The Internet Is Your Business
By Kelly Cook – first published in InformATIO, the newsletter of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario, March 2004.
The web is now merely another channel (like phone, mail and email) to assist those looking for information about your company. Would you ever have an unlisted phone number for your business? Today, not having a website is essentially the same thing. Some data to prove it:
- 72% of Canadian adults have Internet access (i).
- Of those, 91% go online to search for product information (ii)
- Worldwide, there are 600 million+ searches on the Internet PER DAY (iii)
- 8.8 million Canadians per month are ‘active’ Internet users (iv)
Think of your website as a relative (not absolute) marketing expense and ask:
- What is my total marketing budget?
- What percent am I spending per marketing vehicle?
- What percent am I willing to test on the Internet?
Review the table below for examples about how companies might set their Internet budget:
Assuming a five-page website (Homepage, Customers / Clients, Products / Services, About Us and Contact Us), $1,000.00 would allow you to ‘lease’ web page templates with your copy and logo included. For $2,000.00 you could ‘purchase’ web pages built to your specifications. For $3,000.00, your site could be professionally designed and built, updated and promoted.
There are four steps to launching a website: planning, design, production and marketing. It is critical to follow this order; otherwise timelines and costs will spiral out of control. Planning begins with competitive analysis – how are you positioned relative to your competitors online? Develop a web site map (a visual snapshot of the site hierarchy and proposed number of web pages) and budget to identify all expenses in advance of expenditure. Finally, write the site copy (approximately 2000 words).
It is critical to pay a professional designer to complete the second step for you. The Internet is a visual medium – play to its strengths by presenting yourself in a professional manner. A designer will provide optional ‘looks’ for your site. Identify the ‘best of’ elements of those options for the finalized version. Next, the HTML producer will ‘build’ each page to the design specifications and test the site before launch.
You’re in the spotlight for the fourth and final stage – marketing. It is your responsibility to drive traffic to the website. Do so by printing your website address everywhere (business cards, brochures, stationary, packaging, uniforms, trucks, etc.). Next, include your site in search engines for users looking for your product or service category , but who haven’t heard of your business yet.
Web site launch costs typically break down as follows:
• 50% Technology (includes domain registry, hosting, ‘building’ (HTML) and testing).
• 20% Design (includes “look and feel”: page layout, colours , fonts, images and graphics).
• 20% Planning (includes competitive analysis, budget, site map and copy)
• 10% Marketing (includes promotion of website and analysis of web site performance reports).
Following these steps will allow you to make informed decisions about your Internet strategy, without feeling pressured into spending more than you are comfortable with.
Kelly Cook owns Internet planning consultancy Online Authority and is formerly of Time Warner in New York.
Endnotes:
i. “Canadian Netizens”, NFO CFgroup, January 2003
ii. “Cybertrends”, ComQuest Research, Winter 2003
iii. “Searches Per Day”, Danny Sullivan, Editor, SearchEngineWatch.com, February 2003
iv. “Population Explosion!”, CyberAtlas, September 2003
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