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"Tips and tools for making web sites the easy way,"
by John E. Davin

From our series of 8 business and computing "How to books."

"Professional web sites don't have to take weeks to build or cost an arm and a leg. More over, by being educated about websites and then helping with the planning and development, of your web site, you will have a better, more effective web site!"
by John Davin

 It's all about what you can start doing immediately - today - right now - to get your web site up and running faster, with less headache, with more bells and whistles, with better graphics and more money making tools than you ever imagined. While you save money on web design software, templates, graphics, logos and more.

See you in the seminar!

 		 

Sign up for my newsletter and I'll send you a list of the upcoming seminars on how to build a web site and how I use the Internet as my newoffice, even from the swimming pool!

Just fill out the form or send me an e-mail at jddavin@mynewoffice.com and enter "free web site news". I'll get more website building tips out to you right away.

Table of contents:

Where to start when you do decide you need a web site.

So, you are ready to build your dream web site. Yes, it is an exciting time for you, and it should be.

You are setting out on one of the most important tasks you will ever undertake in your business. I say this for many reasons.

First of all, your web site may be the first (and possibly the last) impression you will make on people who are interested in what you do or sell.

In addition, the experience they have at your web site in communicating with you or buying from you will determine if they return to your business again or not. In addition, your customer will either pass on the good news about your company to others, if they have an enjoyable experience.

YOUR MAIN GOALS:

Make it easy for people to get the information they need from you and and make it easy to buy from you!

How do you make sure you make it easy for people to find you, get information from you and and then buy from you? Well, as in any business task, it is always best to research a topic, and to explore all of your options before you jump right in. This is especially true when you plan the layout, graphics, functionality and marketing tools for your web site.

So, before you start building your new web site, you need a game plan and an mockup or outline for the web site. You'll save time, probably money too, and you'll end up with the best web site possible. A site that is easy for users to navigate and provides a compelling reason to buy from you, and provides an easy way for them to give you their money.

Where do you start? You have two goals to start. First, decide what you want to do with the website. Then you decide if you can do it yourself or if you need to hire someone to help you with parts of the web site or if they will do all of the tasks required for you.

All of these options are good choices, depending on you skills, time availability and cost, among other issues we will address below.

In any case...


Start with a mock up of your dream web site on paper.

Here is a simple trick to simplify the process of making your new dream web site and save money.

Start by taking 5-10 legal size pieces of paper, label each page as page 1-15, then go back and label each page, as Home, About us, Our products, Ordering Information, and such, until you have all the pages named and laid out in the order you want them.

Of course you can use more than 10 pages if necessary, but keep it simple. To keep it simple, you can even cut pictures out of your existing brochures or newspapers or magazines and paste them on each respective page to get an idea of how the site will look.

More importantly, you will know how it will work for you and the customer.

You should do this now before you even start reading this book, so you will see how much your expectations for your new web site change while you read the book. It will also save you time and money, no matter if you decide to build the web site yourself or if you hire a webmaster to build it for you.



Next, take the time to evaluate the web sits of the competition.

To get additional ideas for what belongs on your web site, you certainly should go out on the Internet and look at web sites that are similar to yours before you start.

You'll see what others have done, learn from them and improve on their ideas. Take the best ideas and leave the rest.

Here is one of the best ideas I have for you for building your web site..


Time saving Templates:

I also want to recommend that you review your options for using templates and other time and money saving tools for your website. Web site templates are simply web sites that a web master creates with the intention of selling to you so that you don't need to do all the work involved with making a layout for your web site or making the graphics for your web site.

Here are a few examples templates I used to build web sites. In fact, here is one I used (free) to build a website for my parents' real estate office.

http://www.dickdavinrealestate.com

It worked quite well for them and saved me many hours (time is money!) developing the site.

More examples.

http://www.dailynetworking.com
http://www.midstatesconsulting.com

You may find that building your web site is EASIER than you anticipated or you may be able to save money by providing a template for your web master.

Or you may encourage your web site builder to use an online web site builder with 30 plug and play modules that will save time and money.

Here is just one example of a site where you can find hundreds of website templates for just about any business.

