Do Your Homework Before You Go To A Web Developer

If you want an accurate assessment of what your web site will cost, you must have a clear idea about what you need. Take some time to answer these questions BEFORE you talk to a developer.

1) How will my web site function?

1. As an online store where actual product is sold?
2. As an online brochure to inform the consumer about your company or services
3. As an online community

2) What will your web site look and feel like? What will be the corporate culture of my site? Will it be light and fun, or hi-tech looking, or business-like and professional?

3) How many pages and what specific pages do you need for your web site? Here are some typical pages to think about for starters:

• Home
• About
• Products/Services
• Order
• Contact
• Resources
• Free Newsletter

4) What is my budget?
Be reasonable, if you only have $500 you won’t get too much out of your web site. There are affordable designers who can design a small business web site ranging from $700 to $2500 in price.

5) What is your deadline for project completion?
Are you pressed for time or do you have several weeks to play with? If you need your site in a hurry, you may be able to get it sooner by paying a "rush" fee.

6) Will you require any specialized programming such as a shopping cart, a database or a contact form?
If you need these items, make sure your web developer has the skill set to meet these requirements.

7) What level of assistance do you need in development?
By knowing in advance how much and what kind of help your project requires, you can confirm that the developer your are considering can (and will) provide the level of service you need.

• Do you need full site design & concepting?
• Do you have the concept and just need it created into HTML pages?
• Do you just need some new graphics and a web site makeover?
• Do you have an existing logo or will they need to create a new one?

Find samples of web sites you like!
Create a listing of URLs for sites that you like and note what you like and why it appeals to you. By showing this to the designer, it gives them a better idea about what you are looking for. This can better assist them in providing a quote and in concepting a graphic design to match your vision.

Original Source:
Top 10 Things to Look for When Hiring a Web Developer
Article by Kristie Tamsevicius, author of the newly released ebook, The Ultimate Guide to Creating and Marketing eBooks.

1) Experience – An experienced designer will have more skills to create a sophisticated looking and functioning web site. They will have more tools and tricks and knowledge to help you accomplish your business goals.

The whole process of interviewing the designer will not only give you the answers to those questions, but gives you insight as to who the designer is, their level of expertise, and how well you can work together.

Equally important to experience is quality customer service. After all, what good is having a top designer if they are too busy to answer your emails and jump in during an emergency? Ask for a list of references, and CALL them! Don’t be afraid to ask them if their web developer is responsive to their needs and assists them in a timely manner.

The ability to create professional, original web graphics will quickly distinguish the amateur-designer wanna-be’s from the pros. Anyone can put words on a page and create links. But, only a skilled designer will have a good sense of page layout, how to create a good color scheme, and be able to create tasteful graphics that will enhance the web site.

4) Marketing Savvy
Having a crème-de-la-crème web site will do you no good unless you can build a steady stream of traffic to it. Here’s some questions to ask your designer to determine what level of marketing assistance he will provide you: –

NOTE: If they claim to be experts in search engine positioning, check first to see how highly listed THEIR web site is, it’s the proof-in-the-pudding to whether their techniques work!

5) Creativeness
One thing you’d better know up front is how involved your web developer will be in the creative process. Unless you are an experienced marketer, you probably will need at least a little help writing web copy and planning the layout of your web site. Will your web developer help you develop content?

6) Pricing
The cost of a professionally designed small business web site can run anywhere from $500 to $5000. To ensure you don’t overspend your budget, you need to get a written estimate. Depending on the complexity or your project, you may even have to pay to get an estimate. To get a complete picture of all costs involved, have them break out costs for domain name, hosting services, graphics, web development, and marketing fees separately.

7) Communication Skills
How easy is your designer to talk to? Do you trust them? Can you understand what they are explaining to you or do they use techno-babble. Do they take time to listen to your needs? If you are going to have a good long term working relationship, it’s crucial that you feel comfortable with one another and can communicate clearly.

8 ) Time Frame To Completion
Ask how long the web development process will take. And then you may want to ask their references how close they came to completing the project on target. A simple web site could be developed in one or two weeks, while a larger more intense site could take several weeks or months. Knowing what to expect can help you manage your expectations.

