Why You Need a Website

Why You Need a Website

Even if you're not planning on selling online, a well-crafted site is essential for any business.

Q: My business is very small, just me and two employees, and our product really can't be sold online. Do I really need a website?

A: That's a good question. In fact, it's one of the most important and most frequently asked questions of the digital business age. Before I answer, however, let's flash back to the very first time I was asked this question. It was circa 1998, during the toddler years of the internet.

I was giving a speech on the impact of the internet on small business at an association luncheon in Montgomery, Alabama. Back in 1998, which was decades ago in internet years, the future of e-commerce was anybody's guess, but even the most negative futurists agreed that all the signs indicated that a large portion of future business revenues would be derived from online transactions or from offline transactions that were the result of online marketing efforts.

So should your business have a website, even if your business is small and sells products or services you don't think can be sold online? My answer in 1998 is the same as my answer today: Yes, if you have a business, you should have a website. Period. No question. Without a doubt.

Also, don't be so quick to dismiss your product as one that can't be sold online. Nowadays, there's very little that can't be sold over the internet. More than 20 million shoppers are now online, purchasing everything from books to computers to cars to real estate to jet airplanes to natural gas to you name it. If you can imagine it, someone will figure out how to sell it online.

Let me clarify one point: I'm not saying you should put all your efforts into selling your wares over the internet, though if your product lends itself to easy online sales, you should certainly be considering it. The point to be made here is that you should at the very least have a presence on the web so that customers, potential employees, business partners and perhaps even investors can quickly and easily find out more about your business and the products or services you have to offer.

That said, it's not enough that you just have a website. You must have a professional-looking site if you want to be taken seriously. Since many consumers now search for information online prior to making a purchase at a brick-and-mortar store, your site may be the first chance you have at making a good impression on a potential buyer. If your site looks like it was designed by a barrel of colorblind monkeys, your chance at making a good first impression will be lost.

One of the great things about the internet is that it has leveled the playing field when it comes to competing with the big boys. As mentioned, you have one shot at making a good first impression. With a well-designed site, your little operation can project the image and professionalism of a much larger company. The inverse is also true. I've seen many big company websites that were so badly designed and hard to navigate that they completely lacked professionalism and credibility. Good for you, too bad for them.

You also mention that yours is a small operation, but when it comes to benefiting from a website, size does not matter. I don't care if you're a one-man show or a 10,000-employee corporate giant; if you don't have a website, you're losing business to other companies that do.

Here's the exception to my rule: It's actually better to have no website at all than to have one that makes your business look bad. Your site speaks volumes about your business. It either says, "Hey, look, we take our business so seriously that we have created this wonderful site for our customers!" or it screams, "Hey, look, I let my 10-year-old nephew design my site. Good luck finding anything!"

Your website is an important part of your business. Make sure you treat it as such.

BY TIM W. KNOX

Lumina Skin Surgicenter

Beauty and Beyond, Welcome to Lumina Skin and Surgicenter
104 Timog Avenue, Quezon City (inside Auto Trend)
Phone 928.2175 Fax: 928.2175

Logo design, website design and development by Desktype Asia Design Studio.

ProengineerPortal

ProengineerPortal provides a full range of medical product development services to startups, OEM’s (Original Equipment Manufacturers), IP (Intellectual Property) professionals, and dynamic entrepreneurs who want to introduce their product into the market place. ProengineerPortal specializes in complex and high tech medical device designs.

http://www.proengineerportal.com/

Logo design, website design and development by Desktype Asia Design Studio.

Contemporary Jazz in the Philippines

Contemporary Jazz in the Philippines: 1970 to the Year 2010 by Richie Quirino (Anvil)

In the third volume of his chronicle of Pinoy jazz, musician and writer Richie Quirino takes the story of this unlikely art form up to the present era. The previous volumes "Pinoy Jazz Traditions" (2004) and "Mabuhay Jazz: Jazz in Postwar Philippines" (2008) relied extensively on interviews with surviving musicians and archival sources.

"Contemporary Jazz," however, gives a fuller and livelier account of the local jazz scene. After all, the author was an active participant during the birth of Pinoy jazz fusion in the 1970s, and its resurgence in the last decade.

Taken in its entirety, the series illuminates a heretofore obscure corner of Filipino culture, and confirms our genius for adapting foreign forms to our own needs and tastes. Eric S. Caruncho

Cover Art Painting by internationally renowned artist and Presidential Medal of Merit Awardee Juvenal Sansó. Book design by Desktype Asia Design Studio

Tropical Cocktails

A Filipino scores again in the prestigious Gourmand Cookbook Awards! Chef Gene Gonzalez's TROPICAL COCKTAILS won 4th place in the Best Cocktails Book category in the 2010 Gourmand Awards besting close to 200 other books from all over the world. The book features cocktails based on local ingredients and spirits like lambanog, basi and pandan juice, among others. Book design by Desktype Asia Design Studio

Five Simple ways to make your Website Stand Out

Posted by Zubair Siddique

The website is the online appearance of an organization. So it is highly imperative that every organization invests on building a website which is aesthetically good as well as user friendly. Not only should it look professional, it should also be in tune with the terms and policies of the search engines and above all should be beneficial to its visitors.

Following are some of the ways to make a website stand out:

Content and Font

The content of the website determines the ability of a site to sustain the interest of its visitors. So a site should have content which is highly unique and beneficial for the visitors. Webpage fonts play a pivotal role in creating an impact on the visitors. It’s an established fact that readers prefer sites that are readily intelligible.

Mobile Version

New age mobile phones or smart phones as they are called today have changed the way people search for their requirements. So making your site compatible to mobile networks and making it mobile user friendly will definitely add value.

SEO Friendly

Using flash creates amazing visual effects and it adds that extra zing to the website but it creates a problem in terms of search engine optimization. Using CSS, HTML and java script the effects can be retained to a certain extent and the website can be made search engine friendly.

Interaction

Interaction is the name of the game. Website users no longer want to just visit your site and collect information and leave. They want some kind of interaction to happen either in the form of a discussion or in the form of submitting a comment etc. Create a blog or other discussion forum related to your line of business to discuss on related topics to keep your visitors engaged in your site.

Browser Compatibility

Build your website in tune with the W3C standards and run a compatibility check on different commonly used internet browsers such as Firefox, IE, Google chrome, Opera etc.

Above all these factors the success of your website depends on how much your visitors gains out of your site.

A Political Journey, chronicles the life of former Senator Eva Estrada Kalaw. Book design by Desktype Asia Design Studio for Anvil Publishing.

TV Host Rhea Santos reads Mga Kuwentong Paspasan, designed by Desktype Asia Design Studio for Milflores Publishing.

Shepherd House Publishers was established with its desire to serve God and the Filipino people, and its commitment to be an instrument in bringing souls to God's Kingdom and imparting christian values through publication and distribution of inspirational literature catering all ages.

http://www.shepherdhousepublis​hers.com/ designed and developed by Desktype Asia Design Studio