Internet Marketing Guide: How to Build a Website for Business

How to Build a Website for Business

At this point, you should have already answered the following questions. If not, go back to your

e-business plan and address these issues:

What's your business?

What's your business goal?

What's your site's goal?

Who is your target audience?

How would you describe your target audience?

What are their needs and how can your site address these needs better?

How are you going to earn revenue from your site? What are your revenue models?

Just a short note about goals:

Everybody talks about setting goals. But before you go about setting goals for yourself and for your business, remember these words of wissom from Paul J. Meyer's Attitude is Everything:

Your Goals must be SMART Goals:

S - Specific

M - Measurable

A - Attainable

R - Realistic

T - Tangible

Who is going to do the website?

Yourself?

A website designer?

If you have no experience building a website, this step may intimidate you. You have several options to explore:

1. Learn html. This is the best but may take a bit of time. At this point, you may not be up

to it yet. But after some time, you may want to learn it yourself.

2. Hire someone to do the job for for you. As mentioned previously, this can be expensive in

the long-term because most jobs are charged on a per-page basis. Also, you would need

to depend on other people to update your site.

3. Use online website builders from web host companies. These are normally

wizard-based authoring software provided by web hosting companies. While the software

may be free, you are most often required to register and host with them.

4. Use WYSIWYG authoring sofware. There are a lot of options but I recommend EZGenerator.

It's the software I used to build this site. You only need to type, cut and paste to be able

to produce a site like this. You can download a Free trial copy to see if it suits you.

Aside from EZ Generator, you can also try these easy website builders:

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

SiteBuild It - This is not just a website builder. It is a powerful all-in-one

system that helps you build your business from scratch. From unique content building, to domain name registration, website building, search engine submission and optimization. It even has a module that helps you monetize your site immediately. A really excellent, one of a kind product. Don't just take my word for it. Take a video tour to see how it works and download the free trial copy.

Ezy Websites: This also comes highly recommended. Comes with professional

website templates, tutorials, graphics, advanced tools and web design support.

To learn more, visit Ezy Websites

ProSite Studio - This is an easy-do-it online web builder. Loaded with a lot of features you need for business: e-commerce, ebay, newsletters, catalogs, email, shopping cart, photoalbums, etc. Comes with over 1,500 templates. For a FREE 10-day trial, visit ProSiteStudio.com

5. Use free online resources.

FREE Web Resources

This is a great one-stop for webmasters. You can get almost all the tools you need to provide more features and interactivity to your websites.

Blog - Create an online diary or blog.

Chat rooms - Host live chats with your site visitors.

Classifieds - Buy/Sell/Trade with classified ads.

E-Cards - Host your own custom postcard service.

E-mail forms - Add a visitor feedback form to your website.

FAQ - Automated frequently asked questions.

Free Links - Build your own handy link directory.

Guest Book - The most popular guestbook on the Internet.

Headline News - Put live news on your web site.

Hit Counter - Track and graph your website traffic.

Horoscope - Daily Horoscopes on your web site.

Mailing List - Maintain a distribution mailing list with ease.

Message Forum - Message Board to host online discussions.

Online Calendar - Public event or scheduling calendars

Password Protect - Restrict access to selected website pages.

Photo Album - Store and share your photos online.

Redirect - Shorten your website address. (clik.to/me)

Site Search - Allow visitors to search your entire website.

History - Find out what happened every day in history.

Traffic Exchange - Generate traffic for your site.

Vote Caster - Hold a multiple-question poll on your website.

Web Cartoon - A new cartoon for your website every day.

Web Poll - Embed a quick poll in your website.

Web Ring - Create a ring of sites with similar interests.

Web Templates - Pre-built templates for your web site.

To get all these for FREE, visit Bravenet Web Tools

Once you've decided who is going to build the website, it's time to get into serious business. Even if you choose to have someone build the site for you, you must still call the shots. That is, make the major decisions. This is your business, after all.

Remember at all times that you are building a

site for business.

By this, we mean a site that can generate revenue for you even you are sleeping.

Your website designer may tempt you to use fancy graphics, flash, music, splash, audio, video in your site. Sure, they look nice and can be impressive but they do not help you achieve the single most important attribute you need to be a successful stand-alone Internet business: findability. More on findability on How to build a search-engine friendly website.

Next, you must also have a general idea of the following:

What is your timetable for your project? When do you expect to launch your project?

What resources do you need to complete your project?

How much resources have you allocated for your project?

Who is going to maintain your site?

How do you plan to maintain your site?

Once you have clear answers to the above questions, you are ready to start building your site.

To get into the process of building your business website, click here.