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10 Steps to Hiring the Best Web Designer Or Web Design Company For Your Business Website

You have been planning forever to get a website designer to work on your site. Your plans are clear and you have prepared your content. What next? How do you go about choosing the best web designer or web design company?

Step 1. Ask around. Ask friends, or similar companies who have hired a web designer in the past. Besides getting the contact numbers of the web designers, ask how it is to work with that person. Find out what happened during the design process and what they think of the designs submitted.

Step 2. Do your research for contact information. Use the internet or your phonebook to get the names and contact information of web design companies in your area. If you use the internet, have a peek of their past work. Then contact each and ask for a quotation.

Step 3. Look through the portfolio of the web design company you are choosing from. See if the designs are professional-looking, clean and easy to use.

Step 4. Look at the experience of the web designer or Web Design Company. How long has the person or company been in business? How many companies have they designed for?

Step 5. See if the designer or web design company is up to date with the newest trends in web marketing. Useful, profitable websites attract the correct traffic with search engine optimization and usability and by employing web 2.0 strategies such as social media marketing. Effective web sites take SEO and usability into serious consideration. See if your web designer has at least a basic knowledge of both. In order for your website to be successful you need to be able to implement a successful internet marketing campaign.

Step 6. Look at the web designer or web design company proposed turnaround time. Does it match the schedule of your company’s plans?

Step 7. Examine the web designer or web design company terms of service and website files ownership. See if you agree with the conditions set by the designer to work with you. See also the rights as to who owns the final output and what sizes. If this is not clear from the start, you just may be surprised to find that the work you commissioned is not yours and you may have to pay extra to get it.

Step 8. See what the web designer offers for after-design services. Will the designer help maintain your site or is the designer only expected to do the initial design?

Step 9. Talk to the designer. Is s/he easy to communicate with? You should be able to communicate with your web designer easily. You should be comfortable presenting problems that you want solved. Your web designer should be respectful and prompt. You should both be able to compromise on what will work best for the viewers, not necessarily your personal taste.

Step 10. Look for previous, happy clients. You may look through the designer’s website or blog and see if there are client testimonials. Note what they have to say about the designer. You may also try to call them (you may ask the contact number from the web designer) and ask for comments regarding the design process and final output.

Design Your Business Website by Choosing Magento Ecommerce Development Company

Having pervaded almost all walks of life, the internet has overtaken almost every other form of media that have been known in the history of mankind. With more and more businesses across the world extending their outreach and expanding their clientele through the internet, it has become very important for organizations to have a solid representation of their brand, products and services on the internet, in addition to robust e-commerce platforms. Right from the way the website is designed, to the content and the way information is presented, each and every aspect of a business website goes under stringent scrutiny from the moment it is rendered.

Magento is a leading e-commerce platform that offers a high degree of customization possibility, stability and security, and is used widely across the world in a large number of online shopping stores. Magento Developers are highly sought after for their expertise and skill in integrating the websites of their clients with the Magento platform, and enabling them to successfully conduct business over the internet. Magento eCommerce Development is gaining popularity not only because it is a low-cost open-source alternative to other expensive platforms, but also because it is ideal for startups and small businesses that do not want to invest a large amount of money in their online stores.

Additionally, migrating an existing website to a Magento e-commerce system is a very simple and straightforward process that can be carried out by experienced Magento Design companies in a very short span of time, and without disrupting normal workflow or business. It is usually recommended that businesses looking to have their websites migrated to the Magento e-commerce platform have their websites designed by the same company that will be handling the integration or performing the migration. This is mainly because most Magento Developers have a mature and streamlined design or integration process, making it much easier for them to create a website that plays very well with the platform.

Finding and choosing the right Magento eCommerce Development company is very important, as the market is currently teeming with a large number of companies claiming to provide e-commerce integration. For the inexperienced client, the technical aspects of the integration process and the intricacies of the platform hosting may be difficult concepts to understand; the best way to go about choosing the right company, therefore, is to go by the number of years the company has been around, the number of clients the company has served and the testimonials of the past clients of the company.

Internet Marketing 101: Online Marketing for Small Business

Introduction

You own a small business. Do you need a website? An Internet presence can be a necessity or a resource-draining boondoggle, depending on your business and your target audience. You shouldn’t build or maintain a website simply because “everyone else has one.” However, even if you own a one-person services company and get all the business you can handle through word of mouth, you can still create an online presence with a minimum of time and expense.

