Does Your Business REALLY Need a Website?

We have developed many websites but to our greatest surprise at some question people who don’t have a website ask, so that drives the intention of making this research which we titled “Does Your Business REALLY Need a Website?”
Here are the top 10 questions we were able to get as regards the kinds of questions people who don’t have a website or people who have a website that is not working out ask.

All these have to be addressed to give answers to the questions raised and also give us the knowledge to understand if our business really needs a website.

Does my company really need a website?

Only you can determine if your company needs a website. While making the determination, you want to consider that a website is multi-functional, and is a communication tool — not an advertisement. If your business is organized, all of your clientele is local, and you have a back-log of customers waiting to be serviced —and you can handle that service effectively — you may not need a website.
If you often wish you could communicate effectively with a broader range of clients/customers, publicly post answers to frequently asked questions, attract new customers, break into new markets and take the market share from your competitors — then a website is a MUST!
A website is like your giant public bulletin board where people can get information on how to find you, where you are located, what you have to offer, why your service is unique, and what’s new in your company. It also is easily updated and changed frequently and is a communication forum through which your customers can communicate back to you with questions, concerns, and feedback on their needs.

What is the cost involved?

Having a website involves three basic costs:

The development of the site is the actual “building” or putting the graphics, text, links, and codes all together so you have web pages that look good and are informative when you see the site on the computer. This is the largest of the three costs and can ranch in price from N20,000 to N500,000 or more depending on the type of website.
However, the cost of getting a functioning website is generally the same as putting a color ad insert into your local paper once or twice a year. That ad is seen and then gone. The cost of your website is a one-time investment for a tool you own and can continue to use for communication and marketing indefinitely. It is always up – and always accessible.
Hosting the site means the website files are put on a large server so the general public can access your site by clicking through the Internet. Hosting costs vary but average around $20 to $50 per month, based on the website functionality and the hosting provider. Service varies widely as well. The ideal host will offer several services bundled together for one affordable price. Look for these services in a hosting package:

Registering the domain name involves reserving a unique web address where users find your web site (www.yourcompany.com). This is done through a public registry service and the cost is typical $13 per year.
I tell clients that getting a website is like getting a telephone. They both have similar cost structures. The website cost is like the cost of the phone and installation. You pay one time and the equipment is yours. The hosting cost is similar to your monthly phone bill — you own the equipment but you pay for the service of being able to use it. The domain name registry is like the phone number — a unique way to get in touch with only YOU.
Additional Costs — can include:

I already have a web page on someone else’s website. Why do I need two?

If you have a web page with your Chamber of Commerce or with a listing service in your industry or parent company (e.g. realtor.com, Teleflora, bbonline, etc.), that is a GOOD thing! However, that is not a website. It more than likely only offers contact information and a brief description of your offer.
It lumps you into a wide category that generally includes your competitors, and in many cases, it doesn’t offer the interaction with the public that your own website would offer. Finally — you don’t own the site or have control over it.
Your website brands you as unique and reveals your identity. The good news is that having that page with the Chamber or another listing service will enhance and empower your new website. It will drive more traffic to your site and put you one step ahead of the marketing game.
Think about it. If a visitor is looking for a florist on Teleflora and finds five listings close to home — and one of the listings has a link to its own website — that visitor is going to go “one-click further” and click on that florist’s website. When scanning a list, people always want to know more. Your link gives them that opportunity.

I don’t sell merchandise on-line. Why would I need a website?

You may not sell merchandise on-line, but do you sell something special that people are looking for? Do you ever have a customer say “I came here because you sell ________.” For example, a store that sells a line of products or brands that are highly sought after by a faithful following, (e.g. Dept. 56, Boyd’s Bears, Hallmark Cards, Red Wing Shoes, certain lines of animal products, clothing and accessories, tools) is going to have potential customers that search the Internet to find out who sells those brands in their local area. Will you be on the search results? Will your competitor be?
The same applies to restaurants and lodging. People are visiting a certain area. Over 70% of travelers in the United States and Europe use the Internet to set travel itineraries — and those itineraries include restaurants, accommodations, and shopping. Will you be among the choices found when they search the Internet?
If you offer something that people are looking for, a large portion of people (perhaps a market unknown to you thus far) will search the Internet because it’s fast, it’s easy, it’s global and it’s private. A website will put you in the running with others on the Internet.

