OVERVIEW

How many pages would you like to have on your new website?

• Home Page
• Contact Page
• About Us Page
• 2 or 3 Pages of Products or Services
• Links Page
• FAQ Page (Frequently Asked Questions)
• Articles Section
• Free Downloads Page
• Free Tips & Tricks or Helpful Hints Page
• Privacy Policy Page
• Guarantee or Warranty Page
• Request for More Info Form

What do you want to accomplish with your new website?

We need all of your artwork (camera-ready or digital)

We need all of your company information

Do you have a reference website that you like the look of and/or have a competitor's website you would like us to reference?

We need the website content

You may want to consider Animated Flash images

Have you chosen a Domain Name (www.yourdomain.com)?

DETAILS

How many pages would you like to have on your new website?

• The basic website is usually around 5 pages and would include the Home page , Contact page , About Us page , and 2 or 3 pages of Products or Services.

• To help boost traffic to the website, you should have a Links page and swap links with relevant websites. The more relevant websites you have linking to your website, the higher ranking your website will have, and the higher in the search engine results list you will be.
  
  
• To be able to field potential customers' common questions, and to keep them on your website, you will want to have an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page. This page gives answers to the most common questions that potential buyers might have. This is a very important page to have. This page is basically a sales pitch, offering pre-printed rebuttals of why someone would need your product or service.
  
  
• Also to help boost traffic to their website, you should have articles professionally written about your type of products or services and post them on your website in an Articles section . This helps to create relevant content, which the search engines look for. These types of searches show up higher on the search results and WILL get more relevant traffic to the website.
  
  
• In some cases, you may want to consider a FREE downloads page . People look for FREE stuff on the Internet all the time. I get tons of hits on my FREE Downloads page, because people look for FREE stuff for their computer. This gives me relevant hits to my type of service, and does cause a percentage of these hits to move around my site.
  
  
• A FREE Tips & Tricks or Hints page is also a good way to get relevant traffic. People are always looking for How-To's on all types of subjects. On my site I have FREE Tech Tips that get hits all the time, which pertain to my services. Again, a percentage of these hits click on my services. And the only way I got them there was because of the FREE How-To's that I offer. So, you have to entice people to your site, by offering more than your competitor's website. This is where these types of pages come in.
  
  
• It is also good to have a Privacy Policy page . This shows integrity and also builds credibility and a higher ranking in the search engines. This is one item that search engines look for, in particular. Websites with a page dedicated to a Privacy Policy get a higher ranking and your site will show up higher in the search results.
  
  
• A Guarantee page is also a good idea. Again, this gives credibility and will give you an edge over your competitor, who may not offer a guarantee. A website that has a guarantee, but is hard to find, makes a potential customer feel like they have something to hide and may not purchase from that website. However, if you have an easy-to-find Guarantee that you put right in their face (whether you dedicate a page to it, or you put it right on the Home page), it eases potential customers into a buying position.
  
  
• You may want to have a form that allows a customer to request more information about your product or service , and which also lets the customer type in their personal information and what they are looking for. This not only helps you by getting their contact information, it also helps by prompting the potential customer into thinking about other aspects. By doing it this way, you will also get all of the information needed to correctly quote a product or service more effectively, without having to make additional phone calls. The more common way of requesting information is just by posting an INFO email address and hope that the person requesting the info knows enough about what he is looking for to provide all of the info to get a good quote. This is not usually the case. Most of the time they need a form to fill out. In most cases, there is info that is left out. A form ensures that you get everything needed to quote the product or service accurately. And, also, by offering a form to request more info, leads will be generating 24-7 for you. All you have to do is the quote and give them a call. This reduces the need for cold-calling.

What do you want to accomplish with your new website?

• Will this be an Informational Website?
  
  
  • Since potential customers will do research on the Internet before making buying decisions (especially with larger ticket items), your website should at least be an Informational website, where potential customers can look at what you have to offer, in detail. This should include the pages listed above, and have a good sales pitch.
    
    
• Or, will your website not only be Informational, but also an e-commerce website?
  
