Most small business owners design and build their websites like this:

First, hire a designer and start with a great-looking logo. Then, design a homepage that has all the stuff they want in it. Next, start building the website. Finally, write all the content.

This is the exact opposite of what you should do if you want to build your site as cheaply and efficiently as possible.

Instead, to save money and move quickly, here are the proper steps to follow to build your website:

1. Outline all the pages you want in your website and write as much content as possible (preferably, all of it).

2. Create a sitemap and architecture (I’ve attached a simple web architecture done in PowerPoint that you might find useful, but you can simply sketch it out on paper, use Word or whatever you’re comfortable with).

3. Hire a web designer and developer to design the logo and homepage simultaneously – show logo designs within homepage designs so you are sure the logo will work in context.

4. Finalize content while the site is being built.

Essentially, I am suggesting you do the most difficult task first: write content.

I’ll explain why later, but let’s back up and talk about what is involved in building your website.

Your small business website consists of three basic elements: content, design and technology.

The content is the words, images and videos contained in the website – you create this yourself or hire writers, photographers (or purchase images) and videographers.

The design is how your website looks and how the content is arranged within the pages – this is typically done by a professional web designer.

The technology is the actual pages that show content on the Web and get found by people through search engines, and it runs the various bits of functionality and features contained within the site – this is typically handled by a professional web designer or developer.

The goal, ultimately, is for your small business website to present your company in a compelling way. To build a compelling website, you need a solid site architecture, which is determined by the content. Then you need a great design, which is determined by your industry, brand, architecture and content. Finally, you need handy technology which will be used to manage the content within the design and architecture. It starts and ends with content.

Now, I’ll give you three reasons why you should write your website’s content before you do anything else: money, money and money.

Reason 1: Money & Efficiency

Let’s start with a question. Can you know how many pages your site will contain if you haven’t written the content?

No, you can’t. You may have an outline and think you know how many pages your website will contain, but until you put finger to keyboard, you only have an estimate. Once you start putting the words and pictures together, the number of pages will change. And since many inexpensive web designers charge by the page, the page count could affect your budget.

And, hey –want to drive your web designer crazy and spend more money at the same time? It’s easy! Just say this: “Oops. I just found out we need another page in the top navigation bar.”

Time comes to a standstill, and your designer’s blood pressure rises along with your bill.

Reason 2: Money & Design

Homepage designs are probably the most expensive element of the design process. You save money and time when you know exactly what content and images go onto your homepage. Remember, every edit or tweak could cost money and waste time.

Reason3: Money & Time

Small business websites are almost always delayed because the content is not finished. People never believe me when I say this, but it’s true. Whether it’s a team member bio that needs editing or a product description that needs updating, content is usually the problem.

The truth is that most people don’t like writing and will put it off as long as possible. But dive in and bang it out – you’ll be glad you did.

With best wishes, Eric Weidner

The recession made many businesses slash marketing budgets, and websites often suffered. But sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and get up-to-date – or suffer the online consequences.

To show you what we’re talking about, here’s Workbox’s flippant, hyperbolic and possibly tasteless look at web issues we’ve recently encountered. Is your site guilty of one of these sins?

#10 – You have a Telex address on your company’s “Contact Us” page.

Sure, your address is probably up-to-date, but are you showing an accurate driving map or using a new directions feature like Google Maps? Is someone in your office actually receiving and responding to your “info” emails?

#9 – Employees cross out your company’s URL on their business cards and replace it with their LinkedIn addresses.

The real question is whether your website is helping your sales, marketing and hiring teams or not. If your site hasn’t been updated in a while, you might be missing some new tricks and techniques to increase leads.

#8 – Footer: © 1999

A simple script can save you the effort of updating the copyright date every year!

#7 – You call that guy who built your website and get Chico’s Bail Bonds instead.

Apologies to the Bad News Bears …

#6 – Your grandmother calls to say, “I went to your website. Just making sure you’re still alive.”

What isn’t funny is that grandparents are a large and important demographic on sites like Facebook. Have you addressed legibility issues?

#5 – Your active client list includes Lehman Brothers.

Are you sure the links to client websites are still good? Are they still in business? Is the logo current?

#4 – You have a glowing testimonial from Bernie Madoff.

Make sure the folks who wrote your testimonials aren’t doing hard time.