I don’t even use a computer. I can’t maintain a web site.

Using the computer is like playing the piano. You can play “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” or a Sonata by Chopin. Either way, you’re getting a tune out.
To maintain a website you should have a computer, and you — or someone in your company — should be able to send and receive the email.
Your web developer can help you with maintenance, changes, and updates, which is generally simple and affordable.

Our customers like the personal touch and most aren’t computer users.

Your current customers may not use the computer much — that is possible.
A worthy concern should be about the potential customers that do use the computer and CAN’T FIND YOU. Statistics prove that 65% of the population in rural areas uses a computer at least once per week, and 85% in metropolitan areas use a computer. These percentages have NEVER decreased. It is likely that they will continue to increase. A website keeps you in sync with this trend.
Another interesting statistic:
The fastest-growing sector of the American population getting computer literate is between the ages of 50 and 75. This sector also includes those with the highest percentage of disposable income. A website helps you target that using population.
Another thing to think about – 75 years ago, the American population felt that the telephone was an expensive luxury and not crucial to business growth. That sentiment continued for 30 years. As social communication trends changed, and expenses decreased — businesses changed to ensure profitability. The use of the Internet will only increase in the next ten years.

I have a cousin who can make websites. I’ve promised him that he can do ours.

Is your cousin a qualified web developer? If so, you’re the lucky ones. Be sure to impart a sense of urgency in getting the site completed. If he or she makes websites as a hobby, you’ll want to consider the following:

Our upcoming advertising commitments will use all our marketing money.

It is important to recognize that a website is NOT an advertising investment. It complements and empowers your advertising efforts. Ads are the property of the advertising vendor and are a revolving cost to a company. You buy an ad for a specific amount of time — and then the ad is gone.
A website is a marketing and communication tool that belongs to you. You control it and you can use it continually. It is a company asset similar to a telephone or fax machine. You buy it one time and only pay for the service to use it. Websites reach a growing customer base that up until now has remained hidden to you. It also services your current customer base, giving them more options to communicate with you.
Once you have a website, you can include your web address on all of your advertising, offering potential customers and clients an opportunity to find out more. A website in today’s world is also a stamp of credibility to the public that hasn’t yet met you.
The following quote is an excerpt from Small Business Magazine — October Issue 2003.
“Customers and other people who come in contact with your business expect to find a reputable business on the Web, so don’t risk your credibility by not being present.”

A website seems so sterile and impersonal. It won’t add to “our kind” of a customer base that was built on personal relationships.

This statement is commonly made by specialty shop owners and real estate agents. Real estate agents will add “I already invest high naira in space advertising.” This is probably one of the most frustrating objections for me because the business owners that say this are some of the nicest people I’ve met – and are usually sound business people. They know how to treat a customer or client with special care.
However, they don’t understand that all kinds of people use the internet to access information. The internet, unlike advertising mediums, does not target a set demographic. Magazines, Newspapers, Television, Radio — are all demographically based. Family Circle will always target women between the ages of 25 and 35 that have young children. Country music radio stations target a specific audience as do Cable news programs or shows like Sesame Street.
The Internet gives everyone access, targeting no one in particular. The Internet user chooses where to look, just as they choose what newspaper to buy or what television program to watch. If your business is not there, it won’t be found.
There are over 8 billion web pages indexed in the Google search engine back then as in 2004 of which it has overgrown that number now.
The top three commercial markets on the web are Technology, Real Estate, and Travel. Technology businesses know they need a website. If you’re in real estate (even an individual agent) YOU NEED A WEBSITE.
If your business markets to travelers accommodations, restaurant, specialty shopping, tickets, travel wear, recreational products, travel gear, animal care, children’s activities) YOU NEED A WEBSITE. Statistics show that 7 out of 10 people will go to the internet for information before they purchase real estate or set a travel itinerary.
A website usually is rather impersonal — and that’s a good thing. When people use the internet they want information, not a personal relationship. The information will bring them to you. You create a relationship.
A website gives you a higher number of potential customers to create a relationship with. If internet users don’t find you on the web, they’ll seek out your competitors who have websites.

I wouldn’t know what to do with a website if I had one.

