Are you kidding, and turn my brand over to Facebook? I might as well be turning it over to an authoritarian sovereign state.”
~ Forbes Magazine
A website is the essential foundation you need to build your successful online marketing plans.
Free options like Blogger, Weebly, or Wix are great for personal websites, but not recommend for three important business reasons:
- When you use a free service, your domain name will normally be an “extra” extension to the service provider’s own domain. For example, if we created GWMO on Tumblr, the web address would be http://gwmo.tumblr.com instead of https://www.gwmo.com.
- You have fewer customization options for design, functionality, and revenue. For example, free WordPress.com sites limit you to using specific plugins and themes with no advertising.
- When you build your business on someone else’s platform, like Facebook, your business is vulnerable to any changes they may make. For example, if Facebook crashes again, you would lose your business entirely.
These three reasons alone are precisely why professional companies use self-hosted websites. You have more control, it looks more professional, and you can truly call it your own.
Support and Maintenance
Was your site hacked? Did your latest update break it? We’ll back you up to our safe staging area, patch you up and you’re welcome to stay as long as your satisfied. No contracts or other obligations. Do you need a much larger site? Specialised security? Custom programming? Our network of certified experts is here to help.
Old-fashioned values, combined with careful planning and a deep understanding of business, have helped us build a team to maximise efficiency and your bottom line. New age technology enables our teams to solve your problems for you with speed and efficiency.
6 Resources More Profitable than Sales
You can treat the Internet like some print advertising medium and base your success only on sales, but a sales-only approach will undermine your efforts. Unlike print advertising, which loses value quickly as time passes, a Web site is an investment that should gain value each year through Six Revenue Streams.
The choice is clear; either adapt to what the Internet offers, or try to force your way down the throats of those visiting your storefront on the Internet. If you force, you will fail and you will complain. If you learn about the evolution of business models, you’ll discover the real secret is to keep in contact with your customer base, expand it, and give it infinite reasons to conduct business with you.
Create an advantage for your business by thinking about how you will save and generate revenue now. Not five years from now and not in a few months, but right now. We can show you the business models that are working online, with case studies of sites that are applying these techniques and making money. Some are making tens of millions of dollars, like Industry.net. Some are small entrepreneurs adding significantly to their bottom line and building a long-term business. In such a young market, know the business models that are working and apply them to your own venture. Focus on results to build your revenue streams.
- Revenue Stream 1: Lead Generation
Generating leads is the most realistic and immediate source of benefits online. If you are selling products and services to consumers, measure how you can expand the reach of your business from a local to regional, regional to national, and national to international audience. How can you keep in touch with your audience? Most of all, how can you use your website to generate more leads?
Many businesses with catalogs add them to their website. We ask them directly, what do you want to do with this expensive, four color, catalog? Incur more expense by putting it online immediately or generate leads by getting your catalog mailed to target customers? The answer is simple; we can easily generate new customers and inquiries for the products.
Do you care if they buy online from an 800 number or by fax? Money is money, no matter where it comes from; leads are leads, and the Web is a terrific place to generate them for your business and for related businesses. What’s a lead? Contact by telephone, fax, or email which the business can close. The Web site can be a central referral point for a group of businesses, with success measured by leads generated. Compare the costs of generating leads for a business and offer cheaper leads online, at least testing to see if the medium is valid for that business.
Charge by the lead or charge by the actual sale. Whatever you do, track it well. Find out where the orders are coming from. If they are getting leads from you, ones that buy, they’ll pursue the Web with you. If not, they’ve been able to try out a business online based on the simple model of lead generation. One Web seller guarantees leads because they are the most immediate and measurable response from a Web site.
Check out www.edmunds.com for a site that not only has customers, but no product. That’s right, they generate leads for other businesses. They have had an incredible book of automobile information since 1966. Instead of selling the book, they’ve given away the content and base their business on generating leads for the leading online auto insurance dealer, Auto ByTel, and an automobile parts store. Sounds like a free magazine with advertising, doesn’t it? Adding customers and lowering lead costs can contribute at least $5,000 for a business in a calendar year.