Patricia West
Web Marketing Solutions by River Tree
January 2008

Most business owners have surfed the net and checked out their competition, but don't have an idea of how to begin their own web marketing. For those wanting to know, I have listed several things to consider and what I always go over at a client's first consultation.

• What business are you in and what is your mission statement. What are your goals.
• What is your focus for your web marketing and what do you hope to accomplish by going 'online'?
• Do you plan to sell online or somehow interact with your customers.
• Who is your target market? What age bracket. Do you need a handicap accessible site?
• Do you already have a store and regular customer base that you plan on using to build a web presence?
• Do you have an interest in keeping a blog, which is a regularly updated public diary, or a monthly newsletter?
• Are you computer literate and to what degree do you want to be involved in the designing process and technical details?
• Do you already have a logo and a color scheme? Are you happy with it or do you want a change?
• Are there committees or other people involved in the project decisions, blogs, emails, or sales?
• What is the time frame.
• Do you plan on taking credit cards online?  Do you already have a merchant account?
• Do you already have a domain name or a web server. Obtaining a domain name is very simple. I always point my clients to the server that I prefer, fatcow.com.  At most servers, a person can search for the availability of a name, purchase it and sign up for web service all in the same location.  With River Tree, the client has the option to obtain their domain name themselves or order this as part of our Web Marketing Project.

From there we develop a navigational tree and 'web attitude' (which is how the business wants to be perceived) using color, graphics and layout.

The web designer will also (or at least SHOULD) code in special tags and keywords seen by search engines.  These are used by search engines to find your site when someone searches the Internet.  However, the actual text of your page and links to complimentary pages is extremely important in these searches.

Writing the text of your pages should be similar to newspaper articles, just the simple facts should be first.  Then later on give the reader an opportunity to find out details. Advertising, especially online, should be quick and to the point. Grab the reader's attention. 

Give the customer a reason to return. New items? Coupons? Referrals?  Sales people know that the more often a person visits and the longer he/she stays at a store, the more likely they will buy (or buy more.)  It's human nature.