Helping small businesses develop an internet presence through the use of cost effective digital marketing solutions that will promote business growth and set your business on a path to success.
PUTTING YOUR BUSINESS ONLINE
Don’t be left behind. Develop an affordable small business website to gain internet exposure early in your business life cycle.
Grand Lake Marketing is an advocate for the early development of affordable small business websites. If you are a small business owner in a competitive market, then you don’t want to be left behind because your business lacks an internet presence.
Many small business owners are unsure if they really need a website, or if they even have enough information to develop one. Our answer is that you need to get your “name” out there, even if it means having a “bare bones,” or “Start-up Business Website.”
To be clear, a Start-up Business Website does not mean a less than professionally built website, but rather a fully responsive, cost-effective site that is structured and designed to keep pace with your growing business.
Paul Fogg, MBA
Full Disclosure, as an advocate for small business websites Grand Lake Marketing does not build sites, but rather refers interested business owners to our sister site, Grand Lake Web Designs, a top-ranked Oklahoma website design agency.
REASONS FOR A START-UP BUSINESS WEBSITE
Look Established and Ready for Business
Putting your business online with a professionally designed website will make a start-up business look and perform like a seasoned pro. Site visitors will find a business website that is inviting, engaging, and informative. When contacting leads on the phone or by email you can just leave a website address and your contact can visit your website at their leisure.
Also, with your own domain name (yourcompany.com) you will establish a strong online brand identity. You will also be able to set up a personalized email address for the business and yourself.
Bottom line, If you don’t have a website, your business is at a disadvantage. . . so why wait to put your business online?
8 Reasons for Small Business Website
1. Create a Lasting First Impression
Our Pixel Perfect Website Design program ensures that new visitors and potential customers will be pleased and assured to find a business website that is inviting, engaging, and informative. When contacting leads on the phone or by email you can just leave a well-crafted website address and your contact can visit your website at their leisure. Often, your site will make a better first impression than you will because not all of us are polished salespeople.
2. Another Powerful Sales Tool
Beyond just making basic information (address, phone, hours, etc.) immediately available to your visitors, your business website gives you an additional forum where you can address your customers’ needs and concerns. You can also offer them expanded information and convincing calls-to-action. By personalizing your website, you can offer your customers special deals and limited items, specifically for them.
3. Look Established and Ready for Business
A well-designed, well-produced website can make a start-up business look and perform like a seasoned pro. When your site appears near the top of the search results page, because your copy & images sparkle and your layout & navigation is engaging, you’ll know your website is up to the standards and ready to compete with larger and older sites in your niche.
4. Improve Your Advertising Effectiveness
Placing your website address on all your promotional material will help you gain additional exposure and encourage visitors to first check your site for the information they are seeking. Just by distributing your website address you’ll be expanding your reach and offering more than one promotional avenue to your audience.
5. Easy Access to New Customers
You can have your existing customers refer your site to their friends and relatives using only your web address. Also, random or organic visitors who come to your site via an online search will find you and stay with you if they find what they are looking for. Search engines are powerful tools and search engine optimization tools are an equal opportunity way to be found.
6. Own Your Internet Identity
Your own domain name (www.yourcompany.com) establishes a strong online brand identity. You can also set-up a personalized email address for the company, yourself, and your employees. This serves to build your brand.
7. Mobile-friendly Design
There was a time when small business owners only had access to a website that was best seen on a desktop. If you wanted a mobile website, you’d have to recreate the website in a mobile format or create an app. But now its standard practice to make websites responsive. Responsive websites allow your information to be seen on a desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile phone. The site will “shrink” intelligently so all your information can be read clearly.
8. Expand Your Market
The Internet allows businesses to break through geographical barriers and become accessible from anywhere in the world. Selling products online has become cheaper and easier for you and your customers.
Bottom line: If you don’t have a website, your company is at a huge disadvantage.
EXAMPLE START-UP WEBSITES
Advantages of Single Page Scrolling Websites
In putting your business online we often recommend a single-page scrolling website (similar to this website) to prospective clients. Scrolling websites have an advantage on mobile devices, from which most website visitors will arrive on your site. However, if design considerations indicate a traditional multi-page site, then that is what we will recommend.
The four clickable Start-up websites shown here were recently uploaded by Grand Lake Web Designs. Each of these sites has enough information to be indexed by Google and has plenty of room for later expansion to support business growth.
Answers to Commonly Asked Questions When Putting Your Business Online
Small business owners often have questions regarding website design and the internet. This FAQ answers some of those questions.
FAQ
WordPress
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While WordPress started as a blogging tool, it has evolved throughout the years into a powerful website builder and a robust content management system (CMS).
The best part about WordPress is that it’s easy to use and flexible enough to make different types of websites. That’s the main reason why WordPress has grown so much in popularity. According to a recent survey, WordPress powers 32.3% of all websites on the internet.
Due to it’s robust features, many of the top brands use WordPress to power their websites including Time Magazine, Facebook, The New Yorker, Sony, Disney, Target, The New York Times, and more.
eCommerce
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Ecommerce, also known as electronic commerce or internet commerce, refers to the buying and selling of goods or services using the internet, and the transfer of money and data to execute these transactions. Ecommerce is often used to refer to the sale of physical products online, but it can also describe any kind of commercial transaction that is facilitated through the internet
HTTPS
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Hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS) is the secure version of HTTP, which is the primary protocol used to send data between a web browser and a website. HTTPS is encrypted in order to increase security of data transfer. This is particularly important when users transmit sensitive data, such as by logging into a bank account, email service, or health insurance provider.