If and when you do develop a business website, you’ll need to make some kind of investment in Internet-based marketing. Consumers increasingly and overwhelmingly use the Internet to research and buy goods and services. This means the competition is robust, and if your site doesn’t announce its presence it will simply sit and gather (virtual) dust in some computer’s memory.

If you’ve convinced yourself that you need to enter the web marketing arena, the following report provides a fundamental primer on the most widely used tactics for both paid and free Internet advertising. Just remember that each of the topics introduced here is complex enough that there are entire books written about them, so if something appeals to you do some additional research before jumping in.

Before You Start

There are two main questions you must ask yourself before starting any marketing efforts, whether on- or offline: “Who is my audience?” and “What are my objectives?”

Audience

The audience for most business marketing activities is obviously past, present, and future customers. However, as in traditional advertising and marketing, it helps to narrow down who you are trying to reach, segmenting your market by age, geography, gender, interests, occupation. Certain methods of Internet marketing, such as pay-per-click ads, allow you to target your customers based on this type of segmentation.

Objectives

We can assume that the overall objective of most marketing is to sell products and/or services, but you may have additional objectives for online marketing. These related objectives will hopefully end up driving increased sales, but they can be more subtle than simply asking customers to buy right now. For example, your online marketing plan might include goals such as these:

Support and increase visibility of your company’s brand.
Improve search engine rankings.
Offer reference information related to your business sector.
Increase number of registered users or newsletter subscribers.
Drive traffic to your company website.

After defining your audience and marketing goals, you can begin to formulate an Internet marketing strategy and tactics. When getting into online marketing, it is important that you maintain brand consistency. Build on the reputation that you have already established. Your on-line presence should mirror that of your “brick and mortar” presence. Use the same logo and tagline so that people will understand that you are the same company. Having an online presence is a way to build on what you have already accomplished.

In the remainder of this report we’ll look at the most common ways you can use the Internet to deliver your message and start increasing your sales.

Table of Contents

websites

E-Mail

Newsletters

Other Announcements

Search Engine Marketing and Display Advertising

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Pay-per-Click (PPC)

Display Advertising

Social Media and Networking

Decide: Who, What, Where, When, and Why?

YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Etc.

Twitter

Blogs

Forums & Discussion Groups

Article Placement / E-Zines

Other Internet Marketing Outlets

Wikipedia

Directories

websites

We won’t get into the vast topic of how to build and manage a website, but if you aim to use the techniques described below, it is nearly essential to have one. Most of your marketing efforts will have a “call to action” that involves your audience visiting your website to research products or services, find contact information, sign up for a newsletter, or place an online order. Whatever you are asking people to do in your online promotions, make sure the website allows them to easily complete that task. One other vital component of any business website is an analytics program (Google offers a fairly robust application free of charge), so you can track how well your marketing efforts are working and calculate the return on your advertising investment (ROI).

How can you develop an online presence at little or no cost? There are several companies that offer free site building tools and hosting services. If you go this route, select a company that has a proven track record, so your hard work isn’t wasted when the company goes out of business or suspends the service. A couple of reliable options are Google Sites and Yola. If you have any money in your budget at all, you should probably just spend the less than $100 per year it takes to buy a personalized domain name (for example, “mybusiness.com”) and a Web hosting service. Another potential option, depending on your business and marketing goals, is to create a free blog (see below for more details). The most popular free blogging services as of this writing are WordPress and Blogger.

E-Mail Newsletters

E-mail newsletters provide one of the most highly performing avenues for marketing. You can collect customer e-mail addresses by asking visitors that come to your website to subscribe, by requesting e-mail addresses from anyone who visits your physical location, or by purchasing an e-mail list. To generate a higher rate of readership, make sure the audience is narrowly targeted and has some vested interest in your product. By sending out your newsletter on a regular schedule (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.) you can counteract the transient and temporary nature of Internet users by continually reminding them of your company’s existence. Affordable services like Constant Contact can be used to manage mailing lists, statistics, and opt-in/out functions.

Caveat: Sending commercial e-mail messages to people who have not agreed to receive your mailings can result in severe fines and penalties from the federal government per terms of the CAN-SPAM Act.

