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Small Business - Improve Your Image, Improve Your Sales - Part 2 Website 101

Small business owners are faced with a dilemma, they know they need a website to attract more business, but they don't know where to begin. Use this article as a checklist to get help in creating an effective website presence. Note: Over the years we have created a short list of hosting providers that offer the best value to small business owners. We encourage you to visit our website for recommendations on each step of the process.

The first purchase is getting your company domain name. Be sure to purchase the domain name with your company credit card in your own name. Unfortunately too often webmasters will register a domain name in their name and if a relationship with a client goes bad, the client cannot access their domain. So be sure to purchase the domain. In some cases, you can actually get your domain name registration free as part of your hosting package. We recommend hosting services that are less than $100/year pre-paid.

Where do you find domain names? It is easy to locate if a domain name is available by conducting a search online. at any hosting service. Look for your company name availability first. For example one of our clients was HB Equipment Company. We looked and the name HB Equipment was already taken, so we chose HBEquipmentCo as the domain name.

As equally important as your domain name is the ability to show your email address as part of your domain as well. So we recommend that you create a couple email addresses - info@yourdomain.com and yourlastname@yourdomain.com This lends credibility ias an organization instead of using a free email account.

Your hosting service is very important because it is the foundation for your website. Starting in mid 2008, we recommend that all small business owners request that their websites are created as blogs. Why? It's easy... Blogs are very search engine friendly and they are easily updated by the company owner. Once the blog has been created, it is easy for the company owner or administrative assistant to update pages or add new pictures or links. We recommend WordPress blogs because they come in a variety of themes and being open source, they are free. Creating a blog site can be done easily within a few hours, depending upon the complexity of the website content and number of pages.

We recommend the following pages to be included in a typical small business website:

Welcome - a quick overview of your business mission, goals, product and service offerings

Products / Services - a listing of company products and services If there are many, separate these into two pages

Company Brochures - include a capability statement as well as a company flyer for website visitors to download

About Us - a quick overview of your business credentials

Contact Us - use a form to collect feedback and questions from website visitors

Other nice items to consider on your company website that will make it stand out:

- Company logo

- Audio introduction

- Photos of work sites or products

- Photo of the owner

Design2Train, a SBA 8a certified company, was founded by Karen Miller in 2001. We have been selected as a Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) Technical Assistance Provider (TAP) to help Houston-based small business owners with business development consulting services. Visit our website to learn more about TAP: http://www.design2train.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Karen_Miller

Labels: Improve Your Image, Improve Your Sales, Small Business