Any website, especially those that require login credentials, should use HTTPS. In modern web browsers such as Chrome, websites that do not use HTTPS are marked differently than those that are. Look for a green padlock in the URL bar to signify the webpage is secure.
Why is HTTPS important? What happens if a website doesn’t have HTTPS?
HTTPS prevents websites from having their information broadcast in a way that’s easily viewed by anyone snooping on the network. When information is sent over regular HTTP, the information is broken into packets of data that can be easily “sniffed” using free software. This makes communication over the an unsecure medium, such as public Wi-Fi, highly vulnerable to interception. In fact, all communications that occur over HTTP occur in plain text, making them highly accessible to anyone with the correct tools, and vulnerable to man-in the-middle attacks.
With HTTPS, traffic is encrypted such that even if the packets are sniffed or otherwise intercepted, they will come across as nonsensical characters
IP Address
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IP (Internet Protocol) Address is the address of your network hardware. It helps in connecting your computer to other devices on your network and all over the world. An IP Address is made up of numbers or characters.
An example of an IP address would be: 506.457.14.512
All devices that are connected to an internet connection have a unique IP address which means there’s a need of billions of IP addresses.
Public IP Address
Your public IP address is the main IP address to which your home or business network is connected. This IP address connects you to the world, and it’s unique for all users.
To find out your public IP address, simply go to SupportAlly site in your browser, and it will display the public IP, and other browser information.
DNS (DOMAIN NAME SERVER)
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The Domain Name System (DNS) is the phonebook of the Internet. Humans access information online through domain names, like nytimes.com or espn.com. Web browsers interact through Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. DNS translates domain names to IP addresses so browsers can load Internet resources.
Each device connected to the Internet has a unique IP address which other machines use to find the device. DNS servers eliminate the need for humans to memorize IP addresses such as 192.168.1.1 (in IPv4), or more complex newer alphanumeric IP addresses such as 2400:cb00:2048:1::c629:d7a2 (in IPv6).
How does DNS work?
The process of DNS resolution involves converting a hostname (such as www.example.com) into a computer-friendly IP address (such as 192.168.1.1). An IP address is given to each device on the Internet, and that address is necessary to find the appropriate Internet device – like a street address is used to find a particular home. When a user wants to load a webpage, a translation must occur between what a user types into their web browser (example.com) and the machine-friendly address necessary to locate the example.com webpage.
Source – CloudFlare
BLOG
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A blog is a type of website where the content is presented in reverse chronological order (newer content appear first). Blog content is often referred to as entries or “blog posts”.
Blogs are typically run by an individual or a small group of people to present information in a conversational style. However, now there are tons of corporate blogs that produce a lot of informational and thought-leadership style content. Typical blog posts also have a comments section where users can respond to the article.
Today, WordPress is the world’s most popular blogging platform powering over 34% of all websites on the internet.
What is The Difference Between Blog and Website?
Blogs are a type of website. The only real difference between a blog and other types of website is that blogs are regularly updated with new content, which is displayed in reverse chronological order (newer posts first).
Typical websites are static in nature where content is organized in pages, and they are not updated frequently. Whereas a blog is dynamic, and it is usually updated more frequently. Some bloggers publish multiple new articles a day.
Blogs can be part of a larger website. Often businesses have a blog section where they regularly create content to inform and educate their customers.
You can use WordPress to create both, a website and blog, that’s why a lot of business owners use WordPress to build their small business website.
In simple terms, all blogs can be a website or part of a website. However, not all websites can be called blogs.
website content
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Web content is the textual, visual, or aural content that is encountered as part of the user experience on websites. It may include—among other things—text, images, sounds, videos, and animations.
content management system
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A Content Management System (CMS) is an application through which you can easily create and manage dynamic web content.
A CMS separates the different parts of a website (content, design, functionality) and thus allows for easier website management. When using a CMS application, you can easily divide the responsibilities of managing different parts of your website to different people. For example, non-technical people can be responsible for the site’s content, while more technical people can work on the site’s design and functionality.
Most CMS applications have built-in tools which will take care of most tasks for you. This way changing your site’s design or adding a blog, for example, can be done in a matter of minutes.
And the best of all, you don’t need any programming skills in order to use a CMS and create a beautiful website.
content data network (CDN)
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A content delivery network (CDN) refers to a geographically distributed group of servers that work together to provide fast delivery of Internet content. A CDN allows for the quick transfer of assets needed for loading Internet content including HTML pages, javascript files, stylesheets, images, and videos. The popularity of CDN services continues to grow, and today the majority of web traffic is served through CDNs, including traffic from major sites like Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon.
email – POP vs imac
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POP3 downloads the email from a server to a single computer, then deletes the email from the server.
On the other hand, IMAP stores the message on a server and synchronizes the message across multiple devices.
Should you be using POP3 or IMAP?
It depends on how you want to access your emails.
Generally speaking, IMAP is more powerful and the recommended method for receiving email if you’re working across multiple devices.
Alternatively, if you prefer to have all emails accessible offline, and if you have a designated device for email, then POP could be a suitable option.
Source: Socketlabs.com