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Understanding Web Site Set Up Costs

November 19th, 2009

How Branding Can Create Customer Loyalty

As we mentioned in last month’s e-newsletter, it is important to develop the brand of your business. Brand identity is composed of consistent logos, images, colors, and the like.

It is important to remain constant with your business’s brand identity and the web site because this establishes a connection of trust with potential customers. When they remain consistent, it generates a promise to your customers that your business and web site will always meet or exceed their expectations. Next, you need ensure that your brand identity is unique and distinctive. Focus on what makes your business different from your competitors and what would most benefit your customers. This can be easily integrated into your web site.

Once you know how to identify with potential leads, your business must fulfill all promises made by the established brand identity. The actions of your business can either strengthen or weaken the trust between your business and your customers. Don’t break your promises and you will not have anything to worry about! An established web site will perk interest from customers due to its ability to grab attention, but will also add user-friendly features that will help build that trust with your customers.

Once this trust is established, over time your customers will become loyal to your business and the web site because both met or exceeded their expectations. They will return to your business’s web site for the products and/or services you offer because they know your business will not let them down. Therefore, customer loyalty has begun with your business. Most businesses do not have all the knowledge to design the priceless logos and images to compete with their competitors. This is where graphic design comes in as a set up cost.

Graphic Designer Process

The graphic design process and establishing a brand identity through a custom web site can be a fun and exciting experience for small businesses. The purpose of a graphic designer is to develop customized logos, images, web site, etc. that portray the message that your business would like send to your potential customers. Graphic designers work with your ideas and budget, and also offer their expert advice to reach your business’s brand identity and web site goals.

After initial interaction and a set of requirements sent to your graphic designer, seeing your business’s message visually represented for your customers can be a rewarding experience. At this point your customers can relate more with your small business and the beginning of a relationship with customers will build into a growing group of loyal customers.

Tags: brand identity, budget, business, consistent, costs, customers, expectations, goals, graphic design, loyalty, newsletter, potential, set up costs, trust, web site
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In Troubled Times, Set Up Shop on the Internet

October 22nd, 2009

During these tough times, it is difficult to escape discussions with your peers regarding the current state of the economy. Just like fiscal downturns of the past, high unemployment rates and limited opportunity are wide spread throughout the world. Individuals, like those of the past, are combating these obstacles by seeking entrepreneurial opportunities to achieve fiscal prosperity. Many are forging their own path by starting businesses of their own.

But unlike the past economic downturns, the extensive barriers of establishing a retail business no longer exist. Today, physical store locations are unnecessary to conduct business transactions. With the existence of the Internet and its vast foundation of worldwide customers, online sales are created with limited resources. Online businesses have options when it comes to establishing their web sites. Custom developed stores and portals can cost big money to develop. But with numerous open source software freely available (OSCommerce, Magento, Nopcommerce, etc.), limited setup and operating costs are required to begin.

Setup Costs
When establishing your online store, it is important to develop the brand of your business. It is necessary to properly accent your web site with images, logos and a color scheme to create brand identity with your customers. Thanks to richly developed tools, this customization can be done solely by you. Graphic design can be integrated into this process, but may require a graphic designer if you are unable to develop such images.

Operating Costs
For an online store to operate, several core services are a necessity. Two of these core services include hosting of the online store and merchant services:
1. Web Hosting: Hosting of the store means providing a physical location on the Internet where the site can reside. Without this, the site would be unavailable to your customers. Typically, a monthly service fee is charged for hosting a site. The fee includes the use of numerous resources including storage of the site’s files and a bandwidth allocation for access of the site’s resources.
2. Merchant Services: These are required to accept your customers’ method of payment for the goods and/or services being sold online at your site. Both monthly and usage-based fees are associated with this service. A payment service such as PayPal can be used as an alternative to accept payment. These types of services do not require a monthly fee but does result in a higher cost per transaction.

Store Configuration
After the setup and operating costs are addressed, the final step to establishing your company’s site is to configure your online store. Store configuration includes the entire customer experience with the checkout process, shipping and product arrangement. These items are available via the aforementioned open source ecommerce applications.

Marketing Your Store
Promoting your online store is the first step after setting up shop. This is a process that can include a mixture of paid and non-paid efforts to drive traffic for your site. Before embarking on pricey campaigns, it is recommended to ensure your site is available by search on popular search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo!) and other related directory sites. A popular method to achieve this is SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.

Tracking Your Success
Web hosting packages typically include web site statistic tools. These tools make it possible to view analytical data of your site and distinguish how well your site is doing. Reviewing this information on a periodic basis will provide an understanding of what resources are being accessed on your site as well as where visitors originate. The latter is determined by the referring sites used to arrive at your web site. A referring site typically includes a link to your site, a visitor clicks on a link for your site, and then they are directed to your site. Such information is very valuable when considering how to market and promote your store.

Conclusion
With the success of the Internet and open source technology availability, an online store can be established with limited resources. An online store is an excellent platform for selling goods and/or servers via a global channel. All of these steps that we have mentioned will assure you of a profitable site. Take into consideration that these steps are a process, and will need to be updated to keep your company ahead of competitors. But no matter your physical disposition, an online store may be a great fit for adding additional income to your bottom line. Set up shop today with Planet Small Business!