Templates for small business websites for under $20


http://www.talking-templates.com is a another great place to start looking for layouts for your new website. First of all, you will see a variety of templates for each industry, from sports sites to real estate sites. You will also be impressed with the quality of the templates, and how easy it could be to build your own traffic generating, sales pulling web site from these templates.

Now, some people are worried about more than one person or company using the same template, and that can be a valid concern if you are in certain industries. The best solution to this is to check to see if the website template author offers the option to sell the template as a one time sale template.

This means he/she will not sell it to anyone else. Ever. But you pay a premium for this, sometimes 10 times as much as for a website that they will sell over and over. For example, a website template that is sold more than once may cost $40.00. A template that they will sell only one time may cost $400.00. Still, that is a huge bargain in development time and cost for you. Something to consider.

Even if you do have a webmaster do your website, ask them if they will consider using a template of you have found one you like. Chances are they will be happy to do so.

TIP: We'll be covering many more money and time saving business solutions, and will be listing links to those services throughout the book and at the end of the book.


Time saving Web Site Builders:

Do it yourself - Small business websites for Under $20!

* Save time building your site.
* Save money building your site.
* Make changes as often as you like.
* Control the content of your own web site.
* Utilize the free templates and images provided.

Bottom line is, if you want to build your web site yourself with a powerful web site builder, and pay only $19.95 per month, this is as good a program as I have found.

Why? Because these tools are built right in.

Links Page

You can add links to pages both inside and outside your site with just a few clicks. Add headings to separate groups of links Use this page to create subpages Can optionally add images for each link

Photo Albums
Showcase your photos in our pre formatted albums. Your photos are shown in thumbnail form and when clicked on show the photo in full size with optional title and description. Thumbnails are created automatically for you Change the order of your photos anytime

Multimedia

You can upload music, video, flash and other files to your site with just a few clicks. Upload any file format Have video or flash play right on your page Create a page of links to download songs or video Good for upload of ebooks, pdf forms and manuals Store songs here so you can play background music on other pages

Custom Feedback Form

Collecting visitor feedback can help you enhance your site, products and services. You can also collect testimonials privately or generate ideas for your company, club or organization. Field types: text boxes for written out answers multiple choice drop-down menus checkmark boxes Submissions can be emailed to you automatically when received A personalized email can be automatically sent when a submission is received Submissions are stored on your site for easy access

Contacts Page

You can list important people with their name, position/department, email and any other info you think is important. Use this page to direct people to the correct person or department Contacts are automatically formatted for you

Guest Book

You can collect comments about your site with this page.

Recommend Site

Your visitors can refer others to your site by filling out a form that sends out an email. When you add this page, the form is automatically set up..

Message Board

Message boards are great for discussing different topics, gathering info and fostering a sense of community among your members. Login available for your regular members Members have their own profiles and autosignature Give Moderator status to a member to help you manage the page Add, edit and delete posts or message threads Lock messages to prevent further posts on the topic

Mailing List/Newsletter

You can post several newsletters and then have them batch emailed to your subscribers. Manage your subscribers right on your site Your subscriber emails can be exported as a list Newsletters are displayed by date

Questions and Answers Page

Often you can answer your visitors' questions with an FAQ page on your site. Use this page to organize them. Questions appear at the top and link to answers below You can separate questions with headings

Redirect Page

You can link your site to pages outside your site right from your index. This is helpful when you wish to link your company's parent site or a related site.

Autoresponder Page

You can use this page to send out instruction guides and other material immediately after collecting an email. Emails are stored on your site so you can send promotional material to your visitors later.

Calendar

A calendar can be a helpful way to outline upcoming events. When an event is clicked on, more detailed info is shown about the event. Advertise in-store or company events For reservations, show booked off days Display your club or organization's events and meetings

Articles Page

You can post several articles that will be automatically formatted on the page. Publish a series of articles or journal entries Use this page to post announcements

Coupons

To help draw customers to your physical store, you can create coupons that your visitors can print out and bring to your store. Add your own images and text to each coupon You can have several coupons on this page

Map

After you enter your address, a link to a map is automatically generated. You can then opt to post the map right on your page.

Quotes Page

You can display testimonials from your customers or showcase famous quotes or poems on your page.