Newsletter content should appeal to your defined audiences, with industry- or product-related news and events, company-specific news and events, practical reference information, and interesting statistical and demographic information. The newsletter copy should publicize links to appropriate pages within your website.

You will need to maintain one or more separate lists for the purpose of sending targeted messages to particular audiences (see Other Announcements below). You might combine all your lists to send a monthly newsletter, and send other bulletins to past or potential customers as appropriate.

Other Announcements

Other announcements are e-mailings that can consist of press releases, coupons, special notices, or anything you want to communicate specifically to members of one or more e-mail lists.

Search Engine Marketing, Pay-per-Click and Display Advertising

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization means constructing a website that is easily crawled by search engine spiders, and it encompasses a variety of techniques designed to improve your site’s (or page’s) ranking in the search engine results page. The goal is for your site to be found by searchers who are looking for sites related to a certain keyword or phrase, for example “little red wagon” if you are in the business of selling toy wagons. SEO can be divided into on-page activities (e.g., amount of content, metadata, links, programming methods and structural issues) and off-page activities (most importantly, obtaining links from other websites to your site).

Pay-per-Click (PPC)

Pay-per-click advertising refers to text ads displayed on search engine results pages (versus “organic” results achieved by SEO) and other sites, usually in the margins. In the case of Google AdWords and Microsoft’s adCenter, you can open an account and specify the keyword(s) that, when searched for, will generate an ad that links to your website. You pay only when a searcher clicks an ad and is directed to your site. In the example below, the key phrase is “little red wagon,” and pay-per-click ads are located at top (in yellow) and in the right-hand column (subtitled “Sponsored Links”). The first organic listing is “Little Red Wagon Foundation.”

A few of the benefits of PPC advertising are that you know exactly how many people view your ads, how many of those viewers click through to your website, and (if you are using a site analytics tool) what they do once they reach your site. You can also start and stop running ads at a moment’s notice, experiment with any number of ads you like, and fund your campaign with as little as $10 to start.

Display Advertising

Display advertising, also called banner advertising, means purchasing ad space on another website and placing a text and/or graphic ad with a link to your site. This technique is generally more complex and expensive than pay-per-click, but can be very powerful if the right message is shown to a tightly focused audience. To achieve optimal click-through rate (CTR), advertise on websites where you assume your target audience is visiting, rather than a general interest website. Most marketers don’t purchase ad space directly from another website, but use a banner ad network to automatically place ads on appropriate websites. A couple of the biggest names in display ad serving are DoubleClick and BurstMedia.

Social Media and Networking

Social networking is the latest buzz in the modern marketing arsenal. If you have any doubt about its impact, especially on the under-40 population, read this list. Small businesses with limited resources should weigh their time spent and the potential benefits carefully, however. It can also be difficult to measure the return on your investment for some of these tactics.

The general principle of “marketing” on social networking outlets is that people who have similar interests will virtually congregate around Web content that discusses that interest. They may be interested in product information in the form of reviews or personal opinion, but hard sale approaches are mostly discouraged and unproductive. Your goal is to become a trusted advisor-which usually means revealing your identity and at least some part of your personality. If that premise makes you uncomfortable, you might still find social networking sites valuable for market research purposes. Find out what people are buying and why, then use that information to help shape your other marketing activities.

The following section describes the more popular social media outlets and sites, but keep your eyes open for new virtual spaces where you might get more attention by getting in on the ground floor.

YouTube, Facebook, Etc.

YouTube allows you to post videos on your own “channel,” a distinct Web page that can be customized and allows for posting links back to your own website. A major positive aspect of this venue is that the number of views is posted and viewers can submit comments, so you know whether your videos are popular and why.

Facebook is considered the model for modern social networking sites. Facebook allows you (individual, corporate, non-profit, etc.) to create a page, attract “likes” and reviews, communicate with followers by posting status updates, photos and videos, and so on.

Although the previously named sites are the most popular in terms of visitors, there are a couple of business-oriented networking sites that may be more useful for making business connections. LinkedIn helps you develop a network of clients, service providers, and subject experts; find business opportunities and partners; post job openings; and more. More detailed advice on best practices for using LinkedIn can be found in many online articles and blogs.

