Marketing Your Products and Services on the Web

A website gives your business new ways of marketing and selling your products or services and building relationships with customers.

With people increasingly turning to the Internet as the easiest way of finding information fast, it's becoming more and more important for even the smallest business to establish an online presence.

The web probably won't replace your traditional marketing activities - but will instead complement and support them.

There are important points to recognise about setting up a website... making it user-friendly, encouraging customers to visit it regularly and monitoring its effectiveness. There are also important legal issues that you'll have to be aware of.

Before you begin to create a website for your business, you need to work out what you want it to do.

There are two main types of business website:

   > a marketing site promoting your business and its products or services to potential and existing customers

   > a trading site that allows customers to purchase online

Remember that for some people your website will be the first point of contact they have with your business. It's important to make a good impression.

Whether you want to create a simple 4 or 5 page website to allow potential customers to get hold of contact details and very basic information about your products or services, or whether you want to create a 'full blown' e-commerce website, or anything in between, then contact us and we will be please to come and discuss your requirements with you.

You will also need to look at ways to market your website. For example, using search engines.

Consider how you can make the most of the interactive nature of the Internet. It's good to put information about your products or services on the web - but simply transferring a hard-copy brochure online is unlikely to help you sell more.

When setting up your website, remember to think carefully about the web address you choose (your domain name). It should be as easy as possible for people to find. You should consider registering any address that people might logically try. All addresses you register should link through to the main address you want people to find.

"How do you integrate your 'on' and 'offline' business?"