#3 – Your “About Us” page says you’ve been in business for a decade. You started your business in 1990.

We understand that creating content is one of the most difficult parts of your website. Hire an editor if you don’t have time to do it yourself.

#2 – The “Ship To” form shows Czechoslovakia between Cyprus and Denmark.

Although this is unlikely now, contemporary web technologies like AJAX make forms a lot easier to use. Are you taking advantage of the latest and greatest? Have you tested different checkout paths to see what converts best?

#1 – You’re wearing a “Frankie Say Relax” t-shirt in your bio page photo.

Let’s be honest – if your photo is 10 years old, it might be misleading. You might have lost a little hair, gained a little weight since then … oh, forget it – leave that old photo up!

Cheers, Eric

There are a lot of jokes about out-of-touch bosses or professionals who think they know it all, even outside their areas of expertise. Doctors, CEOs, lawyers, architects, financiers – they get a fair share of teasing about letting personal aesthetics or seemingly arbitrary, unfounded opinions negatively affect otherwise rational business or marketing projects.

To be honest, I’ve actually seen some version of this happen with web design. And admit it, you super-Type-A personalities out there, sometimes you just can’t help yourself! So, I’ve put together a quick list of four things you (the boss-man or boss-woman) should keep in mind when your company is designing or redesigning its website.

1. Consider goals, functionality and content BEFORE design

Your competitor has a snazzy bit of Flash on their homepage, and, yes, it looks cool, but does the website accomplish measurable goals?

The main point here is to consider what you want your website to do for your company (beyond looking impressive) before you get too deep into design. Do you want to sell more product? Gather leads for your sales team? Tell your story to investors?

Whatever your goals are, you need to think of how the site will be built and the content displayed so your goals can be achieved. Let your web designers work with your team to specify the technology that will achieve your goals and make it easy for your team (the folks who are tasked with working on the site every day) to maintain it. Once the technology foundation is specified and content outlined, your designer can make it look fantastic – on-brand and appropriate for your market.

Making the design process the second step is difficult because it is the most emotionally engaging (and fun) part of the process, and where you actually start to see what your site will look like in the real world. And don’t get me wrong: design is absolutely critical to a website’s success. But remember – design should support the business goals you set for your website.

2. If you don’t like it on other websites, don’t put it on yours

I’m talking about “intro pages” and “splash pages.” They are universally despised, but for some reason, the occasional CEO still wants one.

You know you hate them for wasting your time on other sites. Don’t put one on yours.

3. “Global” = content, not spinning, animated globes

If you want your company to appear “global” in its reach, a little, spinning globe image isn’t the way to go. Consider an image with your team or partners in obvious locations around the world, create content that discusses your work in other countries, show your international offices in your “contact us” page, or have your site translated into other languages. Those techniques show you walk the global walk.

4. Don’t hire your cousin

… unless she has 5 years experience building professional websites. Be sure whoever builds your website will be around to help maintain and support it, and has a history of successful website launches. Professional web design firms have employees who can help when your main contact is on vacation, sick or just unavailable – you’d be surprised how many emergency, late-night content edits we’ve received over the years (particularly from companies in regulated industries like pharma or that are publicly traded).

Conclusion

Essentially, I urge you to look at your web design project the same way you think of complex contracts or year-end accounting: consider your goals and hire a kick-ass professional who knows the industry’s best practices.

So, if you’re a big cheese, I hope you find these tips useful. And if you believe that you’ve made some of these mistakes, it’s O.K. – one of the great things about the web is that you can change things for the better very quickly.

Best wishes, Eric Weidner

spinning globe animated gif courtesy bestanimations.com

A friend (to remain unnamed) recently relaunched his website. It looks cool, but they instantly lost years of deep search engine links and ranking, killed in-bound links from other websites, and generally blew away a lot of tasty, wholesome search engine goodness.

How did they do that?

They neglected one of the key elements of a redesign project – something called “redirects.”

The good news for you is that it is very easy to prevent this ranking loss, but it needs to be managed BEFORE you relaunch, then implemented simultaneously with the relaunch. You just need to talk with your web designer/developer about “301 redirects” before you start your redesign project. The designer should know what to do after that.

So, what is a “redirect” and why is it important for website relaunches?