Twitter

Think of Twitter as a mini-blog (see below) that allows you to broadcast messages of 140 characters or less. The messages appear to your “followers” on their phones or computers, as well as on Twitter.com. The biggest challenges are to gain a useful number of followers and to think of something engaging to write to them. If you are a speaker, writer, or performer Twitter can be used to let your fans know what you’re doing and when. If you have a retail store you might let your followers know that you’re offering a discounted item or running a special sale. You should post a Twitter sign-up link on your website, and within your signature line in outgoing e-mail messages. You can also gain followers by following people who work in or comment on your industry, as some Twitter users will follow those who follow them.

Blogs

The word blog originally came from the term “Web log.” There’s no real standard for what a blog is, but most commonly authors use them to comment on (and link to) other online news items, websites, or other Internet content. For the most part, direct selling on a blog is frowned upon and is probably a recipe for driving away potential readers. What do you write about, then? Well, if you run an Internet marketing firm you write about trends in Web marketing, what the search engines are up to, tips for do-it-yourselfers, or what you thought of the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Seriously, read some blogs and you will find all sorts of personal opinion mixed in with professional advice and commentary. The goal of your blog, however, should most likely be to establish yourself as an expert and trusted advisor in your chosen field.

You might also pursue getting your products, services, or website mentioned in related blogs by other industry experts. When a high-visibility blogger mentions a website on his or her blog, the site is exposed to a potential audience of new viewers. Often, blog postings are simply press releases that are picked up by sites that discuss topics related to a particular product or industry. More opportunities (and traffic) in this arena can be realized by developing relationships with individual bloggers.

Additional Tips:

Post an article that was written by someone else, just be sure to provide a link to the original article and give credit to the person wrote it. You can then give your commentary on the topic of the article or find a way to relate the information to local trends or challenges.

Ask colleagues to be “guest bloggers” by writing articles for you to post, again giving them credit and adding their byline and a link to their website. Using links is a good way to drive additional traffic to their sites so it’s a good trade-off for both parties.

Nick Francesco of AskNick.com said, “A blog gets people’s attention and Twitter keeps it.” Consider using these two outlets together.

Forums & Discussion Groups

A forum (also known as discussion group, message board or bulletin board) is a component of a website where users can ask questions, offer advice, or share experiences with others about a certain topic or topics. Nearly every hobby on earth has a number of popular forums wherein members offer their thoughts and feelings on all aspects of their favorite pastime. Contributing a comment (with a link to your website) in discussion groups related to your products or services can create a small surge or spike in traffic, but usually has little long-lasting effect. To maximize effectiveness, target forums on high-traffic sites that have 1,000+ users, and reply to topics with larger numbers of views (relative to other posted topics).

You can easily build your own bulletin board/forum component on your site with free or low-cost software. User forums have the potential to greatly increase the “stickiness” of a site, given a critical mass of traffic required to generate new discussions and keep participants interested in returning. You can start by “seeding” topics on your own, but there won’t be any results until traffic is directed to the forums. The conundrum for small businesses may be the time required to moderate a forum once it becomes successful. One solution is to seek out a volunteer moderator who exhibits a keen interest in your field. A sample of a baseball trading card forum is shown in the screen shot below.

Article Placement / E-Zines

Another avenue for generating incoming links and traffic to your site is the free article market. Article submission (or e-zine) websites allow you to publish articles on a variety of topics. Examples include EzineArticles and ArticleCity.com.

Depending on terms of use, these articles may be used as content on other websites, or collected on the site where submitted. The main objective of most article contributors is to increase their search engine rankings with the placement of backlinks on other reputable sites. Providing reliable and accurate reference information is secondary, and the traffic potential from article readers is questionable.

Obtaining links from article submission sites isn’t likely to improve your site’s search engine rankings much. However, existing content from a print newsletter or other written material can be re-purposed with a relatively small time investment. Be aware that creating articles from your website’s content verbatim may cause search engines to penalize your site, as the search engines take a dim view of text that is republished multiple times (“duplicate content” in search engine optimization terms). Submitting articles to sites with the most traffic will give your site the best chance to be discovered by new readers.

Caveat: Once an article is submitted, you have little or no control over who uses your content and for what purpose, depending on the copyright policies of the site on which the article is posted.

Other Internet Marketing Outlets

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is, essentially, an online encyclopedia. The unique aspect of Wikipedia is that users generate the content, though content must be approved by volunteer editors. Traffic will grow if and when others link to the entry. If you add content, your time commitment will be relatively minor, and the benefits might include improved search engine ranking and a slight increase in traffic to your site. As with other forms of Internet communication, a Wikipedia entry that is essentially a commercial for a product, service, or company will not be viewed positively and is unlikely to be approved by editors.