In addition to the information above, understand that Internet users find you — you don’t find them. They will either search for you because they’ve heard your name, or search for a product you’re selling. If your business is not listed, it doesn’t exist for Internet users.
Your web developer is a trained professional that will assist with maintaining and handling the website.

Conclusion

A website is a marketing tool that costs you ONE TIME and continues to pay you back. It expands your customer base, enhances your advertising and marketing efforts and gives your business a mark of credibility.
A website at its basic level tells millions of Internet users:

When you consider the continual growth in numbers of Internet users and the growth of companies that are on the Internet, some of which may be your competitors, it could cost you NOT to have a website.
We hope this information is helpful and educative enough for you to be able to make better decisions as it regards your personal and business usage.
Credit goes to http://www.soswebdesign.com where most of the information is gotten and first published.

Reasons Why Some Websites Don’t Make Money

The reasons why some website don’t make money is a lack of visitors, and those sites that do get regular traffic often fail to convert those visitors in to customers.
There are many reasons for this. Most of the planning usually goes in to the design of the website and all of the fancy features that will wow the visitors, the thought process is to build a honey pot and the visitors will come.
It’s an entirely understandable desire and I wish it worked that way, unfortunately it doesn’t. I can’t count the number of failing sites I have seen with the baffled owner saying something along the lines of “But we hired an expensive web designer and the site looks great”.
Absolutely no disrespect to website designers, they have an important and often undervalued skill, but most have very little understanding of direct marketing principles or how to get traffic, there are always exceptions but it is unusual to find people with both of these skill sets.
It is a bit like hiring a painter and decorator to design and architect your house, just suggesting you might do that sounds mad.
This is not to say you do not need good website design, but that is only one piece of the puzzle and there are other factors that are equally or more important.
It is a fact that with enough traffic and a compelling offer even an ugly website can make sales. Have you ever looked at Craigslist?
There is a common tendency to regard the Internet as some magical place where the rules of sales and marketing go out of the window. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Internet is just another marketing channel. Those who do well on it treat it as such.
Prior to the rise of the Internet in the mid 90’s the nearest equivalent was direct response advertising and mail order. This is of course very much alive and well today, the principles are exactly the same.
The major steps with mail order are to write a compelling offer using good copy writing, ask people to take a particular action, keep following up as people often do not buy until they have been exposed to an offer numerous times, make higher priced offers to buyers, rinse and repeat.
The big downside with direct mail is of course the associated costs. Paying for materials, printing, packaging, postage etc is an expensive proposition. Get your offer or your audience wrong and you can quickly lose your shirt.
But have you noticed how many offers you still get through traditional snail mail? I am on a number of mailing lists as I have bought many information products through the years, and I still respond to a really good offer.
In essence the Internet allows you to fail much more cheaply! But you have to take a very similar approach.
The first step is to get a stream of reliable traffic who are looking for what you are offering. In the mail order scenario you would buy a mailing list from a list broker.
There is an equivalent for the Internet in the form of paid traffic, or you can gradually try to build up organic traffic through various methods using blogs and social media etc.
Paid traffic is considerably cheaper than mail order and you can start very small with literally just $10 or $20 and test whether that traffic makes you a profit. If it does you can now scale up, pay for more visitors and make more money. If not you can tweak your site and/or your advert and try again.
The key is to keep marketing and ensure that you have a steady stream of visitors. When you have this you can focus on turning those visitors in to customers and following up relentlessly.
If following up bothers you because you don’t want to risk irritating people, consider this – on average a customer only buys when they have been exposed to advertising about that product 6 or 7 times. You have to follow up if you want to make sales.
When you have traffic you need to make sure that you offer an engaging experience. Are you offering something of real value? Is there a good reason for me to stay on your site or an incentive to take some action?
Unless you have good content it is highly likely that your visitor attrition rate will be high, they won’t hang around without very good reason.
Build trust and a loyal customer base and traffic will start to look after itself anyway.
Just remember that we are in an age where we are all sold to continuously, if you want fans don’t send prospects and customers sales pitch after sales pitch or you will just turn them off. Send them useful free information and let them see how much you have to offer.
A very successful model is to drive traffic to your website, give something of value away in return for an email address. Follow up regularly by email and provide further value, but throw in sales offers along the way.
Over deliver, give things away, make your correspondence something that people can look forward to. In other words behave differently from your competition and you will stand out from the crowd.
If you look at the emails that engage you and the rare marketers who you look forward to hearing from, it is very likely that you have an affinity with their style and personality. They might well tell stories as part of their engagement, they keep you interested.
Do the same and watch your sales start to soar!