Polling Booth

To collect votes on various issues, you can add a poll that displays results in a bar graph. 10 responses per poll Old polls are archived Each IP address is restricted to 1 vote Hours of Operation You can display your business hours conveniently for your customers. Table of Contents You can show a listing of your pages in the index. Press Releases You can publish several press releases that will be automatically formatted on the page. Releases are organized by date Good for company announcements

Hours of Operation

You can display your business hours conveniently for your customers.

Table of Contents

You can show a listing of your pages in the index.

Press Releases

You can publish several press releases that will be automatically formatted on the page. Releases are organized by date Good for company announcements

3 Catalog Layouts

Sell products and services right from your site. Your products are listed as thumbnails and/or links that can be clicked on to show more details and your cart buttons. Add up to 3 images per product Add up to 3 drop-down menus and 1 comment box per product No coding Space for 500 products $1 for each 50 products upgraded

Integrated Shopping Cart

 You can customize your cart to accept PayPal or credit card processing. You can also add taxes and shipping and handling to your order subtotals. PayPal integration Authorize.net integration Save $450 in fees when setting up credit card processing Cart buttons can be turned on or off

VeriSign Secure Certified

With our VeriSign Secure Certified cart, your customers will be worry free when buying products from you. Save $500 by not having to buy your own secure certificate Your cart displays your VeriSign Logo on the checkout pages

Template Builder

You can change your template anytime to any of our pre-formatted templates. Or, you can customize your template with your own images, color choices and more. Choose from 200 pre-formatted templates You just have to click on different options to change your template, there's no coding

Text Editors

You can edit and format text with no code, but still have the flexibility to add code. 2 text editors similar to a word processor 1 text editor that allows you to add html or javascript Switch between editors anytime

SUMMARY: With 30 plus tools and a simple online editor, this is the easy way to build your web site.

As you can see, this is the easiest way to build a professional web site, unless you pay someone else thousands of dollars to build your web site.

TRY BUILDING YOUR OWN WEB SITE FREE!

Best of all, you can build your web site WITH NO RISK IN THE TRIAL MODE.

Then pay for your web site only after you have built it and tested it.

Contact me if you would like to participate in a class on this program.


Now, let's talk about the different types of web sites you might want to build:

In the last book, we discussed which types of web sites you might want to build. They are:
  • Family
  • Personal
  • Club/Group
  • Special interest groups
  • Small business and E-commerce
  • Corporate entity
Once you have made the decision on what type of web site will best fit your needs, there are many additional tools and secrets that you will need to build a successful Internet marketing campaign. These marketing tools include:

Search Engine Submittals
Free Reviews Of your Submittals
Classified Ads Submittals
Banner Link Exchanges
Opt In Mailing Lists
e-mail responders
External Audits
Website forms
Chat Rooms
Newsgroups
FFA Pages
Webrings
E-zines
More!

For now, now, let's look at the types of web sites you can build in detail. Then we'll show you how to do build your dream web site.

Creating a family website

If you are interested in creating a personal website to share with your family and friends, start here. If you are interested in making money with your website, skip this chapter!

Some of the items you might want to share on a family website are:

·Weddings
· Family reunions
·Genealogy maps and news
·New members of the family (births, etc.)

With a personal home page, your goals usually would be to share pictures, stories and events about you and your family. You might have a new grandchild to show off, or you might want to share pictures from a vacation, reunion or a trip to a family member's home for a weekend.

You might want to share information about an upcoming event such as a birthday party or family reunion, too. You can even share the event with your visitors after the event on your website!

The bottom line is you have news, stories or pictures you want to post on the website for people to enjoy and you want them to know what you've been doing in your life and what you have planned.

You will also probably want to be able to invite your web site visitors to share pictures, web sites and voice conversations with you, so here is just one solution for this need.

Visit http://www.ondemandconferencing.com or view this power point presentation for an example of how you will communicate via the Internet in the future.

Of course there are many steps to creating even a family web site, like choosing a web host, a domain name, and software to create the site. We do address all of these issues below, after we complete an outline of the different types of web pages you might want to build. You will also want to review the tips on digital scanners and cameras and more in the following sections, so let's continue.