Directories

Online directories allow Internet users to browse through categories of topics to find websites related to a certain subject. There are directories for businesses, blogs, websites in general, and more. Many directories are free, and some only list you if you pay. The mother of free directories is the Open Directory Project, and by all accounts the best paid directory for business is the Yahoo! Directory ($299 annually). Be aware that you might wait a long time for some of the free directories to list your site, as they may rely on volunteer screeners. Directories not only allow consumers to find you in their listings, they also help get your site indexed in the major search engines. If you submit your site to a directory, make sure to read the submission guidelines and follow them exactly.

What Are The Best Keywords To Use For Your Online Business?

Trying to find the best keywords to use and then using them to maximum effect for your online business can be challenging work. Keywords are the words and phrases that somebody types into a search engine when they are looking for something on the internet.

There are generally two types of keyword. The first is called a short tail keyword. This usually is a one or two word phrase. Due to the fact the keyword is so short, that means that the keyword is going to generic and have a high level of competition from other websites. The second keyword is called a long tail keyword. These are the lengthier, more precise keywords that are less common an can really improve search-driven traffic to your online home business website.

What are the best keywords to use for your online business?

It is not uncommon for a combination of long tail keywords to generate more traffic than the broader, more general short tail keywords. As an example, let’s say you have an online home business about dog training and your keyword research shows that ‘dog training’ gets approximately 2,500 searches per day.

If you start looking you’ll find that there are a lot of long-tail keyword phrases for that niche. For example, dog training collars, dog potty training, dog training careers, etc. When you add up all of the long-tail keywords, which are easier to dominate in the Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), it equals more traffic than if you simply went after ‘dog training’.

If there are thousands websites competing for the search term ‘dog training’ but a much smaller number competing for ‘dog training DVD’, you will have a much better opportunity to reach the first page of Google. The more specific your keywords for your online home business the better results you will get.

What About Keywords For Your Online Home Business Ideas?

Some online marketers pay no attention to long tail keywords, thinking that they have to rank well for the prime keyword phrases to get results. But others are using them to reach customers who are ready to buy. All things considered, would you prefer get traffic from folks searching the word ‘golf’ or from an individual who is searching for a ‘TaylorMade R11S TP Driver’?

If a person searches for a specific item is often means that they are ready to buy. The person inputting golf into the search engine could be doing some homework for a project, or might want to take a golf holiday, or could be interested in going to a local golf competition. Those searches will not help your online business if your website sells golf clubs.

Choosing The Right Keywords.

Pick your keywords and phrases carefully. If you are are unsure of what keywords you should use, there are several free keyword tools to help you find the best keywords to use for your work from home online business. These include Wordtracker, SEO Book Keyword Tool and Keyword Eye. Separate your broad, generic terms from your long-tail phrases so that you can monitor your Google SERP positioning and see how your keyword list is performing for you.

Placing the best keywords in the most appropriate places at the right consistency on your website enables the search engines quickly understand the subject of your website. The best keywords are those which are relevant and related to your online business and the impact of long tail keywords is continually increasing.

Web Development Companies to Flourish Your Online Businesses

Why do you need the help of a web development company? To nourish and flourish any type of business, focused attention is a necessity. Whether your business is online or offline, some external, dedicated, professional help just allow you to enhance your business growth.

Expertise and skill plays a crucial role in any business development and if we invest on such aspects, it never goes as a waste. The one-line business has grown many times bigger and such vastness demands a lot of attention to your e-business. Well, if you are not a pro in the field of ecommerce website, nothing can be done without those who know it all.

Here you go! The web development company is assisting many online business outlets to grow and reach its height. Let us discuss about those companies and the deciding factors that help your internet business to grow.

Expertise

As the web development companies are in the business for long term and focus on the field of online activities that help e-business to grow, they have all the solutions for you to expand it. They know what are the requirements of your business to grow, and you find success coming on your way soon after you hand over your website to them.

Low Cost

Low cost is one favorable factor that each online merchant should realize and must give a shot to it. Taking the help of a web development company is comparatively cheaper. Usually, a business unit needs to put up with large expenses in order to carry out the business development; however, they allow cost effectiveness to them in building up an online identity effectively.