A redirect simply tells a browser to go from an old page URL to a new page URL. This is important for website relaunches because your old website’s URLs (like http://www.workbox.com/clients.html) might either not exist or change (to something like http://www.workbox.com/clients) with new the website design or content management system. The difference between “/clients.html” and “/clients” might not look like much to you or me, but to a search engine or a web browser, it is as different as night and day.

Redirects are important because:

1. The search engines could take weeks or months to re-index your new pages so they appear in the search results. And, if you have important keywords in the old page’s content, it could be a long, long time before your organic ranking returns for those keywords.

2. If another website linked to your old URL, any visitor who clicks on the link will get an error code on your website rather than a page with your content. So, you made someone who was kind enough to link to your website, or yourself, look incompetent (visitors will assume either the website with the link or your website has a problem).

3. If you are a high-tech company, could be a big bummer for your street-cred, dude.

Technical aspects

Technically, a redirect is often called a “server-side 301 redirect.” We don’t need to go into the specifics because this is pretty basic stuff for good web developers (simple .htaccess edits) – you just need to be sure your web designer/developer understands and commits to implementing redirects for you.

Also, as usual, Google has all kinds of info on this:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=93633

Practical aspects

The first thing you have to do is create a list of all your existing pages/URLs. Then, decide what new pages/URLs they should redirect to. Some people will use Google Webmaster Tools to see which pages are indexed and/or have inbound links and only redirect for those pages/URLs, particularly if they have a lot of pages. Then, rather than show a 404 error code when someone visits any other obsolete URL, show your sitemap or another page on your new website. Also, your developer might have a simple technique for managing redirects.

In any event, it is critical that you discuss redirects with your web designer (1) before you hire them (so you’re sure they understand it), and (2) during the redesign process so you’re sure your existing URLs are all cataloged and the redirects can be properly implemented.

Conclusion

If you are relaunching your website, it is critical to your SEO and online friends that you utilize redirects:

- They’re easy to do.

- Good web developers and designers can handle the whole process for you.

Best wishes,

Eric Weidner

In last week’s post, I covered the gigantic $200 to $25,000 range of website budgets. And before that, I introduced the “comparables” idea and outlined this series of posts.

Now, we get into the high-end stuff. You’ll see larger businesses, more sophisticated design, deeper functionality and powerful online marketing techniques. And for the really big companies, the websites will include tight integration with internal business processes and a higher level of consulting.

$25,000-$50,000

http://www.dreamgarage.com

http://www.nimblefish.com

Dream Garage is a blend of business models: publishing, user-generated content, advertising/affiliate revenue, permission email marketing. To make it all work required expertise in design and development, and great client communications.

Nimble Fish needed a sophisticated marketing website to match its sophisticated products, services and solutions. Again, a site this good requires the work of dedicated designers and developers.

• Web and online marketing consulting.
• Sophisticated CMS.
• 3^rd party service provider integration.
• Custom development.
• Custom analytics and reporting.

$50,000-$100,000

http://www.rainx.com

http://www.bannerengineering.com

When you get to this budget level, you’re a larger company, the design is top-notch, and the website is more tightly integrated into the business structure. Also, larger companies require more reporting and communication, and the teams that help larger companies need the structure and support to handle them.

Rain-X’s website doen’t just look great, it works great. It quickly pulls you into the online sales process. It has tons of content and features. And it’s super-SEO-friendly.

• Web and online marketing consulting.
• Sophisticated CMS with multiple language/localization management.
• Ecommerce.
• 3^rd party service provider integration.
• Custom development.
• Custom analytics and reporting.

$100,000-$200,000

http://www.clickriches.com

This site takes an idea and turns it into a business. The project required creating relationships with 3rd parties (like eBay), and a lot of custom development work and UI design.

• Business-process and technology consulting and development.
• Local, high-end design.
• Very sophisticated online marketing features.
• Customer management and administrative features.
• Ecommerce customization.
• 3rd party analytics integration.
• 3rd party API “mash-up.”

$200,000 and up

http://www.walgreens.com

Big companies like Walgreens need more than great design and solid technology. They need efficient processes, accountability and planning that brings all the various stakeholders together. There’s a good chance the site is integrated with Microsoft SharePoint or some other enterprise systems.