For you website Design Services
Call us 08177780097, 08177780098 and also if you want to learn how to design a website, you can as well call us.

DNS is essentially the glue that holds the internet together. In this article, we delve into this topic to discuss some ways web devs can take advantage of the DNS.

Brief History of DNS

Behind every website is a little-known system that is the glue holding the internet together. It’s called the DNS, or the Domain Name System.
Thirty years ago, when the Internet was still in its infancy when you wanted to visit a website you had to know the IP address of that site. That’s because computers are and were only able to communicate using numbers.
_______________________________________________________________________________

This is an IP address: 127.33.54.200.

________________________________________________________________________________
It’s long, hard to remember, and we (humans, I presume) are not robots. We needed a way to translate computer-readable information into human-readable. And it had to be fast, lightweight, and scalable.
In the early 1980s, Paul Mockapetris came up with a system that automatically mapped IP addresses to domain names, and the DNS was born. This same system still serves as the backbone of the modern Internet, today.
And yet, only a small subset of the world knows that it exists, and an even smaller group understand what it does. The real problem is that the people that need to know how it works and could actually benefit from this knowledge… don’t take the time to learn.
If you’re a webmaster, web designer, front-end developer, IT, or technical support you need to know the basics of how DNS works and how it can help you manage your domain’s presence on the Internet.

How DNS Works

Before we get into how you can use the DNS, we need to understand how the system works. We already know that it maps IP addresses to domain names, but where is this information stored? On nameservers!
Name servers store DNS records which are the actual file that says “this domain” maps to “this IP address.” So is there a room somewhere that has all the nameservers and DNS records for every site on the Internet? No… that would be ridiculous.
They are actually distributed all around the world. These nameservers are called the root nameservers and instead of storing every domain ever, they store the locations of the TLD (top level domains).
TLDs are the two or three character strings like .com that end a domain name. Each TLD has their own set of nameservers that store the information that says who is authoritative for storing the DNS records for that domain.
The authoritative nameserver is typically the DNS provider or the DNS registrar (like GoDaddy that offers both DNS registration and hosting). And here we can find the DNS record that maps example.com to the IP address 127.66.122.88.

TTLs and Caches

Let’s put that all together. When you query a domain name your first step won’t actually be at the root name servers. Instead, your browser will ask your local resolving name server if they have the DNS records for that domain cached.
The resolving name server is typically your ISP (Internet Service Provider), and if it’s a popular website like youtube.com they will likely have the record in their cache. In this case, you would skip the rest of the DNS lookup process.
However, these records are only stored for a short period of time. Whenever you create a record, you have the option to set a TTL (Time to Live). TTLs tell resolving name servers how long they can store the record information. TTLs can range anywhere from 30 seconds to a week.
What if the record we are looking for isn’t cached? Then the resolving name server will ask the root name servers for the TLD for that domain, which will point you to the provider that’s authoritative for hosting the records.

Okay, that was a lot of steps to go through just to find the IP address. Oh, and by the way, this process happens in just a couple milliseconds. A little perspective, you blink your eye in roughly 50 milliseconds. You can resolve most DNS queries in under 30.

Basic Stuff Everyone Should Know

Now we are going to take a look at how this very simple system can be used to help you keep your website online, improve website load times, email delivery, and so much more.
We will be using Constellix to demonstrate how to create the various records you need to get your site online. You can follow along, just create a Constellix account and add a test domain.

Update Nameservers

Your first encounter with DNS almost always happens at your domain registrar –where you bought your domain name.
Ok, so you have a domain name, cool, but it doesn’t actually do anything yet. If you type your brand spanking new domain into your browser, I bet you’ll see a placeholder page courtesy of your registrar.