Complete Solutions

A web development company only can provide complete web solution to develop and operate an online website. It certainly requires disciplined and better practices. It cannot happen overnight without dedicated efforts. The companies address A to Z issues of an ecommerce website and they are always ready with the apt solutions for your business development. This is one huge benefit any online merchant can easily make use of.

Support and Maintenance

Without timely support and help in maintenance, no online business can survive. Constant tech support and help in maintenance is a must and only web development company can help you out in this regard. They understand your problems and give you timely help and of course that is great relief for an online business owner.

Know-How in Latest Trend

Well, your online business store needs up-gradation time to time. As you are well aware, the competition is too tough and it is your clever survival technique that let you to do well. The web development companies possess thorough know-how in the ongoing trend in the market and they help you in stay even with the trends that take place in the online business and development. Going ahead with the idea of taking the help of them is your first step to catch up with the online business success!

Make Money Online Testing Websites

In a world of bogus online job chances, it’s good to understand there are a few genuine internet side hustles you can deal with to generate a healthy side salary. One particular such hustle is website testing. In the event that you’ve by no means tried it, after that now is a great time to find out what it is, how much you can possibly make, and who also will pay you to begin.

What precisely Is Website Testing?

Website testing is a fairly simple idea in which people who have no immediate ties to a brand dedicate time using, accessing, and examining the brand’s website as a way of offering opinions on the features and appeal of the internet site. Website testing is priceless in today’s market place, exactly where websites perform an integral role in both equally small and large brands’ capability to reach, participate, and convert online clients. It’s not enough to possess a website, the site needs to be enhanced in a way that it fosters great brand associations and eventually drives lucrative conversions.

When you take a look at the amount of time and dollars brands invest into web design and development, it turns into obvious why they take testing so significantly. Whilst every scenario is diverse, here a few average costs meant for developing a custom-made website:

Small business site: $2,000 to $8,000 Dollars

Medium-sized business web page: $10,000 to $25,000 Dollars

E-commerce internet site: $5,000 to $40,000 Dollars

Large business site: $25,000 to $40,000 Dollars

And so all those are simply the costs to get up and working. Once you throw in extra expenses incorporating domain name, SSL certificate, web page hosting, content management system, constant web design, advertising, and optimization, the regular costs can be thousands of dollars per month. Obviously, in the event that a business will invest in a site, they want to ensure it functions. They have diverse methods for identifying how well an internet site works, but nothing at all beats the raw, unfiltered nature of user testing.

How Much May You Help to make Testing Websites?

Let’s be very clear about one point in advance, you are not really going to get rich testing websites at least in this capability. For the overpowering majority of persons, website testing isn’t designed to be your full-time work and won’t change your whole profits. It can, however, complement your cash flow and provide you a modest extra spending funds for the weekend, that following a holiday, or for a great buy without draining all your savings.

Generally speaking, virtually all website testing businesses are going to pay you $10 per internet site that you test. Sometimes you’ll get $15 to $25, yet these are uncommon exceptions and are frequently merely provided to those with experience. A site testing session ordinarily lasts for 15 to 30 minutes, although there are an only a few that can be finished in right around 10 minutes.

In many cases, website testing possibilities are sent to end users via email-or inside an online platform-and you have to “claim” the test in order to earn access. Based on the quantity of users contending for options, it can certainly be harder to obtain tests with a few companies than others. If you get sent five offers to test websites every day, you’ll most likely simply effectively claim one or two-and you’ll have to act promptly. Having said that, an extra $10 daily can easily add up. If you test five websites each week at that rate, you can easily fairly expect to produce an extra $200 each month.

Great Plains ERP In eCommerce Environment – Combining Hosted Website With Business Portal

After seeing reasonable and multiple concerns, we would like to give you some directions for your homework, when you consider transitioning for your let’s say “legacy” e-commerce website to new totally data driven eCommerce. Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 has pretty advanced Business Portal, where we recommend you to research Order Management module, which in turn is redesigned version of former eOrder. eOrder went to the history, the last version of the product was 7.5. For version 8.0 Microsoft Great Plains redeployed and improved old eOrder logic on Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Portal platform, tightly integrated with MS Sharepoint. After a bit complicated introduction, we would like to explain your options in simple language:

1. Where to host: in-house or outsource? Well, this question doesn’t have direct answer, in essence it depends. Self hosting gives you complete control over the functionalities and future directions, as you do not have to “comply” hosting company requirements. However it is not necessary to switch to total self hosting over night. You can keep your website hosted outside and move its data driven portion to hosting internally. If you have complete understanding on how to split your website across multiple IP addresses, then you can skip the hint, for the rest of the auditorium we’d like to say, the all you need to do is to login to your domain registrant website and add something like that:

Ecommerce.mycompany.com 11.11.11.11 – this would be the placeholder for your in house dedicated IP address. Domain name and IP are fictitious here, you would need to provide real ones.