• Sophisticated content management and workflow features.
• High-end UI design.
• Sophisticated reporting and analytics features.
• 3rd party ecommerce and CRM integration.
• Systems integration (like the pharmacy functionality).
• Ongoing maintenance and enhancement.
• Business-process and technology consulting.
• Custom development.

I hope this series of articles helps clarify the prices you might see or budgets you can expect when you consider your next website project.

Previously:

> $200 or $200,000? How Much Does A Website Cost? (Introduction)

> How Much Does A Website Cost? The $25,000-$200,000 And Above Range (2^nd in series)

Last week I introduced the idea of website “comparables” and the various budget levels that I (and many web professionals) use to judge a website’s budget. So, in this post I cover the huge range of $200 websites to $25,000 websites.

In all honesty, there is a tremendous amount of variability in the quality and functionality you can get with all budgets. A lot will depend on how well you can specify your requirements, how quickly and efficiently you work with your design/development team, and how good a deal you can get!

A note about outsourcing: Most web developers and designers I know outsource at least some of their work to offshore teams. This can be a real money-saver for you! Just be sure the folks you work with are honest about it.

Now, onto the “comparables:”

$200-$1,000

http://www.bistro39sandiego.com

http://www.aestheticsmiles.com

Both of these sites look great. The clients probably gave the web design teams the imagery required to make the sites look so good, or spent a significant amount of time finding the right stock images, but the basic architecture and functionality of each is quite simple.

• Offshore design, possibly based on templates.
• “Flat” HTML or PHP pages, or very simple WordPress integration.
• Less than 12 pages.
• Simple forms that send email.
• Clients provide high-end images.

$1,000-$5,000

http://seatcovers4car.com

http://www.drcynthiab.com

Seat Covers – This site looks like it is built with osCommerce and probably utlizes a pre-built template – an effective way to get a decent ecommerce site. I would imagine it was built by an outsourced team in India (or similar).

Dental website – You can see that the design quality has jumped up a level and that they integrated a 3^rd party service provider, DemandForce, which handles scheduling and some marketing. Looks like an effective marketing tool.

• Templated design for ecommerce, high quality design for marketing site.
• Open-source ecommerce solution.
• Flat HTML, PHP or simple WordPress integration.
• Basic 3^rd party service integration.

$5,000-$10,000

http://www.dychem.com

http://www.coloradoballet.org

DryChem’s site doesn’t look fancy, but it is run on a nice CMS and has lots of very smart sales and marketing features that pull in traffic and keep the site engaging.

The Colorado Ballet’s site is lovely and looks like it is run with a CMS – that means updating it is probably a snap. It also has a surprisingly large amount of content.

• CMS.
• Online and on-page market services.
• Web and online marketing consulting
• Great design.
• Simple 3^rd party service integration.

$10,000-$25,000

http://www.expoimaging.com

http://experiencesequoia.com

ExpoImaging: great-looking, fast, smart, good ecommerce, customer galleries, testimonials – lots of content and functional. A solid, deep website.

Experience Sequoia: These guys needed to stand out, and look fantastic. They provide a relatively high-end service, so their site obviously needs to look great and work very well, or their busy, professional market will quickly lose patience. Lots of useful features inside.

• CMS.
• Great design.
• Custom development.
• 3^rd party service integration.
• Web and online consulting.
• Open-source ecommerce.

As you can see, for $10,000-$25,000, you can get a really great website, and for even less, you can still look like a pro.

My next post will cover the higher-end websites in the $25,000-$200,000 and above categories.

Previously:

> $200 or $200,000? How Much Does A Website Cost? (Introduction)

Next:

> How Much Does A Website Cost? The $25,000-$200,000 And Above Range

“How much does a website cost?”

I sure wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked that question!

So, in order to help business owners, I’m going to set the record straight – at least for mid-2010. And I hope the fancy-shmancy web design companies and over-priced ad agencies don’t kill me!

Over the course of three posts (two more after this), I will show “comparable” websites and budget estimates (sort of like real estate “comparables”) that suggest what you should consider paying for something similar today. The budget ranges will be:

• $200-$1,000
• $1,000-$5,000
• $5,000-$10,000
• $10,000-$25,000
• $25,000-$50,000
• $50,000-$100,000
• $100,000-$200,000
• Over $200,000

First off, it is a great time for businesses that need new websites or enhancements to existing sites. Prices have come down a lot, and marketing and content management features have become cheaper (if not entirely free) and easier to use and integrate (thanks to open source technology and platforms like LAMP and WordPress, technology leaders like Google, and outsourcing through companies like Elance). And website hosting has become a commodity – prices just seem to get lower and lower.