“Personal Office ” Web Sites

The Internet is changing so fast that we are starting to see that many Internet users now own two websites, or more! Examples are:

1. A web site to share information with their friends and family as mentioned above.
2. A web site set up for business purposes such as an e-commerce web site.
2. A personal website for the individual oriented towards accomplishing daily tasks.

An example of this is a personal web site that I visit each day on the Internet (from any Internet ready computer) that includes links to all of the business tools that use each day.

Such as my web conferencing room where I meet and talk to my clients and my fellow business partners to talk and share web pages. This system truly is replacing my phone more each day, and it will only continue to be more and more a part of my life as more and more people learn about it. Please hurry people!

I can also click on a link to my web based e-mail to read my e-mail, again from any location that has an Internet ready pc.

Of course I also want to be able to access my contact manager from any Internet ready pc because it gives me access to phone numbers for my contacts as well as my calendar and my schedule for the day.

I even have a link to a program that allows me to access my computer at home from anywhere, such as the library or my notebook computer while I am on vacation. Just in case I need a copy of my letterhead or to look up a bill or password or even run any application on my pc, all through the Internet.

I guess this means I have a mobile office, which is exactly why I call the Internet my new office (MyNewoffice.com). And you can too, but that's another book.

In any case, this scenario is becoming a more viable solution every day as more and more “desktop” applications (programs like word processors, contact mangers and more) are migrating to the Internet to be used on the Internet or being available through the Internet.

So all although most of us have always known we can access our e-mail via any Internet ready PC, now we’ll be adding our scheduler, address book, notepad and more to our array of tools we can use 24 hours per day, from anywhere in the world! That’s quite amazing and quite helpful to almost everyone.

The fact that our applications and data will be on the Internet means that we’re no longer tied to an office. All of the work that you can do in your office, you can now do on a business trip at a motel, or from a vacation beach! All you have to have is access to the Internet. 

If you're wondering if I am excite about this option, rest assured, I am so excite about it, I wrote an entire book about it and use it everyday to enhance my life.

“I simply don’t want to quit working just because I did not bring along my computer. Wherever I have access to the Internet, I have access to my office! Now I can take work vacations anywhere I want, any time I want. And take the family can come along and enjoy my company.

John Davin 2000

The fact is, with the advent of the Internet, we’ll certainly see all applications remotely enabled in the near future, but here are a few programs that are available to the traveler or mobile worker today.

The basic tools are:

·  E-mail
· Voice Calls
· Voice conferencing
·  Address and contact book
·  Filing cabinet - all letters/contracts, etc.
·  Calendar (scheduler and Daytimer online)
·  Text faxing free, from your website!

You will also probably want to be able to invite your web site visitors to share pictures, web sites and voice conversations with you, so here is just one solution for this need.

Visit http://www.ondemandconferencing.com or view this power point presentation for an example of how you will communicate via the Internet in the future.

Building a website for your hobby club or special interest group – and using it to raise money.

Other types of personal websites are special interest or hobby websites. These are a bit different than a family based website, in that you will want to share your ideas with a larger audience and probably with others out of your family and close circle of friends.

There are different type of clubs or special interest site. For example, you might have a local club that is simply interested in sharing information locally about their hobby, such as miniature airplanes. Another type of club is a special interest club. Most of these clubs are larger than hobby groups discussed above. Many of these groups have an agenda and deeper pockets to promote their interests. Sounds serious, almost scary, right? Well, the agenda could be as simple as promoting the safe use of fireworks or raising money for the local Boy Scouts club! 

Many of these groups are also using the Internet to recruit members or to raise money for their causes, and you can too!

Examples of special interest clubs (as defined by the Author)

-The United Way
-The Democratic Party
-The Republican Party

Most special interest clubs will want to use many of the tools of the clubs will use as listed below, with an emphasis on the following:

- Fund Raising Pages
- Discussion Boards
- Website Counters

The funny thing about both groups is that you as a member may not even care if you ever meet the other individuals in the group. All you care about is that they share your interests in your group and want to share ideas and news about the hobby or special interest.

In fact, I have found that if I want to talk about my hobby of collecting antique computers, it's best to contact people other than my family members, as they do not share my interests in subjects like antique computers!

