ATILUS - Web Design | Internet Marketing

How to Create a Great Website

From Seth Godin here comes the abbreviated ten principles of great web design:

• Use a small team
• Simple to use
• Less is more
• Patience (great websites take time)
• Continually measure and improve
• Clever is bad
• Hire a professional… a great professional
• One vision
• Don’t settle

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Online Business Tools

I found a very interesting post over at Mashable that I thought I needed to share with Unique ID clients and friends. As you know we are a web company and so are very familiar with the web. You may or may not have heard of the software as a service industry, but more and more small software companies are going online, hosting their applications (instead of the conventional CD or download) allowing you to access your information and their services anywhere (with an Internet connection). We have been using a number of services like this for sometime with great success.

As you may or may not know some of our staff is out-of-state, and many people work from home, so we need to remain mobile. To this effect online software has facilitated our business and our style of management.

There is a lot of software out there that is very inexpensive that can really help a business achieve small, medium, and large tasks with relative ease (and the information and access is always available because it’s online).

So take a look at this great list of online business tools - hopefully you’ll find something useful.

Why Every Business Can Benefit from the Web

In today’s marketplace, it is almost no-brainer for a business to have some kind of web presence. I think of it this way:

• Your Customers and Potential Customers Expect It
• Your Business Stays Open 24/7
• Keep Abreast or Ahead of Your Competitors
• Unlimited Marketplace
• Attract New Business
• Instant Information to Prospective Clients
• Interaction with Customers

No matter what type of industry or business you are in, we can always benefit from the web.
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.

Here are some beneficial points:

Your Customers and Potential Customers Expect It
People will ask you about it. I recently was contacted by a local company who tried to sell me some new windows for my house, even though it was a cold-call, I was nice about it and politely asked the nice lady on the other end of the phone if the company has a website so I can see their products. “Sir, we don’t have website”, she replied. ‘Well, how can I see your product and services’, I asked. And she explained, “You can come to our showroom”. Now think of it for a moment, why should I drive 30 minutes to a showroom, when I can search, find, see, and order everything online within 5 minutes.

With a Web Presence, Your Business Stays Open 24/7
Having an ‘Internet’ presence is like having your store front in every corner of the world open 24/7. Your online presence helps you find customers from every location on this planet.

Help to Keep Abreast or Ahead of Your Competitors
Don’t just trade locally with your competition, surpass them, have your shop front on the Internet and let your business expand across the boundaries of regions, states or countries.

Unlimited Marketplace (International Markets Open)
With a website you can instantly globalize your business.

Use Search Engines to Attract New Business
Today most research for business and/or services are done online. By having your website listed on the top search engines, customers from anywhere will be able to access your website.

Instant Information to Prospective Clients
With a properly planned website, your customers have instant access to the information, sales, and service materials they need to make a decision. This frees up your and your sales or marketing team’s time to focus on what you do best, running and growing your business.

Make Interaction with Customers Easy
Through a website you can interact with clients via online newsletters, message board (forum), polls, chat rooms, and special deals.

Last Note:
It’s better to have no website at all than to have one that makes your business look bad. Your site speaks volumes about your business. If it is not done right, customers, visitors and web surfers will know. I am sure your cousin neighbor’s sister’s friend’s son can put together a website, but what purpose will it serve if it cannot be found and is not well structured?

links for 2007-10-10

• Phil Stock World Stock, Options Tips, Trades, Advice and Newsletter
  Philstockworld is the best site for Options trading information. The free public site has some great tips and insider information on trading options and stocks and the market as a whole.
  (tags: options-tips options-trading option-trading options stock trading)
• 3 Steps to Successful Investing | Phil’s Stock World
  Learn the 3 steps to successful investing. Great website, good advice. In the words of Warren Buffett’s mentor Benjamin Graham: “Investing does not require genius.  What it needs is, first, reasonably good intelligence; second, sound principles of
  (tags: stock market investing options)

Google 411 (Goog-411)

Quick… pick up the phone…. and….

dial 1-800-Goog-411.

You hear that? It’s the death of conventional 411.

That’s right Google has released their own 411 service!
It makes complete sense, but is a complete surprise for all of us here at Unique ID. For years we have seen Google’s grand vision of “indexing the world’s information” expand and expand, in a near perfect way. Although not every decision or move makes sense at first, some how it ends up working.

For example, Google has had Google Local, featuring local business and service information along with local maps, for years. More recently, Google has implemented telephone information on many of these local services, making it very easy for surfers to connect with the shops and services they are looking at. Finally this grand vision became even more clear with the implementation of the iphone. Now users surfing the inter-web could find a restaurant or business, tap a button, and be instantly connected with a real person - for free (is analytics for this coming?!).

With 1-800-Goog-411 this is extended. It makes complete sense, Google has been a great resource for finding things on the web - now they will (most likely) be a great resource for finding things in the real world.

So what does this mean for you our clients?

I have been crafting an in-depth article about Search Engines and the Yellow Pages for sometime now (due out soon) which will feature some of what I am about to say. But, this totally changes the game. Now optimizing your website for search engines isn’t just a virtual business practice. If Google is able to penetrate the 411 market optimizing your website will no longer just be about ranking well in the search engines - it may be a cost-effective way to get your business in front of the 411 audience - an on-demand audience that is ready to commit, buy, visit, etc. Why? Because Google may very well be using it’s local search results (results that are generated most of the time by your website) to feed its Goog-411 listings.