Working with a developer who can handle all these details will save you time, money, and frustration. You can rely on their expertise to handle some of the more technical questions that may arise. If they don’t provide these services, then ask if they have companies that they recommend. Be sure to get prices from those vendors too so that the total web sites costs don’t sneak up on you.

10) Availability
Are they a full time web developer or is web design a moonlighting job for them? A full time developer will probably be able to complete your site in a shorter time frame than someone who is squeezing you into his or her spare time. What are their hours? Are they open to you calling with questions? Can they start your project right away? If you need maintenance down the road, how soon can you expect changes after you submit them?

Original Source:
Top 10 Things to Look for When Hiring a Web Developer
Article by Kristie Tamsevicius, author of the newly released ebook, The Ultimate Guide to Creating and Marketing eBooks.

"The secret of success is seeing your work primarily as a service to others, and not as a means of personal gain." –J. Donald Walters

Recent studies indicate people want quality customer service.  They also want to pay less for the services and products they receive.  Business establishments in an attempt to meet the financial needs of their customers have lowered prices, cut staff, reduced training and focused on providing lower prices. Unfortunately, it is usually prompt and attentive customer service that suffers. Positive customer service  will keep most people returning to a business more often then lower prices.  Most people are willing to pay a little more if they receive quality service, find the establishment clean and inviting and have a positive shopping experience.

Over the last fifteen years numerous articles and books have been written regarding customer service.  Even with all the how to books and programs available, service today, it is not much better then it was in the mid-eighties. It is on a downward movement.  If your goal is to keep your customers coming back again and again for your products and services, it is important that your organization maintain the basics of customer service.  After all, customers are the lifeblood of any business.  To successfully regain or maintain your customer service edge, consider taking the following steps.

Hire friendly staff.  
Lands End, one of the most popular clothing catalogue stores, believes you can train people for any given task.  Staff cannot however be trained to be friendly. 
If you start with friendly staff you have a greater chance of providing an enjoyable atmosphere for your customers.

Train, train and train again. 
Communicate your customer service expectations. Show staff in regular training programs how to work with the customers, solve problems and provide a positive environment.   
Training does not have to be a full day away from the business.  Focus on a skill for 10-15 minutes every week during staff meetings. Create video or interactive computer training programs that require 10-30 minutes on a weekly basis. A recent study indicated for every $1 an organization spends on customer service training, they received $2.27 back in sales. Not a bad return on the initial investment.

Reinforce positive behavior.  
Someone recently asked how to get staff to use the new skills they had learned for more than a couple of weeks.  New work habits are more likely to stay when management reinforces the use of the new skills through recognition. 
This can be done with a simple "great job" or "I liked the way you worked with that client" when you observe the new and correct staff behavior.  Recognize the employee at a staff meeting for  using the new behavior.  Create an incentive program.

Empower staff.  
A major hotel chain empowers every employee including maids, bellmen and janitors to spend up to $2,000 to resolve a customer’s problem on the spot.  Staff feels confident in the decisions they make. They know  management supports their actions and decisions. 
Customers know their issues are resolved immediately without the need to repeat their problem numerous times up the chain of command.  Empower staff to resolve challenges on the spot.  Customers will return knowing you genuinely care about their happiness.

Walk your talk.  
Management must set the example for staff.  How management treats  staff, their internal customer, is how staff will respond to the external customers. 
A management team, responsive to staff issues, concerns and needs, sets an example. Management must give more than lip service to the need for positive customer service. They must walk the talk.

Involve staff in the decision-making process. 
The front line staff interacts with the customers more than anyone else in the organization.   Make staff input part of the decision process if policies, rules or procedures are changed.  Front-line staff must implement the changes and use the policies daily with the customers. 
Make the process as easy on them as possible and workable for the customers.

Take action immediately. 
If you see a problem, do not wait to solve it.  If a customer complains do not pass the responsibility on to someone else to resolve the issue. 
Avoid blaming another staff member, computers or technology for the problem.  Apologize that the problem occurred and take immediate steps to correct the issue.

