?
Tip: The copy and pictures used in a design are as crucial as the design itself and you should clearly state who is going to be providing the copy and pictures if needed. You may need to look into getting a professional copywriter / photographer - ask your designer for some recommendations.

• What copy needs to be included in the design? Who is providing the copy?
• What pictures / photographs / diagrams etc need to be used? Who is providing these?

What are the specifications?

• What size is the design going to be?
• Where is it going to be printed / used? The web, business cards, stationery, on your car?
• What other information should the designer know in regards to specifications?

Have you got a benchmark in mind?

• You should provide the designer with some examples of what you consider to be effective or relevant design even if it is from your main competitors. This will set a benchmark for your designer.
• Provide the designer with things not to do, and styles that you do not like or wish to see in your design. This will give the designer an idea of what to avoid and will avoid disappointment on your behalf.

What Is Your Budget?

• Providing a budget prevents designers wasting valuable time and resources when trying to maximise your budget.
• Providing the budget upfront also allows designers to know if the project is going to be worthwhile to complete. Make sure you are worth their time.

What is the time scale / deadline?

• Give the designer a detailed schedule of the project and set a realistic deadline for the completion of the work. You should take into account the various stages of the design project such as consultation, concept development, production and delivery.

Tip: Rushing design jobs helps no one and mistakes can be made if a complex job is pushed through without time to review, however, there are times when a rush job is needed, and in these cases you should be honest and upfront about it.

Have you had someone ask you to be their Facebook friend? Read your favorite blogs? Followed tweets on Twitter? Bookmarked a website on Digg or Delicious? Watched a video on YouTube? Looked at a photo album on Flickr? If so, you’ve just experienced the power of social media.

Social media offers many benefits to your business. It can help you learn about and reach out to your customers, make your business website more visible and relevant to search engines, show that you’re keeping up with technological advances, and promote your business faster and farther than ever before possible.

Want to learn more and get started with social media? Here are six secrets for making the most of social media to promote your business website.

1. Find out what they’re saying about you. The first step in making social media work for you is to find out what people are saying about your business online. Social media sites offer search functions that let you search for content related to your business. If you don’t see anything out there, or what you see isn’t what you want, you can do something about it.

2. Start a blog and post regularly. It’s easy to add a free blog to your business website. You can use your free blog to talk about what your business is doing, link to other blogs in the same or similar industries and even offer promotions via your blog.

3. Make a Facebook Fan Page. A Facebook Fan Page lets you share all kinds of information about your business with people who love business. It helps you find the people most interested in your business by letting them find you.

4. Post photos and videos. Pictures and videos speak louder than words. Flickr and YouTube are good places to put videos and pictures of your product or service, as well as how-to videos and commercials.

5. Leverage links and bookmarks. Social media sites let you link back to your business website. This increases the number and quality of links to your business website, which increases its credibility and relevance in the eyes of your human audience and automated search engines bots. Another way to leverage links is with social bookmarking sites like Digg and Delicious. Add a button to your web pages to let visitors bookmark them easily.

6. Advertise on social media sites. One of the newest frontiers in Internet advertising is using social media sites. While this form of advertising is still new, and advertising on these sites is not as sophisticated as other forms of online advertising, it allows you to target your advertising to visitors most likely to visit and buy from your business website.

Top 5 Sins Business Websites Make Without Knowing It

You’ve designed, developed, and rolled out a great website for your business. Lately, you’ve noticed you’re your business website hasn’t been bringing in much traffic, not to mention sales. You’ve fixed some obvious problems, but your traffic and sales haven’t improved much. What could be wrong?

Your business website may not have any big, obvious things wrong with it, but you could be doing something wrong that you may not know about or have thought of before. Here are the five least known business website boo-boos, and some suggestions to avoid and fix them.

Sin #1: Writing content that focuses on features instead of benefits. Your business website’s content has to both inform customers about your products and services and persuade them to buy from you. Unfortunately, many business websites’ content does a great job of informing customers about the features of their wares, but not so much when it comes to the benefits they’ll realize. For example, if you own a furniture store, mentioning that you have free delivery on your site is a feature. A benefit of free delivery is that customers save on delivery charges and don’t have to make arrangements to pick up furniture on their own, which saves them time, money, and hassle. In other words, visitors want to know “what’s in it for me” and how you benefit them more than your competition.

Sin #2: Not making your business website search engine friendly. The first places your customers often go to find business like yours online are search engines. They’re most likely to visit the sites that appear first in the search results, because they see those sites as most relevant and authoritative. If your site doesn’t appear there, consider search engine optimization, or SEO, to move your site up and make it more visible.

Sin #3: Failing to keep your business website fresh. Imagine two stores: Store X is clean, well-lit, and well-stocked with the latest merchandise. Store Y is dusty, dimly lit, and has only a few of last year’s items on display. Which store are you most likely to buy from? At a bare minimum, you should completely refresh your business website at least once a year. Even better, add fresh content weekly or daily. One way to do this is to have a blog where you post content about your latest activities, offers, and other goodies.

Sin #4: Not having a call to action. Along the same lines of focusing on benefits, your business website should create a sense of urgency in your customers, reinforce the need for your product or service, and direct them toward the task you want them to do. Some ways to do so are to add links to a product page that take customers to the checkout page or to download items or offer Internet-only deals or coupons.

Sin #5: Making it too hard for customers to buy from you. Even customers who want to buy from you won’t buy from you if it takes too many clicks or too much time to buy. The fewer steps from the initial visit to the sale, the better.