  
  • Are you looking to sell products right from your website, including an online catalog, a shopping cart, sales tracking, credit card transactions, etc? If so, the special website pricing does not apply and this type of website would have to be quoted. And e-commerce website is an effective way to sell your products 24 hours a day. Even while you sleep, you can be having products sold and money being deposited into your account, automatically!

We need all of your artwork (camera-ready or digital – preferably digital)

• Logo(s) and any other art
  
  
  • If you don't have a professional logo, one can be designed for you for $120
    
    
• Photos of your building, action shots of people working in different departments, pictures of owners and/or department heads, product pictures (ALL must be labeled)
  
  
  • If you don't have photos of your building, action shots, products, etc., we can take pictures for you. A price will be determined based on the quantity and type of photos needed. See us for details.

We need all of your company information

• Official business name
  
  
• Address, phone, fax
  
  
• Email addresses (current and requested). If we are hosting your domain, then you get 10 FREE email address and unlimited aliases. We will need to know what you would like these to be. Usually, you use a first initial and a last name together to form an email account. Example: Robert Banks is rbanks@rusasprinting.com . We will need corresponding passwords to go with these email accounts.
  

Do you have a reference website that you like the look of? And/or do you have a competitor's website you would like us to reference?

• How do you want your website to look?
  
  
• What colors do you want the theme to be and carry throughout the website?
  
  
• Do you prefer the navigational buttons across the top or down the left side of the page?
  
  
• Do you want a picture of your building on your website, or featured on the Home page?
  
  
• Is there a single icon, image, picture, drawing, or other art that represents (in one image) what you sell?
  

We need the website content

• What do you want on each page?
  
  
  • It is easiest, in my opinion, to do sketches of each page and how you envision each page to look
    
    
  • Take a blank piece of paper and a pencil (not ink pen) and sketch the look of the page. Write in the headlines and subheads, but type up the content for each of the stories, articles, paragraphs, sales pitches, etc. and save them on a disk (if you can) or at least a hard copy printed out. Label each story as A, B, C, etc. and reference the story letters in each of the sketched out content areas of each page. Also do the same with the photos that go with each story. Reference them as Pic #1, Pic #2, etc. Attach the photos and copy to each page sketch. This way, we can piece together the stories with the correct pictures on the page where you would like everything to go.
    
    
  • Remember, each page should be approximately an 8-1/2 x 11 size. Please do not try to squeeze in 2 pages into 1
    
    
  • Also, a website is a program. You click on a button or a link and it takes you to another spot in the program. So, when you are sketching up how you want each page to look, also indicate what buttons or links you want to take you to other places on your website. Example: if you are are referring to a particular product or service on one page, you can make the name of that service a “hyperlink”, so that a potential customer can click that name and it takes them to the details about that product or service. This can be done to any word, phrase, button, or picture. Just about anything can link you to another page or portion of a page. Remember this as you sketch out your website. Indicate that when you “click this” it takes you to “here”.
    
    
  • Do all of your pages like this and it will make this process go very smoothly
    
    
• The Home page should be a low-content page that gets the potential customer to “click” to find out more. It is a short sales pitch to get their attention. What it is NOT is an entire catalog of what you have to offer (you will overwhelm them and they will leave), or the ENTIRE sales pitch and all history about your company, or a bunch of flashy and blinking objects (like strobe lights in a downtown window). An elegant animation is ok, but just one. And you definitely don't want “You Just Won!” banners all over your website. People don't fall for this any more and will leave. What you DO want is an attractive-looking, very professional, easy-to-navigate Home page and website that will “easily” take your potential customers through your website, without confusion.
  
  
• The About Us page should include details of who you are, when your business began, the founder's name, a brief description of the products or services you provide, how you came to be in business (optional), and any other details you would like to provide.
  
