MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG About SCORE Douglas S. Cavanaugh Successful and experienced business owners and executives acting as volunteers Free ongoing mentoring: One-on-one Signup on our website – Mentoring Tab Seminars, workshops and Meetup Group Resources for small business: manasota.score.org manasota.score.org

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG  To inform potential customers about your business with relevant and concise information  To advertise and describe offerings and location  To sell products and services  To generate business leads  To brand your business and provide contact information  To be “found” by potential customers using search engines  To build a foundation for customer interaction (ordering, returns, feedback, etc.) Every Business Needs a Web Presence Keep in mind: 86% of Americans use the Internet 20 hrs/week. (Center for the Digital Future 2013) Yellow Pages Book (oops what is that?)

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Benefits of Having a Web Presence = Increased Sales Effective Web Presence + More Eyes Looking At Your Business B2C (Business to Consumer): 43% of all retail sales are expected to be influenced by or made on the Internet by 2012 (U.S. Department of Commerce) B2B (Business to Business): 83% of businesses use the Internet to research and find vendors (Enquirio – B2B survey)

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Step 1 – What Functions do you need Promote Publish Communicate Serve your business by telling customers about it information that’s useful to your customers with customers customers by handling business functions

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Goals for Your Website What do you need your website to do? The answers will create your Internet strategy = a measurable plan of action using the Internet to get desired results. Think about: Your business goals Your marketing goals Your target audience Your competition

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Effective Websites … 1.Look Professional 2.Consistent  With similar sites  With website usage  With your brand  Within your site  With all of your other marketing channels 3.Simple What are your competitors doing? What features attract you to a website?

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Home About Us Why Us? Help Us Help Yourself Product & Services Management background addresses Map & directions Contact form Enticing blurbs summarizing the key sub-pages What you offer Benefits of key features Pricing and delivery Organize wide, not deep Your discriminators Testimonials Ask the Experts Common for not-for-profits How to donate, etc. FAQ’s Social Media Installation Videos Helpful Links Samples/specs Draft meta tags for each page Title Description Keywords Step 2 – Outline Your Site Payments Checkout

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Step 3: Build Your Site DIY Make it yourself with templates PROS: Easy, inexpensive, fast CONS: Less able to tailor, less advanced site CONTRACT Hire an individual PROS: More tailored site, able to work closely with someone CONS: May not include support/ maintenance COMMERCIAL Hire a company PROS: More support, more options CONS: May have less control over content and hosting, could be very expensive Best Practice – YOU contract for the web hosting, not your contractor

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Could I Do it Myself ? First Impressions Count 75% of web users admit to making judgments about the credibility of an organization based on the design of its website 68% of US online shoppers say they distrust a site that doesn’t have a professional appearance Time Stay focused on the critical issues for the business and delegate other tasks to employees or contractors Technical Requirements Troubleshoot bugs and cross browser compatibility Professional software and training

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG WordPress, GoDaddy.com, Wix.com, Weebly.com, 1and1.com, and AT&T provide easy drag & drop design templates WordPress, GoDaddy.comWix.com Weebly.com 1and1.com AT&T Wix & Weebly develop in HTML5 WixWeebly  important for mobility Low Cost for Development Guarantees a Low Rate of Down Time Wordpress, Wix & Weebly are mostly free GoDaddy & 1and1 & AT&T charge $10-20/mo. GoDaddy 1and1AT&T Do It Yourself Development

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Choosing a Web Team to Build / Maintain Web Developer / Programmer – Helps you to determine the page layout, graphics, text location and colors of your site, as well as the navigation and how pages will cross-link to one another Graphic Designer – Creates the graphics for the site, including page layout, colors, etc. Think of this person as the "visual artist" for your site. Internet Marketing Consultant – Helps you to determine how your website fits into your overall marketing strategy, and how to get more traffic and sales from your website.

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Cost & Legal Considerations How much will it cost? -Payment terms -Overall estimate  Have written contract covering: -Price -Schedule / Timetable - Including testing -Support and Service Level Agreement -Detailed Scope of Work, including Milestones -Documentation -Release of copyright -Portability to new Web host -Content and Technology Ownership

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Step 4: Create Content -Your developer does NOT create content – YOU do! -Don’t start from scratch! Use business plan, to friend, even record a conversation and play it back to get ideas for what to write -Stick to 300 max words per page and 50 words per paragraph more than that is harder to read -For photos, if you can’t afford a photographer, use your smart phone or purchase some stock photos. Something is better than nothing. -Use good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) practices i.e. keywords in your content; Appropriate SEO content on EACH page

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Step 4: Create Content Test the content Make sure everything that is interactive (store front, data inputs, video, feedback, etc) works. Correct as needed and test again! Show it to friends, family who are not familiar with the business Ask if the flow of the information / organization is easy to understand and use Find out if there is content that is not clear or if parts should be improved Modify as required to get ready to Publish Test it all again!

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Step 4: Create Content Ongoing site maintenance considerations: Pages that have “dynamic” content – pricing, products list, part numbers, pictures of the products, special offers, text on a page, etc should be editable by you This may require separate “edit” pages or you may be able to edit the pages directly, depending on design complexity.

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Step 5: Publish and Promote Contractor or commercial company Checklist or sign off process... Client is / is not happy with the site Fix it – Test it -Then publish it. You need a mobile version of the site to deal with small screen size Automatically takes viewer to correct version based on device used Many “do it yourself” builders include this automatically or as an option. Some other features to look for/consider: –Click to call, –Clickable map to get directions, –Click to make a reservation –You get the idea!

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Choosing the Right Hosting Consider:  Tech Support  Cost  Control Panel  Accounts  Multiple Data Center Locations  Space and Bandwidth  References Best Practice – YOU contract for the web hosting, not your contractor

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Your Site Is Up - Now What? A successful website generates measurable results for your business. 1.Know your goals for the website To get the most from your site, follow this 3-step process: 2.Continually adjust site as needed – including frequent checks for “broken links” on your site that are dead ends for customers 3.Measure results All major search engines (Bing, Google and Yahoo) offer sophisticated free analytics tools to help you track and benchmark your website results.

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Understanding Web Analytics Two main approaches: 1.Log File Analysis - web hosting company tracks the number of visitors, which pages viewed, when they visited, where they are locate, etc. 2.Page Tagging - assigns a unique identifier (a cookie) to a visitor, to identify them when they visit your website. Indicates what site components attract visitors and where most visitors will enter / leave your site. Web Analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage.

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG What Should You Measure? Number of site visitors Individual page impressions Average visit length Most/least popular pages Most popular site entry pages Where users come from (sites or search engine phrases) Number of inquiries, leads or sales generated Conversion rates Total sales volume online Average purchase per online customer

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Web Analytics Terminology  Hit: A hit is a request for a file from a server. A hit is registered for every file that is requested, whether it is an HTML file, an image, a CSS file, or a JavaScript file. Hits are in no way a measure of the number of visitors that view a website.  Page View: A page view is a request for a file that is defined as a page in an analytics program.  Visit: A visit is a series of requests from the same uniquely identified client within a given time period. This is usually set to 30 minutes, so that if a user waits an hour between requests, the server will register two visits.  Unique Visitor: A unique visitor is essentially an individual coming to the website based on their IP Address.  Repeat Visitor: A visitor that has made at least one previous visit to a website.

MANASOTA.SCORE.ORG Help Us, Help You Please fill out the evaluation form Your feedback is important to help us improve our programs!