I have learned that the best place to go is to the Internet to find others who share my interest, and I am pleased to say that I have found plenty of people on the Internet who share my interests. People who are ready, willing and able to talk to me about my hobby or even help me with my hobby.

That's the beauty of the Internet. With your own website, you can now locate and communicate with people thousands of miles away who share your interests.

Some will even use their website to raise money for their group or hobby. We will out line how to do so at the end of this chapter.

Here are a few more clubs or special interest groups that would benefit from a home page.

·Movie Clubs
·Fan Clubs
·Airplane Clubs
·Car Clubs
·The Sierra Club
·Support groups
·Library Clubs
·Chess Clubs
·Antique Clubs

If your club is new or of limited members, you will probably want to submit your home page to the search engines so that others can find your website and join your club or offer support for your group.

Here are a few items you may want to offer on your site.

·  Fund raising news
· Events such as trade shows and swap meets
· Upcoming events bulletin board - open to all members
· E-mail to the group – basically an electronic newsletter
· Maps to locations of events such as trade shows and swap meets
· Membership names, addresses, phone numbers if approved by each member
· A “for sale” bulletin board for swapping items on the Internet between members
· Reviews of completed trade shows, meetings and swap meets. You can even present pictures taken with your digital camera

How to get more e-mail addresses for your mailing list and membership list.

Just about every website will want to get information from it's visitors.

Start with a simple form that is called a guest book, that encourages people to leave their name and address so you know who has visited the site and you can then send them a weekly, monthly or quarterly newsletter.

In the case of a special interest group or club, a form can also accept applications for membership or accept donations for your group!

If you'd like to see an example of a MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION, simply put your membership application on-line! Please send me e-mail and I'll send it out.

Fundraising for your group or club.

Simply ask your group to join programs that everyone needs or would enjoy using. As long as the group has tested the product and checked its background, there should be now problems.

Here are a just a few ways you can raise funds for your organization:

1. Ask people to shop at a site like igive.com where a percentage of each sale will go to your group. The program costs nothing to join, and offers the opportunity to generate hundreds if not thousands of dollars for your organization!

If you’re interested in these programs, we’d be glad to share our list of many programs that are legal and ethical. Send e-mail to:

jddavin@mynewoffice.com and enter income in the subject, and we’ll send you the list!

How I use my website to promote my special interests.

As I mentioned, because I would find only a handful of people who share my interests in antique computers in my town, I am so thankful to have the Internet to meet these people.

In fact, once I had found others had similar interests around the world, I developed a website, newsletter and discussion group for my interest in antique computers.

Visitors find my website on the Internet by typing in key words such as ANTIQUE COMPUTERS. Then they learn about my antique computer collection and other related sites, sign my guest book so I can send them my free newsletter, and join in my discussion about antique computers in my discussion section.

To better explain this, in the home page, I have pictures of my antique computers, with descriptions of where and when I located the items for my collection, along with any background news about the items that are interesting. I also make links to other sites that are related to the item, so they can enjoy related websites.

In my newsletter that I send out monthly, I write up tips and tricks about collecting, cleaning, and insuring antique computers as well as items that I would like to purchase or trade.  All in all, it's a great way to meet people with similar interests to help educate each other, and to swap items of interest.

In the discussion group, we talk about our interest in antique computers, make requests for hard to find manuals and such, and post messages about upcoming swap meets and group meetings.

Part of the real work involved with a website is getting the word out about your group. Here are a few tips on getting the word out on your website:

How to get the word out about your club or special interest group:

·Similar clubs and groups
·Local libraries which track groups like yours.
·Local newspapers which print directories of groups like yours.

If you're really serious about getting members, you can advertise in related publications, too. Or write a press release about your new group. Or advertise in trade journals. These are all things we discuss in the book on marketing. Just remember, if you want members outside of your city or local area, you will also want to submit the site to the Internet Search engines such as Yahoo.com and Google, etc.

At present, there are thousands of search engine services available, but 70% of the traffic to your site will probably come from 5-6 of the top engines on the market today.

Please review the section about search engine submittals at the end of the book.

You can also post notes in related newsgroups and discussion boards.

You might want to join a webring that simply links similar websites together. You start out at a starting website, and the system provides links that keep taking you to new random sites that are similar. Believe it or not, one does exist for even for antique computers, so the chance is you will find one that is related to your topic of interest.

