You need a business website, but how can you tell the professional business website designers from the college kid in his basement or the hobbyist? 

The answer is fairly simple if you know what kinds of questions to ask.  Professional website designers are just that - professionals.  They have college degrees and/or experience related to website design and development.  They understand small and medium size businesses for it is likely they are one too.  Most importantly, they speak to you in your language, not theirs.

Purchasing a website is a form of advertisement for your business.  Would you pay for the development of a radio or television commercial if you were not sure you would get a return on your investment?  Why risk your professional reputation by trying to get the cheapest site possible just so you can put the www.yourbusinessname.com on your business card?  If you have seen the work of a website designer and the pages look great, do they contain keywords, titles, and descriptions to help search engines like Google and Yahoo find them?

These are some of the basic questions a professional business website designer should be able to answer:

1. How will you measure my ROI (Return on Investment)?

2. What information will be included in my monthly website analytical reports?  The reports should answer these questions at a minimum:

..a. What time of the day do most people visit?

..b. What search engines are they using to go to my site?

..c. How long does someone stay on my site?

..d. Which pages do they visit?

..e. Where do they go when they leave?

..f. What are the demographics of my typical online customer?

..g. Has my search engine ranking changed?

3. Will my site be monitored 24/7 with guaranteed 99.8% reliability?

..a. Are all links checked every day?

..b. Are broken links corrected?

4. What is my conversion rate (how many potential online customers have turned into actual customers)? Also:

..a. Why did they visit my business online?

..b. Were they happy with their purchasing experience?

..c. What would they change about my site?

5. How will you help me increase my business over time?

If you are having trouble finding a website designer, visit the sites of your competitors or other local businesses.  Most reputable website designers list themselves and include a link in the small print at the bottom of the sites they have created.  For example, www.WebsiteDesignerRESULTS.com. In fact, Website Designer RESULTS is probably your best option. Use the questions above to find out if they can help you grow your business.

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Branding, as a whole, is essential for any serious business because a company's brand is what distinguishes it from its competitors. In today's computer age, it is necessary for most businesses to have an online presence to stay competitive. An effective internet branding, just like its offline counterpart, helps bring awareness to your unique business offering and drive customer demand.

While Internet branding offers huge opportunities for business, in order for it to be effective one needs to attract and engage its customers.  This isn't easy on the internet. Branding is not as easy as putting up a website and adding your company logo and slogan. Your internet branding strategy should make your online brand noticeable and apparent.

Branding utilizes hi-tech tools to create an online presence for your business. Graphics and animation, a compelling web copy, and overall website design that reflect your company are some of the important elements that will bring your online brand alive. An attractive website that helps customers easily and quickly find the information they need is the key to getting customer interaction and eventually, business. Your branding plan should include good design elements and ease of use to create an effective overall impression.

A strong online image will make the difference between a customer who buys from you online or switches to your competitors. Remember, that online customers can just leave your site and go to your competitors at the click of a mouse. A lot depends on the impression they get from your site. Branding seeks to convey an immediate unique message about your business to your target clients.

As you can see, there are many requirements for a successful branding strategy. Hiring a branding specialist might be helpful to give you focus on your efforts in creating an online presence that will become a valuable asset to your business
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When starting your online business you know that you need to drive traffic to your website. Not knowing what is the most effective is a challenge. Even more challenging is not having the money to pay for advertising. There are many ways to driving traffic to a website, depending on your budget and the time you have available to work on building your online business.

Here’s a list of the most powerful and low cost ways to generate traffic to your website.

Offer free reports and content. Giving away some freebies and including your website URL in those freebies is an effective and low cost way of building traffic to your website. You can write some useful short reports with your website link in them and offer those reports for free on a website where you ask visitors to leave their email address before they download the free reports or articles. This means you can give away the report with your URL and also build a list.

Blog. Blogging is a very effective way of building traffic to your website. On your blog, you can discuss your website’s products and services, and add some links to your website. You can also answer any questions your prospects and customers may have. By blogging regularly, you will have fresh content that will get your website indexed by search engines and rank high on these search engines. This in turn increases traffic to your website.

Publish your own newsletter. Having your own newsletter where you offer free tips and content on a regular basis can help to increase traffic to your website. Your newsletter will have links to your website, so many people who will read your newsletter will also visit your website.

Start a forum related to the products or services you sell on your website. By having a forum on your niche, you establish yourself as an authority in your topic. By answering questions and helping people in your niche on your own forum, you drive traffic to your website since you will have your website URL in your signature in the forum posts.

Exchange links with websites that have high popularity (PR) rank. All you need to do is to find websites that are related to what you offer on your website and exchange links with these sites. This is particularly effective if the websites have high popularity rank on search engines. By doing this, some traffic will come to your website through the websites you are linked to.

Produce a video (it’s easier than you might think it is, here’s a free guide) and submit to online video directories like YouTube, Yahoo Video, Google Video, etc. Video marketing is the most powerful marketing method available - and it is very cost effective!

These are the low cost ways you can use start driving traffic to your website. More traffic means more sales and profits for your online business.

Here's a few more website traffic generation tips.
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