Your Online Business: Creating a Web Presence
Launching Your Website: A Guide to Going Online
Having a website these days is almost a necessity to doing business. Whether you’re a retailer, providing a service, or are operating purely online, launching a new website needs the same careful consideration as launching any business.
Write a Website Business Plan
A well thought-out plan is vital to the success of any business or new venture. Who are your target markets and are they online? Are your competitors online, and if so, what do they offer? How will you market your site?
What do you want your website to accomplish? A website can be used as a distribution channel (selling direct to customers) and/or as an advertising or promotional tool, so it's important to know what you what your website to be.
Refer to our Business Planning-Starting section for guidance on how to write an effective business plan.
If applicable, you’ll also want to consider consulting an accountant and a lawyer for issues to do with ecommerce, taxation, privacy, and other legal rights and restrictions.
Small Business BC has the resources to get you on the right track, including:
Featured Product
Package # 4 - Getting Your Business Online
This package will provide you with the knowledge to create a website presence for your business:
- Attend the e-BC How to Get Started Seminar Series
- Read your copy of "Do the Web Write"
- Meet with one of our advisors for a personalized, one-on-one session
Book today! Contact a client services coordinator at (604) 775-5541 or 1-800-667-2272.
See All ProductsSmall Business BC offers a multitude of resources to help you research and start your business.
- You can register for our e-BC How to Get Started seminars to learn to take your business online and create a strong web presence.
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You can book an appointment with one of our e-business advisors who will guide you through the process to create your online business.
Make Sure Your Site is Seen
Get your site listed in the DMOZ directory. This is a huge boost as it's said that Google's directory comes straight from the DMOZ directory. The DMOZ is commonly known as the Open Directory Project and it has strict guidelines on who is listed. Go to the DMOZ website for submission information.
Pay a bit—use Yahoo Directory Submit. Yahoo! Directory Submit provides expedited review of websites that are included in the Yahoo! Directory. Furthermore, for each listing accepted into the directory, there is a recurring annual fee to maintain the listing.
Stay up to date—use Google Sitemaps. Google Sitemaps is an easy way for you to submit all your URLs to the Google index and get detailed reports about the visibility of your pages on Google. With Google Sitemaps, you can automatically keep Google informed of all your web page additions and changes, helping improve your coverage in the Google crawl.
Submit and re-submit your site. You should submit your site to Google, Yahoo, and MSN at least once, and no more than once, every 30 days. Although Google says that manually submitting your pages to their index is unnecessary, they have an interface for you to do so. MSN will seldom visit a website unless invited by submission. Yahoo will dramatically increase visits after submission.
Aim for real content, more page quantity and frequent changes. The bottom line for getting good search engine results is to have lots of keyword rich content on lots of pages. Google likes big sites. The larger sites are presumed to be better funded, better organized, better constructed, and therefore better sites. Content must be updated often; this is a Google patent and concerns the changes to page content over time. Google sees newer content as better content especially if the site ‘theme’ is news, retail or auction.
Tips by eBusiness Connection
- Starting an Online Business for Dummies
- Numbers 101 for Small Business: Do The Web Write
- Content Strategy for the Web
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