Some things, however, still require top-notch expertise and dedicated, professional talent: High-quality, powerfuly-branded design; online marketing consulting and strategy; technical architecture, particularly for new business models; and honest, reliable consulting and project management if you don’t have time or are uncertain of what will work best for your business. That said, for most businesses it is a great time to get good deals on solid, professional websites.

A few notes:

1. All the websites I discuss in this series as “comparables” are great examples of professional web building. The designers and developers, and their clients, should be proud of these sites.

2. The estimated prices are for what I consider standard websites that contain a typical amount of design and technological features. The estimated budgets of the “comparables” are based on my experience and prices listed on sites like www.sortfolio.com, www.elance.com and www.99designs.com – check them out to see what you can get for your budget.

3. The prices could be lower if you are extremely web-savvy or have a web-savvy employee who is skilled at outsourcing.

4. “It all depends …” There are lots of pricing variables. Back-end features, content management systems (CMS), online marketing work, 3^rd party service integration, consulting, custom photography and design … well, you get the idea. Things that may seem simple or obvious might actually require lots of detail work to get right.

5. Of the websites I discuss, Workbox was only involved with one (www.clickriches.com – I consulted); I’m using all the other sites as “comparables” and don’t know their actual budgets and have no relationship with their designer/builders or their owners.

Next week, I show and discuss websites that fall somewhere in the $200-$25,000 price range. The vast, vast majority of websites online today fall in this price range, and I break them down into estimated budgets of $200-$1000; $1,000-$5,000; $5,000-$10,000; and $10,000-$25,000.

Thanks for reading!

- Eric

Next:

> How Much Does A Website Cost? The $200-$25,000 Range

> How Much Does A Website Cost? The $25,000-$200,000 And Above Range

Our previous posts explain that your website must tell your story quickly, remain up-to-date and collect contact information. Now, comes the final element: measuring results. And it is probably the easiest to set up.

Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools

Google’s amazing analytics and webmaster tools are free and give most businesses the data they need to understand how successful their website is and what could be done to improve it in the future.

Note: Google’s instructions thoroughly documented, that I won’t go through them here. However, here are the links:

http://www.google.com/analytics/

http://www.google.com/webmasters/

Start With Existing Website (If You Have One)

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re considering building a new website or rebuilding an existing site. If you already have a site, now is the time to add Google Analytics to your site and sign up for Google Webmaster tools. Here’s why:

1. Create a baseline measurement – Capture a month or so of analytics data before you launch your new site. That way you can measure whether the new site improves your traffic or not, and why. Note: When you new site launches, you may see a short-term drop in traffic. It should get back to the baseline in a month or so.

2. If you don’t create redirects for all old pages, at least create redirects for linked pages – In Google Webmaster Tools, you can see which pages other websites are linking to. That means you need to “redirect” from those pages’ URLs to the new pages’ URLs.

For example, if your old site had a page: “http://www.worbox.com/team.html” and your new site’s URL for this same content is: “http://www.workbox.com/management-team.html”, you should create a “redirect” from team.html to management-team.html.

This isn’t as complicated as it sounds, and any good web builder will understand it. The important thing is to not lose those in-bound links – they are SEO gold!

General Measurements

One of the great things about Google’s Analytics service (other than being amazingly powerful and free) is that it includes lessons and tips about using the service and what the data means. “Conversion University” is particularly useful. It contains lessons about every aspect of Google Analytics, and again, it’s free!

Here are some of the things you can learn:

• How much traffic you are getting, what days, what times
• Which pages are most popular
• Where your traffic is coming from: direct links, Google, Bing, Yahoo!, other sites
• What keywords visitors are using to find you in Google

Honestly, this topic is so vast that I won’t bother going into details here. But, my message is simple: If you are at all serious about using your website as a marketing tool, you need to at least know the basics about Google Analytics.

Set Goals

Google Analytics “Goals” are not understood by many small businesses, but they are a powerful tool for measuring how effective your site is, not just from general and vague “traffic” but by tracking a specific action that you want visitors to take and that you can measure.