Then, assuming you have Microsoft Windows domain, you make the settings on your Internet Information Server to resolve e-commerce traffic by named header on your IIS

2. Business Portal Order Management Module. Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Portal 10.0 is too dependent on the technology layers, such as SQL Server, Sharepoint, Active Directory – so we recommend you disregard BP hosting outsourcing (maybe down the road in the future you can revisit the idea, but for 2008 probably it doesn’t make any sense). What is good about Order Management – you are virtually sharing GP inventory control and Sales Order Processing modules with OM, including pricing updates, promotions, customer price levels (and of course secured customer logins on the Business Portal level)

3. If Business Portal is too complex or simply doesn’t do the job for you. BP is not something easy to install and implement. If you need light touch to your existing e-commerce application, you should consider do this either in eConnect, which in essence is Software Development Kit, allowing programmer create such necessary object in GP as Sales Invoice; or you consider Great Plains Integration Manager to do overnight transaction move from eCommerce to Great Plains

Expand Online Business : Major Chalange for Small, medium and Big Companies

Expand Online Business

Entrusting your online advertising and publicity requirements to a professionally managed agency that excels in the fields of Internet marketing solutions like search engine optimization search engine marketing like pay per click promotional campaigns is a crucial way to ensure you expand online business successfully.

Companies specializing in offering unique, creative solutions with the support of latest web technology software can help expand online business for all web-centric enterprises since they use their expertise in various internet marketing tools to provide clients with a website that draws highly targeted traffic. This helps not only to improve and expand their online business but since the online marketing strategies are remarkably different from conventional advertising, it also makes for unique consumer appeal.

A company that can successfully translate the requirement’s of a client’s website related needs into the actual delivery of completely customized Internet marketing/E-commerce solutions and tactics uses highly trained and experienced web professionals to ensure effective and real lead generation that will expand online business for the client. At the same time, it will also spell more publicity and a steady track record for the web advertising company as it takes web standards into account when designing a website and does everything possible to gain that extra edge to improve the client’s business, which also helps to increase revenues. Complying with the Web standards can help a business website to expand online business because a greater number of web users utilize the Internet for email, instant messaging or chat, but equally in majority are people watching online videos or DVDs, reading magazines online and playing online video games.

Thus, the real need for web-centric enterprises is to look for more video creative efforts to improve so the attempt to expand online business can be more advanced and therefore, more effective. Since most online video ads are merely repackaged television commercials, the need of the hour for people looking to expand online business is to have over the web creative efforts to be those that are well-researched and designed specifically for online campaigns. This will go a long way to ensure that the consumer response improves since these creative efforts by a professional advertising agency will have a decent (or even increased) budgeting for studio production and therefore these costs will necessarily create more appropriate online ads. Therefore, it is actually an investment for the website owners when they choose a proven professional advertising agency to take care of their online marketing and publicity campaign who will take it as a challenge to create video ads for the short-attention span of web surfers who demand high-quality content presented in compact viewing experience.

The main standards are the languages used when creating websites and this factor is best understood by professionally qualified individuals heading advertising agencies overseeing successful delineation of a client’s business policy online through commercials and videos. Among the languages used for creating websites, the most widespread ones are HTML, XHTML and CSS. HTML or XHTML are used to create the backbone of websites – the structure while CSS is used to style, format and position the structure and content.

Creating and Marketing Your Small Business Website in Cleveland, Ohio

Small businesses developing during the internet age are in their prime. They will be able to create a website for their business which will allow them to establish their online presence for years to come. There’s no telling the amount of sales, leads and inquiries that will come from one small business website, no matter the industry.

I often tell clients that the internet age that we are in allows small business owners to be in their prime. Even in the midst of a so-called recession, the internet allows those small businesses to have a level playing field with others in their industry who are succeeding in sales and gaining momentum in other places in the country. The internet creates a level playing field for small businesses in Cleveland, Ohio because even though the economy in downtown Cleveland is not-so-hot, the internet economy nationwide is booming.

