Building a website, building a business

caff

caff

caff

Soldato
Joined
8 Feb 2004
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Location
London
Hi all,

I'm after any tips on how to get a business, primarily based on sales through a new website, up and running. The website I aim to launch will sell products that are software downloads for pocket PC devices.

Obviously, we can't discuss your own specific businesses or URLs or products, as these boards are not for advertising our own businesses.

Are there any 'top tips' that are free to implement and can enhance your visibility to potential customers? I'd be interested to hear from people who have tried different tricks to increase traffic, and what has / hasn't worked

Thanks
 
A website is not really that different from any remote selling device, such as a catalogue or phone based service. Concentrate on having a cracking product/service and use the website to deliver it in as lightweight, painfree and pleasant way as possible.

And get as much feedback as you can. Consider your entire business/website in flux.
 
clear and easy to read websites are more important than it being flashy. you just need to find the right balance
 
not sure if this is quiet what you're asking, but it will be important to optimise the site so people find it through the search engines (SEO). Have a look at google analytics too.
 
First of all you will actually need to get a website, and there are two main routes:
1) Bespoke - a website built to your needs
2) Template - A system which has been built using PHP (mainly) and can be implemented cheaply. Is not built to your needs so may have lots of features you dont want and some that arn't available which you do want. Possible not as good for SEO, due to a lot of these systems using tables instead of xHTML and CSS.

Make sure that:
1) Site has been built with SEO in mind. Dynamic page title, keywords, descriptions etc.
2) The products you are selling are useful and people like them!

To get a head start you could consider using Google Adwords.
 
thought said:
First of all you will actually need to get a website, and there are two main routes:
1) Bespoke - a website built to your needs
2) Template - A system which has been built using PHP (mainly) and can be implemented cheaply. Is not built to your needs so may have lots of features you dont want and some that arn't available which you do want. Possible not as good for SEO, due to a lot of these systems using tables instead of xHTML and CSS.
Click to expand...

Do you actually have any idea what you're talking about or are you just typing for typings sake?
 
thought said:
First of all you will actually need to get a website, and there are two main routes:
1) Bespoke - a website built to your needs
2) Template - A system which has been built using PHP (mainly) and can be implemented cheaply. Is not built to your needs so may have lots of features you dont want and some that arn't available which you do want. Possible not as good for SEO, due to a lot of these systems using tables instead of xHTML and CSS.

Make sure that:
1) Site has been built with SEO in mind. Dynamic page title, keywords, descriptions etc.
2) The products you are selling are useful and people like them!

To get a head start you could consider using Google Adwords.
Click to expand...

Content Management Systems may be written in any combination of server side and client side technologies, PHP just happens to be used in some of the more well known open source ones (such as Joomla or Drupal). SEO is not a problem with these, they still use modern CSS based layouts, though some individual plugins/templates may still use tables. The *design* of the site should be SEO based but also semantically correct.

As for the products/services that you provide, well that is the basis of your business model, so it is up to you. Read up a little about getting web statistics, most people use a combination of server based - (such as using awstats to filter logs) and something client side (such as google analytics). Neither can be trusted explicitly. Google Adwords are *only* useful in particular sectors where you

a) Don't have a highly restricted clientele (useless for most non-consumer based businesses, such as B2B)
b) Are already operating at a profit and don't have intense competition (which tends to push the adwords' auction price sky high)
c) Where you have extremely tightly defined keywords (the more generic/language based the keywords, the less likely people will type it in, which has its' benefits/disadvantages)
 
nav... said:
Do you actually have any idea what you're talking about or are you just typing for typings sake?
Click to expand...

Errm, yep.

Do you?

The reason I am talking about what type of website he implements is because its important to get SEO correct. Organic referals are a god send.
 
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