For many marketing websites, the most important goal is gathering sales leads. Typically this is done two ways : directly through a sales lead form (a “contact us” page form, for example), or indirectly through an email newsletter or some other “registration” or “sign up” form.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Make sure your lead gen form has a “thank you” page.

2. Create a “Goal” that uses your “thank you” page’s URL.

3. Review your Goal data after you send out an email, Facebook update or Tweet. What got you the most Goal conversions? Now you have the beginning of a true online marketing campaign!

Conclusion

Your website tells what you do accurately and quickly, you keep it up-to-date, you gather sales leads, and now you know what content and online marketing techniques work best for you. You are truly on your way to targeted online domination!

All the posts in this series:

4 Things Your New Marketing Site Must Do: #1 – Tell Your Story Quickly (http://blog.workbox.com/4-things-1-tell-story-quickly/)

4 Things Your New Marketing Site Must Do: #2 – Update Regularly (http://blog.workbox.com/4-things-your-new-marketing-site-must-do-2-update-regularly/)

4 Things Your New Marketing Site Must Do: #3 – Collect Contact Information (http://blog.workbox.com/4-things-3-collect-contacts/)

4 Things Your New Marketing Site Must Do: #4 – Measure Results (http://blog.workbox.com/4-things-4-marketing-measure-results/)

Most small business customers are local. Also, most small businesses don’t have a lot of money to spend on online marketing. Fortunately, three of the most powerful local online marketing tools are free and easy to use. And they are specifically useful for helping nearby customers and clients find you.

In this post, we’ll tell you about:

• Google Local Business Center
• Yahoo!Local
• Yelp

All three get lots and lots of traffic, and Google and Yahoo! will list your business on their excellent maps. And did I mention they’re free?

Tip: Search engine optimizers have been recommending these tips for years. Isn’t it time you took advantage of these tools?

1. Google Local Business Center

Google is the king of online search and has some of the most-highly used mapping tools in the world today. Be sure your business is listed so searchers can find you in their area.

You’ll need to create a Google Account, then add your business to the Local Business Center. It requires a few steps, but it is pretty easy and it is free!

Here’s how to sign up with Google Local Business Center:

1.1. Go to http://www.google.com/accounts/
In bottom right, find this text and click:

Don’t have a Google Account?
Create an account now

1.2.  Sign up – Follow Google’ account sign up process. It requires a small amount of work.

1.3. Once you’re signed up and logged in, go to the top account page, and find the “Local Business Center” link – Fill out the form. Request that they send you a postcard to confirm, rather than other options which require doing work to your website or loading a file via FTP.

1.4. The postcard from Google will have a link and PIN on it. Go to the link and enter your PIN – you’re done!

Another way to sign up with Google – search these words in Google: Google Local Business Center – the search results will take you directly to the starting page which shows a little video overview.

Also, Google, as always, has great online help:

- Getting started: http://maps.google.com/support/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guide.cs&guide=21029&topic=21030

- Adding a listing: http://maps.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=21029&topic=21032

2. Yahoo!Local

Yahoo! may not be quite as popular as Google overall, but they are very powerful in local online marketing. Registering your business is very simple and, again, it’s free.

Here’s how to sign up with Yahoo!Local:

2.1. Go to: http://listings.local.yahoo.com/csubmit/index.php – Complete the basic form, then click on the “> Additional Information” text link and fill out the rest of the form – the more complete, the more useful it is for your customers. That’s it!

3. Yelp

Yelp might have gotten some bad publicity lately, but they are simply too powerful to ignore. Signing up with them requires a few steps, but you can’t beat the price (free). To be sure you are listed properly, you will need to create a “Business Owner Account.”

Here’s how to sign up with Yelp:

3.1. Go to: http://www.yelp.com/business?country=US – This page has a good overview of what Yelp is all about.

3.2. Click on the “Get Started” button – You will now see a page the asks you to search for your business, since there’s a good chance it already exists on Yelp. If you see your business listed, click on the “Select” text link, then the “Next Step” button.

If you don’t see your business listed, click on the “Having trouble finding your business?” text link at the bottom of the listings, and follow the same process.

3.3. Next, you fill out the basic information form. Yelp will then email you. The email will contain a link that you need to click to confirm you are with the business.