  
• The Guarantee or Warranty page should give an Unconditional (if you can) Guarantee or Warranty in full detail. It should be easy to understand and should tell the potential customer that your product or service is so good that you stand behind it 100%. You believe so strongly in your product or service that you are willing to back it in writing with an Unconditional 30-Day, 90-Day, 1-Year, or Lifetime Guarantee so that there is absolutely NO risk to the buyer. If there is no risk, then there is no reason not to buy. Companies that DON'T have a Guarantee may not feel like they have a good enough product or service that they could risk a warranty on. If the company won't risk a warranty (for fear that they would have to make good on it), then how can a potential customer feel comfortable enough to buy from that company? This is the reason for a 100%, “in-your-face”, Unconditional Guarantee offered to potential customers. It shows how YOU feel about your product or service and protects the buyer. If they feel safe, then they are more likely to buy.
  
  
• The Products or Services pages should, again, only be an 8-1/2 x 11 shape. It is easy to try to squeeze a ton of pictures onto a website. But remember, the more pictures you squeeze in, the longer it takes to load the page, and the more likely potential customers will be to just leave, instead of waiting for them to load. If you use an 8-1/2 x 11 piece of paper for your page sketches, then you won't have this problem. You can, however, tell us to crop and/or reduce photos to fit into a specific square that you can indicate in your sketch. If you have a lot of products that you want to show on your website, you may want to break them up into categories. You may want to have the Products page just be an index of your products you offer. If you sell ten different categories of products, then we can do a list of ten different categories and show small pictures (that represents that category) for each name. From there, each name (or category) would link to a page of its own and you could show the larger pictures and the full details on each of those pages. Remember not to clutter up the pages, as this tends to be overwhelming to people and they are more likely to just move on (maybe to your competitor's website), and you don't want that!
  
  
• The Privacy Policy page can be just a basic privacy policy that we can provide for you. Again, the reason to have this is for search engine relevance. The search engines will first show websites, in their search results, that have privacy policies. You should really consider having a Privacy Policy page. We will provide the content FREE of charge, you just pay for the page layout, like any other page.
  
  
• The Contact Us page should at least contain the name of the company, address, main phone number, fax number (if applicable), and customer service email address. You can also include departmental names, phone numbers and email address (if you want), additional help phone numbers and email addresses, Return Authorization (RMA) request email addresses and/or phone number, and any other contact information you would like.
  
  
• The Request More Info form should include everything you need to quote a job. Obviously, this varies from business to business. Only you know your business enough to supply us with all of the info needed to prompt a potential customer into giving you what you need to accurately quote the job. Maybe you already have a form that you fill out (or have the customer fill out). You could supply that form as the content for this online request form. We would also need to know the email address you want the customer information to be sent to, once they finish the form.

You may want to consider Animated Flash images.

• Animated images can be used for slideshows of products or services
  
  
• Animated images bring life to pages and can do just about anything, from soft changes to fast, eye-catching movements
  
  
• They can give richness to a website
  
  
• They take up less room to illustrate your business – one 2” x 2” animated image could do the job of a page or two
  
  
• Flash images will cost anywhere from $100 to $200, depending on content

Have you chosen a Domain Name (www.yourdomain.com)?

• You should choose 3 to 5 different domain names, just in case they are already taken.
  
  
• First, try your company name (such as RusasPrinting.com) to see if it is available. If not, get creative, such as RusasPrintingCo.com, or RusasPrintingCompany.com. Just make sure to get a domain that is easy to remember and not too long. Remember, a long domain name will make for an extremely long email address, such as rbanks@RusasPrintingCompanyIsNumberOne.com (try to fit that on a business card!)
  
  
• You can also try a short company name and one or two words that represent what you do, such as RusasVolumePrinting.com or RusasWebPrinting.com or RusasHiSpeedPrinting.com, etc. You can also include an adjective to describe your name, such as HiTechRusasPrinting.com or OnTimeRusasPrinting.com, etc.
  
  
• In the end, choose about 5 domain names you would like, with the preferable names at the top of the list, and we can work downward. We won't register a name without discussing it with you first. We will first see what is available and get in touch with you for approval.

Now that you have all of the information, let's get you started!

It's As Easy As 1 - 2 - 3

Get Started TODAY! You can have your website up and going in about a week! Don't delay! Call (810) 577-1650 or email us at dale@mid-michiganpcmedics.com and we will be happy to come by your home or office and discuss it with you.