What sort of web site do I need?Basic web presence A simple one or two page site giving a summary of the company's business with perhaps an email address and/or telephone number. Used mainly by individuals and companies who are not regular internet users or whose products do not lend themselves readily to the internet world, but nonetheless still require a web presence for their business. These sites can be adapted and extended in the future when required. Marketing site A kind of on-line brochure for your company. This is a development of the basic web presence and is the most common type of site for small-sized and medium-sized businesses, giving details of the organisation, its services, its people, maybe its prices, contact details and any other information that you might otherwise send out to prospective customers in the post. It gives people all the information they need to make an informed decision about whether you can meet their needs. Customer service site These are the sites that provide an information resource for current and future customers. As well as the marketing information, they may contain detailed technical data and reports, software downloads, databases you can query, a customer support function, "FAQs" (frequently asked questions), email newsletters for customers to subscribe to, etc. They provide a virtual community for your customers and offer them the chance to interact with you, providing valuable feedback on your products and services. Online business Operating either as a stand-alone business or as an on-line operation attached to a regular business, these enable customers to buy directly from your web site. The greatest exponent of this is probably the bookseller Amazon, but with the tools available nowadays even the smallest business can have a simple on-line shopping trolley that offers a selection of products to choose from, and can capture customer details and their credit card information. These sites can enable you to sell to customers in other countries, and you can link in to the services of payment processing firms who will process transactions for you if you are not a credit card merchant. Combinatiopn of all of the above Sites that combine features of the above are common and it would be difficult to pigeonhole any given web site into just one of the four groups above. But if you are looking for a first web site, these groupings will help you to focus on what you want your web site to do for you. Close Window |