3.4. After clicking on the link in the email, you will get a more advanced form that lets you fill in more information about your business. Be sure to take advantage of this form – it gives you the ability to tell the world all about your business – for free!

I hope your business will take advantage of these three powerful, free websites.

Eric Weidner

COLLECT CONTACT INFORMATION

One of the few things your new marketing website can “do,” other than branding, is to build an in-house email marketing list for your business. In our opinion, if your website doesn’t get visitors to leave their contact information, you’ve wasted your money and your visitors’ time. If someone makes the effort to visit your site, there’s a good chance they’re interested in what you have to offer, even if they aren’t going to buy today.

It’s simple: give visitors an enticement to receive email from you, and use a form on your website to gather email addresses into a list of email subscribers. Then, send high-quality emails to your email list. This process is the most basic form of email marketing – and it works.

Tip: When people sign up to receive email from your company, they must get something of value, not just self-serving blather. Make an effort to give worthwhile information or insights, real bargains or other timely information.

First, this article covers some of the most basic enticements, then shows how to fit the contact info collection process into your website.

Tip: Be sure your visitors understand they’re “opting in” and later have a chance to “unsubscribe.”

SUBSCRIBER ENTICEMENTS

Enticement #1 – Discounts & Specials

Discounts and specials move product, and early announcement of discounts and specials make the recipients feel that they’re getting valuable information, too. This enticement can appear on your homepage, in the shopping cart or on a confirmation page. Retailers typically have an opt-in/opt out button in the registration process.

Enticement #2 – Give-aways

Give-aways are a proven way to build up a mailing list. Offer something (not too expensive), then see how much information you can gather from your visitors in your give-away registration form – ask a few questions that they can answer by simply clicking. Gift certificates and iPods seem to work really well! Also, this is particularly good if you want a quick “hit” and are willing to sacrifice the quality of the list over the quantity.

Enticement #3 – Newsletters

Free, expert information and news is a wonderful thing to receive in an in-box. If your company can write up news, trends or opinions about your industry or niche that targets your viewers’ interests, you have the seeds of an online newsletter.

Enticement #4 – Events & Seminars

If your company sponsors events or seminars, people want to get reminders about times and locations. Try offering discounts to events through email to increase attendance.

Enticement #5 – Valuable Content

Industry experts and researchers have data that people want. And you can give it to your viewers in exchange for opting in to an email list.

Tip: Keeping contact information in an online database gives you the ability to export and manage your contact data most effectively.

PUTTING IT ON YOUR WEBSITE

Example: Intelliden

Workbox’s client, Intelliden (http://www.intelliden.com), wins the gold star for lead-gen, contact information collection in the B2B category. They gather this data in two specific ways:

1. Valuable content – Intelliden’s team are experts in their particular field (intelligent network automation, for big, sophisticated networks). They also have a very targeted market. So, they are in a unique position to generate deep, insightful content that their market will find useful. But, to get to the really good stuff, you have to register and “pay” by giving them your contact information (see 1. – a detail of Intelliden’s “Resources” page.)

2. They simply ask – In Intelliden’s contact form, at the bottom, they quite simply ask you to subscribe to receive news. And they segment subscribers into folks who want product news or folks who want any news at all. Easy! (See 2. – a detail of Intelliden’s “Contact Us” page)

Through this process, Intelliden is able to generate an in-house email list that is pure gold.

CONCLUSION

One of the few ways you can measure your marketing website’s success is to see how effectively it gathers sales leads. That means collecting contact information from your website’s visitors in a form. And here’s why that’s important: Once you collect contact information, you can start using one of the web’s most effective and efficient marketing tools – email.

All the posts in this series:

4 Things Your New Marketing Site Must Do: #1 – Tell Your Story Quickly (http://blog.workbox.com/4-things-1-tell-story-quickly/)

4 Things Your New Marketing Site Must Do: #2 – Update Regularly (http://blog.workbox.com/4-things-your-new-marketing-site-must-do-2-update-regularly/)

4 Things Your New Marketing Site Must Do: #3 – Collect Contact Information (http://blog.workbox.com/4-things-3-collect-contacts/)

4 Things Your New Marketing Site Must Do: #4 – Measure Results (http://blog.workbox.com/4-things-4-marketing-measure-results/)