First things first, get off your registrar’s DNS.
You will need to change your domain’s nameservers to those of a specialized DNS provider.
How you do it depends on your current provider, but basically what you want to do is make note of all of your existing DNS records. There may also be an option to export them into a zip file. Though it’s likely it won’t have any records unless you bundled with web hosting or another service. If you do, you’ll want to create the exact same records at your new provider.
Now you can add your domain to your new provider. You’ll be prompted to update your nameservers through your registrar. This tells the company who you bought your domain from and that you are going to be using another provider for DNS hosting. You may need to wait a few minutes.
One thing to note, changing DNS providers DOES NOT change who your registrar is. Your domain is still registered through your registrar, but you are now hosting your DNS information (records) through a different provider.
Now that you have moved to an external provider, you can start adding records. Let’s assume you don’t have any yet. You will need a handful to get your site up and running, which only takes a few minutes.

Get Naked

Before we go any further, you need to decide whether you want to send your users to www.yourdomain.com or yourdomain.com. The latter is called a “naked domain” or “CNAME flattening” and it’s the latest craze because frankly, it just makes life simpler.
We’re going to assume you, like the rest of the world, prefer to not type in the extra 4 characters of www.
But what if someone enters www.yourdomain.com into their browser? Where will they go?
Nowhere. Because we have to tell them that www is not the preferred version of our site. We can do this using a CNAME record.

CNAME Records

CNAME records point domains (or hostnames) to other domains (or hostnames). They are also called Alias records because they tell the user that the record information is actually hosted somewhere else.
You can even use CNAME records to point to external domains like www.yourdomain.com to www.google.com. Just remember to add a dot at the end, or the hostname will be appended to the beginning of your domain like www.google.com.yourdomain.com.
Keep in mind that CNAME records are different from Web Redirection because you can only point domains to other domains, no fancy URL paths. You wouldn’t be able to say www.yourdomain.com points to www.google.com/this-is-not-a-page.html.
Another thing to note, CNAME records cannot be used at the root level. So once we make our domain naked, we won’t be able to use a CNAME record to point our domain to another hostname… more on this in a few minutes.
For this use case, we need to point www.yourdomain.com to yourdomain.com. That means we are telling the user that the IP address for www.yourdomain.com is actually stored at yourdomain.com.
Now we need to create a CNAME record that tells everyone who types in www.yourdomain.com to go to yourdomain.com.
For the record, name enter www and point that to the host: yourdomain.com. Make sure you do not add a period/dot/stop at the end. You only want to use those if you are pointing to an external domain like google.com.

Once you commit your changes, your domain will be naked! Go ahead and try it.

Add a Web Server

Ok, we’re live on our new DNS provider and our domain is naked… but you don’t have a website. It just shows a blank page.
You need to create a record that tells your users how to get to the web server where you are hosting the files for your website. Let’s assume you already have a web server and at least a homepage (index.html) setup. Your web hosting provider will give you an IP address or hostname for the server your site is hosted on.
You need to tell users who visit your domain that they need to actually be going to the web server to see your website files. You can do that with an A record which answers users with the IP address of the web server or an ANAME (read more about this later) record that points to the hostname of the server.

In this example, we are going to use Constellix to show you how to create an A record. Leave the name field blank, since we want this to work at the root (naked) level of our domain. In the IP field, enter the IP address of your web server.

Your changes will propagate instantly. Now, when you type your domain name into your browser you will see the index.html page you have stored on your web server. All thanks to DNS.

More CNAME

Simplify Your Life

The next thing you need to do is setup your FTP (how you upload website files) and mail servers. Both of these services will most likely need to point to your web server. There are two ways to do this. You can take the hard way and go and make more A or CNAME records that point mail.yourdomain.com and ftp.yourdomain.com to your web server.
Or, you can create CNAME records that point to the root of our domain, which already has an A record that points to our web server.

That means, if you ever change your web server, all you have to do is update a single A record.

Gooooooogle

Have you ever accidentally added an extra “o” to google.com? It’s okay, we all have. But did you notice that you still ended up at google.com? Not gooogle.com or a blank page, but plain old google.com. That’s because Google uses a CNAME record to send traffic that mistakenly adds an extra “o” to their intended destination.
When you set up your own site, you may want to do the same thing. This does mean that you have to buy domains that are similar or a letter off from your own domain. Then, all you have to do is create a CNAME record that points users to the correct domain.

