The JEHM Net News

By: Tim Knox

QUESTION:
I recently launched a website for my sporting goods business. Do I need to do anything special to attract customers to my website? I know nothing about search engines and marketing as such. Please tell me where to begin. — Sean M.

ANSWER:
Sean, that is a question that has been asked by every business person who has ever launched a website. If I build it, will they come? Of course they will — if you’ve built a website that appeals to dead baseball players. (more…)

By: Tim Knox
Q: My business is very small, just me and two employees, and our product really can’t be sold online. Do I really need a website?
– Robin C.

A: Congratulations, Robin, you are the one millionth person to ask me that question. Smile for the cameras, brush the streamers and confetti from your hair and listen closely, because I’m about to answer for the millionth time what has become one of the most important and often-asked questions of the digital business age.

Before I answer, (more…)

By: Tim Knox

Last week we talked about how a bad website can do your business more harm than good. That column brought several emails asking what is the key to building an effective business website. I replied with the same answer I always give: building an effective business website is a simple matter of definition.

Before the first graphic is drawn or the first line of code is written, you must define the website’s budget, purpose, target audience, design, navigation, and content. And when that’s all said and done you must define the marketing that will bring visitors to your site. (more…)

By: Robin Porter

So you have decided you need a website. What next?

Before you contact some web designers to get a quote, you will save yourself time, money and trouble by first sitting down and thinking about what you actually need. The more you can “nail down” your requirements, the more likely you are to get a better price, and not be surprised by getting a bill for extras at the end of the project. (more…)

By: Halstatt Pires

You’ve decided to automate your web site. Now what? Here are some ideas to help you choose how to automate your site.

A bit of programming is going to be necessary if you want to automate a site. There are many types of programs that can be used to automate a web site including JavaScript, PHP, Perl, ASP, Java and more. So, which do you use? For many, it is a personal choice.

I prefer PHP for programming. PHP is a particularly useful programming language because it allows for advanced programming and is easy to integrate with web pages. Another plus of PHP is that the language interfaces very well with MySQL, a popular type of online database. (more…)

By: Halstatt Pires

Okay, you are ready to join the masses and put up a web site. You’ve put a lot of thought into the design and are ready to go. Perhaps you should give more thought to using a web site template.

Web Site TEMPLATES

For many people, it makes more sense to use a pre-designed web template instead of creating a site from scratch. Using a pre-designed site template allows you to get a professional design at a fraction of the price a custom design would cost. A good template is automated or has HTML tags to show you exactly where to put your text. This saves you precious time. Also, a web page designed by someone just learning HTML is more likely to have mistakes than one designed and tested by professionals. Mistakes in web site code can prevent some users from being able to see a web page or can even cause lower search engine rankings. (more…)

By: Ramesh Patel

Logo design is an absolutely indispensable part of corporate branding strategy and should always be assigned to professional logo designers. A professional logo designer is not just a graphic designer but he should also have ideas about branding and positioning of business. Depending on your requirements he will create a logo that would successfully exude the nature and attitude of your business. He also needs to understand the media in which you are going to use your logo; it can be web, print, electronic media (TV commercial etc) or a mixture of all of these.

A logo is the only identifiable mark a potential customer may ever see, so it needs to be memorable, descriptive and easily recognizable. Every company should have a logo that is easy to identify and stands for the integrity of that business. (more…)