Tags: economy, entrepeneur, limited resources, small business, website
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Can trade shows really help my small business?

June 12th, 2009

We think so!

Join us for our trade show appearances and Fourth of July parade this summer-

June

· Business2Business Expo June 23rd at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, OH from 3-8pm. Purchase Tickets

· 2009 Chamber Business Expo June 25^th at the Bridgewater Banquet & Conference Center, 10561 Sawmill Parkway, Powell, OH from 4:30-7pm. Register Here

July

· Dublin Fourth of July Celebration July 4^th at Dublin Coffman High School Stadium, 6780 Coffman Road, Dublin, OH. Parade begins at 11am. For more information, please visit www.dublin.oh.us

We will have a Planet Small Business booth and plenty of prizes and special expo deals! We will also be handing out flyers for great deals at the Dublin Fourth of July Parade!

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Technorati

June 11th, 2009

Technorati Profile

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Planet Small Business Twitter Campaign starts today!

June 4th, 2009

Follow Planetsmb on Twitter and receive 10% off your web hosting!

(Limited time only)

Exclusive Twitter deal–savings code found on our Twitter page…

Also, Planet Small Business fans should follow us on Facebook for the latest in Small Business and Web Hosting news!

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How to Create a Web Site using SiteBuilder in 5 EASY Steps!

May 29th, 2009

During my stay with Planet Small Business other team members have expressed how easy it is to get a web site off of the ground using Planet Small Business’ site builder wizard. In order to experience this first hand, I decided to take a pass at creating a web site for a fictional company. – The PSMB Bakery.

My colleagues had told me that the using the Sitebuilder program was quick and painless, and allowed me to finish the entire project in five easy –to- navigate steps. It was time to put this process to the test.

The first step was to determine what exactly I type of web site I would like to create, a web site, blog, or photo gallery. I clicked on the ‘web site’ option and then simply pressed the Next button at the bottom right hand of the site. Step 1 done!

Step 2 involved choosing what design aesthetic I wanted for my web site (I wanted one that would hypothetically appeal to my future customers). With hundreds of template options to choose from, I was sure to find the option that best catered to my business, a bakery. However, my decision was made easier when I used the “Category” tab on the top left hand corner, which both narrowed my search time and gave me pre-screened choices that best served my type of business. Wanting a closer view of my choice before I made my final decision on what my website would look like, I clicked the preview button on the bottom of my highlighted template, which enlarged the design until it took up the majority of my screen. Next, I used the tools on the right side of the page to alter the color scheme of my template to match the colors in my Bakery’s logo, pink and green. Here I was also able to change the banner design to a picture of cake and add a title, “PSMB Bakery” and subtitle “A Piece of Cake!” to be featured on my site. Before moving on to Step 3, I was able to preview the main page of my site by pressing the Preview button at the bottom of the screen. Satisfied, I pressed the Next arrow to proceed on to the next page.

In Step 3, I chose the additional pages I wanted on my bakery’s site. Starting in the top left corner, under the heading “Page sets,” I chose the larger theme of my web site, Business. By selecting a specific category, Sitebuilder provided me with potential page options for my web site, such as “Our Clients” and “Contact Us.” I selected which of these that I would want on my web site by clicking the box on their left hand side and then pressing the right facing arrow at the bottom of the box. I did the same for the “Special pages” box directly below the “Standard pages” box—transferring my choices over to “Your Site Structure.” At this point, I was unsatisfied that the “Our Clients” page appeared before the “Contact Us” page, so I re-clicked the box to the left-hand side of the pages and then moved “Our Clients” page down one with the help of the “Page position” tool on the far right hand side of the page. With this tool I also had the option of the moving the pages up, left, or right. Additionally, I renamed the “Our Clients” page (to “Bakery Fans”) by clicking on the Rename button in the bottom right hand corner of the page. Once finished, I pressed the save changes button in the top left hand corner of the page and continued on to the Edit section by pressing the “Edit” arrow on the toolbar on the top of the page.

Step 4, or the Edit step, allowed me to view and edit every page of my web site as it currently existed. The toolbar at the top of the page allowed me to enter content onto the screen, such as details about the bakery, while also providing me with a way to link the pages on my site to one another through the Custom Links tab. With this tool, people could click directly on my “Contact Us” page to reach the “Our Fans” page. Additionally, I found the feature icons on the far right hand side of the screen very useful-they were ideal in customizing my site. Each icon gave a description of its function and were easy to use, as you just drag them on to your site. After adding content to every page, I simply pressed “Save Changes” in the upper left hand corner of the screen. Done with entering the content, I proceeded to press the Publish arrow on the top right hand of the page.

Once I have reached this step (Step 5), a banner was presented that stated “Your site has never been published. Preview site”. I previewed my site, and satisfied, pressed the Publish button. My sample site was created! After only a half hour the PSMB Bakery was up and ready to attract new customers!

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