Optimization

So far, we’ve only discussed basic website setup using DNS, but DNS does so much more than simply tell users how to reach your site. The system has evolved to become an optimization tool to decrease load times, deliver location-specific content, and so much more.
A few months ago, I was traveling from DC to Seattle. While I was waiting in the airport, I took to Yelp to find a place to get brunch once I landed. But almost every website I tried to load took over ten seconds just to get the first image to appear.
Why? It’s simple physics, as distance increases between two points, it takes longer to reach each endpoint.
Remember earlier, how our example website was hosted on a single web server? Well, this has actually become outdated for any business that has customers outside of their immediate locale. I mean, sure, the brunch place I wanted to go to usually won’t have customers from DC that often; but if you have an online store or a blog that you want people in Los Angeles to see and you’re on the East Coast… you’ll need more than one web server to get your visitors to stick around.

CDN

We can solve this with a CDN service. CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) are networks of web servers, each host a copy of your website. That means whenever a user wants to reach your site, they won’t just be sent to any old web server, but the one that is physically closest to them.
Since users have to travel less distance to reach your content, it loads faster. This can turn load times from ten (or more) seconds to under two!

How a CDN Works

But here’s the problem… right now we have an A record pointing to our web server. How do you point to the multiple web servers in a CDN?
You can’t. Instead, you have to point to the CDN using a CNAME record. The CDN will then calculate where the closest web server is and use an A record to point users to that web server.

The Naked Problem

But wait, CNAME records can’t operate at the root of a domain. So if we have a naked domain (no www.) we won’t be able to use a CDN.
Wrong! A few years ago, DNS Made Easy invented a new record type called an ANAME record. This record is like a CNAME record, but it operates at the root level.
In Constellix, all you have to do is create an ANAME record, leave the name field blank (because that’s the root) and point it to your CDN provider’s hostname (end with a dot).

PS: If you’re a reseller or manage a lot of domains with similar configurations, create a template with these records and whenever you add a new client (domain) apply this template.

When Sh%t Goes Down

Last but not least, we need to prepare for the worst. We already saw how to use a CDN to host multiple copies of our site across the world. Each of these copies acts as a sort of backup, so if one of those web servers isn’t working, users will just go to the next closest web server. Simple, right?
Well, we can use a similar technique using DNS records to automatically send users to another website or server if our main one isn’t working. This is called DNS failover.

Failover

So what if we have an A record that points yourdomain.com to an IP address like 1.1.1.1. And then we want to add another IP address 2.2.2.2, and maybe another at 3.3.3.3 because we have a couple different web servers we like to use for this website.
When a user queries our domain, how do we know which IP address will be returned? DNS records default to using Round Robin, which rotates which IP address is returned. So if we were to query our domain a bunch of times, one in every three times we would see 1.1.1.1 being returned.
Failover uses Round Robin to cycle through available endpoints, but will ONLY return endpoints that are detected as “up” or healthy.
You can use failover to send your users to backup web servers, email servers, CDN providers, and so much more.
Let’s take a look at this in Constellix. We are going to create a CNAME record that points to a CDN. We are also going to enable Failover, which tells Constellix that if our primary CDN is unavailable, then it should point to our backup CDN instead.

See the two fields for hostnames? That’s where you specify your primary and secondary CDN services (or whatever you want).
To the right of each hostname is a drop-down for a Sonar check. This is a simple monitoring check you can set up using our integrated network monitoring service. If Sonar detects one of your endpoints as DOWN (big red letters, can’t miss it) then it will no longer point users to that endpoint.
Let’s say our primary CDN, mycdn.com, was unavailable. Failover will automatically send all your traffic to othercdn.com. It’s not magic, it’s DNS!
I know there’s a lot going on here, but bear with me. This little setting could decide whether or not your site is online or not.
Sh%t happens, especially on the Internet. I mean look at this calendar of just some of the major outages that happened last year. In almost every instance, a single service was responsible for knocking that website or application offline.
What aspect of your online business or website do you find crucial? If something failed, would you lose a day of revenue? How much is that worth to you?
Take the time to set up backup services for what you find crucial and then use your DNS provider to set up failover records. We only showed you how to do this for a CDN service, but you can use this for web servers, email servers, and a myriad of other online services.

Big Picture

DNS is more than just the glue that holds the Internet together, it’s an invaluable tool that developers and webmasters need to take advantage of.