Present a positive image.  
How many times have you passed up the grocery basket with trash, the store covered in graffiti, the shop that offends your sense of smell, or the poorly lit parking lot at night?  All of these are indicators that the business cannot take care of themselves so how could they possibly take care of you the customer. 
A positive clean business image physically indicates to the customer that you care about them and can resolve any issue that may arise.

Be interested in your customers.  
Get to know your customers personally. Know  their shopping preferences.  Find out their hobbies, interests and habits.  Call them when you are running a special on a product they or their company uses regularly.  Send the customer a birthday card. 
The more interest you have in the customer, the more likely they are to be impressed by your genuine concern and selflessness.

Deliver more then you promise.  
You have sent a clear message that you value them and their business.  Additionally it states that keeping them as a customer is more important than you making a dollar.  Do not however make a promise you cannot keep.  If the service department is running late, tell them you will have the repair completed in 5 hours.  They will be impressed when it is done in three. 
When you give more, the customer will give more. The customer is more likely to make referrals, increase the order and come back in the future.

Ask for the customer’s opinion.  
Every industry has it’s own method of obtaining feedback.  There are the telephone surveys, questionnaires, in business surveys and comment cards.  Ask direct questions.  Would you recommend our product to a friend? How can we improve our service? Surveys elicit valuable customer feedback.  Constant feedback allows a business to react quickly to customer expectations, trend changes and what the customer values most.

No matter how big your business is, one to a thousand employees, you cannot afford to loose your customer service edge.  Simple steps like getting to know your customer, providing more then you promised, keeping a clean facility or conducting a survey can mean the difference between success and failure. Customers are a business’s lifeblood. Without them, a company will die.

Original Source:
How to Keep Your Service Edge
Article by Eileen O. Brownell, President, Training Solutions

Web Tracking is the process of using Web site statistics and analysis tools to determine
who is visiting a particular web site, how they got there, how long they hang around and what they do once they arrive.

According to wikipedia, Web analytics is the study of the behaviour of website visitors. In a commercial context, web analytics especially refers to the use of data collected from a web site to determine which aspects of the website work towards the business objectives; for example, which landing pages encourage people to make a purchase.

Data collected almost always includes web traffic reports. It may also include e-mail response rates, direct mail campaign data, sales and lead information, user performance data such as click heat mapping, or other custom metrics as needed. This data is typically compared against key performance indicators for performance, and used to improve a web site or marketing campaign’s audience response.

In order to do so, the websites incorporate tracking software within the page or content. There are lots of products available in the market, which do the job of tracking for a website.

Advantage of Web Tracking

• To identify user needs by collecting data on the topics that are more searched for or pages most clicked on.
• Would give an idea of the usage of the user on the website
• Provides information regarding the numbers of visitors and their location
• It helps to identify trends and changes in user behaviour and preferences
• Help to understand your most popular pages and how long people are staying in your site

It is quite likely that the biggest challenge for you is that you are spending tons of time, energy, and budget on web marketing efforts yet conversion rates (or ROI) are stuck in the 2 to 4 percent range, or perhaps a bit higher for your direct marketing efforts.
To know more about Bounce Rates in your site, you could check out the following article.

Third Party Web Tracking Tools

	Performancing Metrics is a web analyzer that works great with any web site, even Ajax and Flash sites.
	Clicky Web Analytics for websites
	Record visitors’ every action as they browse your website. Watch movies to understand visitor behavior, gain valuable insights and improve your website’s usability.
	Stat Counter – Free website Tracking Tool
	Site Tracker – Free Site Counter and Website Statistics
HiStats.Com	Hi Stats – Free Flash Counter
	OneStatFree.com – Free Web Counter
	GoStats.com – Free Web Counter
	Enquisite produces increasingly granular reports on your website’s activity in search engines.
	Site Meter’s comprehensive real time website tracking and counter tools give you instant access to vital information and data about your sites audience.
	Get the details on each individual element with heat map and overlay details
	Measure Map provides free, easy stats for your blog.