Hire a Professional Firm

Hiring a professional web design and website development firm in Cleveland, Ohio should be your first step. Being the owner of MJM Design, I can say that there are really only three qualified firms located in downtown Cleveland that absolutely dominate the market. Mine being one of them, the others being Zorebo Interactive and… well who cares. When you are ready to buy a car, who is one of the first persons you talk to about your upcoming purchase? The “car guy” in the family, exactly. Cars are horrible investments which is completely different from your next small business website in Cleveland. Your small business website should offer a return on your investment whether it is producing sales, leads, inquiries or referrals. Finding the “web guys” in Cleveland, Ohio is not a hard thing to do and I highly suggest doing it before moving forward.

Search Engine Placement

Placement on search engines for small business websites in Cleveland, Ohio is paramount. This allows small businesses to showcase their website to potential customers not only in their local market, but also in the national and global market. Search Engine placement will usually require hiring a qualified web design and development company in Cleveland, Ohio. It is a good idea to get your site not only listed locally on Google, Yahoo and MSN search engines, but also for it to rank organically or also known as naturally in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). I recommend staying away from Google AdWords, unless you have the monthly budget. If you can afford spending $400 to $1,500 a month on Google PayPerClick advertising, then I say go for it. You can use Google Analytics to track and measure your conversions in dollar amounts.

Keep Your Site Updated

Your new small business website design and development project is nearly completed. Why did I say nearly completed you say? Well, even though your site might have been designed and developed by MJM Design or another reputable web design and development firm in Cleveland, Ohio, you aren’t out of the woods yet. Creating useful content and updating it on a regular basis will allow you to reap the rewards and keep your customers returning for more. If you skip this crucial step, all of your previous efforts will go wasted leaving you with really pretty, professionally designed and developed HTML documents.

Do You Need a Content Management System?

Typically Content Management Systems also known as CMS are beneficial to larger companies who plan on updating their website content daily or even multiple times per day. This is useful for mortgage companies, companies whose products are changing rapidly and businesses who plan on reporting news in their industry on a daily basis. A Content Management System can be configured as a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor which can be accessed by your website administrators. This will allow them to update text, image and hyperlink content on your small business website without having to call your web development company for changes order request.

The four topics should have pointed you in the right direction for creating and marketing your small business website design and development project in Cleveland, Ohio. If you need more information, I suggest contacting a web design and development firm in downtown Cleveland, Ohio (we know what we are doing) to learn more about what a website for your small business can do for your bottom line.

8 Internet Tips for Small Business

Over the past 3 years we have seen incredible growth in the internet both in terms of users and uses. The internet enables many small business owners to obtain customers Nationally and even Internationally for small amounts of capital. Other internet technologies can increase business efficiency. Yet so many business are daunted by the prospect and many small business owners make little use of the internet. Here are 8 tips aimed to help small business owners:

Create a website. There are lots of free packages out there to help you develop your own website. However, for relatively small amounts of money it is well worth investing in the expertise of a web developer who can create a professional website to project the correct image for your company. Just as in all walks of life, there are good, bad and indifferent web developers. Carry out your own research looking of other small business sites, most such websites have the a link to the developer on the homepage with their contact details. As such you should be able to contact the company that has developed your favourite sites.
Update your website. You have invested in a website, keep it up to date. Make sure your products or services are current. Update with recent news.
Make sure that your website is being found in search engines. There is no point in having the best small business website in the world if no one knows about it! There are a group of IT professionals that specialise in this type of work. It is know as Search Engine Optimisation or SEO for short. Consider recruiting such help.
Consider internet adverts. Search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing have their own versions of internet advertising. This will push more customers to your website.
Use Social Media. Millions of people use social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These can be used to promote your business to a lot of people in little time.
Write a Blog about your business. Try to avoid writing sales articles, but offer people free helpful advice about services and products, build up a following who hopefully will then turn to you in the future.
Use an online bookkeeping program. Again, such programs save you time and allow you to access your businesses books and records wherever you are in the world that has an internet connection. It is advised to check with your accountant to see what they recommend. It may even save on your accountants charges at the end of the year.
Use online banking. This will help you save time and keep a close eye on your business finances.