Please review the section about webrings at the end of the book.

You will also probably want to be able to invite your web site visitors to share pictures, web sites and voice conversations with you, so here is just one solution for this need.

Visit http://www.ondemandconferencing.com or view this power point presentation for an example of how you will communicate via the Internet in the future.

Web sites for churches – a great way to keep the community informed!

 (Please review the section on family websites before you read this section)

Churches are special interest clubs in my mind too! They have a goal of sharing their beliefs with each other and supporting each other.

A few of the items that you might want to post on your church website are:

·Basic beliefs and goals
·Hours of services
·A map to your church
·A membership list for members only
·Information about youth programs
·Information about elderly programs
·Information about outreach programs

One of the agendas may also be to raise funds for items such as buildings, books, missionary programs and so forth.

If you would like to be able to invite your web site visitors to share an on-line service or for online prayer, here is just one solution for this need.

Visit http://www.ondemandconferencing.com or view this power point presentation for an example of how you will communicate via the Internet in the future.

Business Websites – opening a new location or starting a new business.

Here are just a few reasons why virtually all businesses are moving onto the Internet.

First of all, the Internet and your business website provide an extraordinary opportunity for you to not only present your company, products and services in a new, powerful medium, but to also have an almost unfair advantage over any of your competitors who do not have an Internet Website.

“Where else (but on the Internet) can you open a new store or second location for your business at a fraction of the cost of a brick and mortar building, be open almost overnight, be open 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, reduce your overhead, reduce the number or required employees, accept credit card payments electronically, open new markets to new customers world wide, market inexpensively to millions, gain market share inexpensively, drop ship products the very next day for products you don’t even carry in inventory, mine existing customer data to create additional sales for years into the future, and possibly become a millionaire? Only on the Internet!”

John Davin 2000

How to set up your online store to automate and simplify your life!

As you know from my other books, one of my goals in life is to automate every thing I do so that it takes less time to complete a task and as importantly, to make it easy for people find me, to learn about me, to find out what I sell, why to buy from me, and finally, how to buy from me. That should be your goal too.

This book shows you how to plan and then build your web site, and the next book covers how to market your web site. So be sure to pay attention to this book but keep in mind that n the next book we will be talking about about putting your business and your marketing plan on auto pilot too. To save time and to create an explosive growth in sales, covering topics such as e-mail responders, pay per click hits, search engines, voice conferencing rooms and more.

With that goal in mind, we'd better make sure you're ready for the business once it comes through the Internet, by talking about things like shopping habits of your clients, inventory control, e-mail invoices and such, starting out with the importance of accepting payments automatically via the Internet.

Then we'll actually get to explaining the tools you need to set up any type of we site from scratch. Along with a step by step checklist to get you started.

E-commerce websites

 Let's start out by talking about accepting credit cards from your website. First of all, you need to know foremost that it is so very, very important to the success of your business to be able to accept credit cards and bank drafts on your web site.

Statistics show you will sell 65% more product from your web site if you do accept credit cards than if you do not. So, let's address the following now:

- Accepting credit cards.
- Accepting electronic checks.
- Accepting additional forms of payment.

Accepting payments over the Internet...

If you want more sales with less hassles for both you and your customers, it is very important for you to automate this process. But you should be aware, there are many ways to accept payments over the Internet. Some are more expensive than others and and some are more complicated to set up and use than others.

So you will want to review the chapter on building your own web site for more detailed information, and this summary of the process and your goals for setting up an e-commerce based web site.

But I also suggest you read this completely free book on merchant accounts. Just download it to your computer, then come back to finish reading this book.

Or build your web site here with this free shopping cart.


How to sell products with an e-commerce enabled web site.

Here is how the process works. The customer visits your website and reviews what you have for sale. The customer then chooses items he/she wishes to purchase, and places them in an electronic shopping cart.

The customer can then add or remove more items from the shopping cart until they are ready to check out and pay for the items. This is called the check out procedure, just like what you do when you go shopping at the supermarket.

Now the customer provides information to the website such as

·Customer name / Phone #.
·Billing Address of customer.
·Shipping address of customer.