Raj Technologies Pvt. Ltd. - Blog

By Niharika Ravia

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As the World Wide Web is fast becoming the largest global shopping and information center - with apparel on many visitors' wish lists - you're on the right track to consider a Web site for your firm.

And you're not alone. Registrations for Internet domain names (i.e., the "www.your-company.com" address) now exceed 17,000 per week, and many major apparel firms and retailers already have set up extensive sites on the Web. So even if your company does not want an Internet presence at this time, chances are that your competition eventually will stake a spot on-line, and force you into this expanding arena.

Why are so many firms jumping on the Web? A key advantage is that even the smallest of companies can reach potential customers worldwide faster, less expensively and with a more tailored impact than they can through any other medium. Moreover, studies show that companies that use their Web sites to educate visitors - via information designed to build positive perceptions about products or services - are doing meaningful Internet business.

Yet amid the opportunities that come with an on-line presence, there also are important risks and challenges to consider, especially if on-line sales transactions are a part of your Web site strategy. For one, apparel manufacturers should consider whether on-line selling will strain relations with traditional retail customers, and be ready to respond to these customers' concerns. Also, there are taxation, shipping and customs issues that come with global exporting that apparel firms should understand before they open their Web sales to the world.

Consultants, software vendors and Web site development firms can offer guidance when it comes to establishing and expanding your site. Also, many industry associations feature Web-related services for their members. Some offer site development, and will add member firms to their on-line directories or searchable databases of manufacturers, while others offer technical guidelines for conducting on-line commerce.

Gene Levine Associates' AwardWebs[C] subsidiary, which specializes in Web site development, offers the following 10 tips to help your company get up and running on the Internet:

1. Plan What You Want Your Web Site to Accomplish.

Remember that everything in life works by the "Law of Cause and Effect," and carefully consider what you want your Web site to achieve for your company. Product sales? Information distribution? Customer service? Lead generation? Positioning in the market? Sales support? Get input from every key person involved in the project, outline a list of reasons your firm needs a Web site and list capabilities you want the site to have.

2. Choose a Reputable Internet Service Provider and Register a Unique Domain Name.

To have your own site on the Web, you must register for a domain name, which will be the home page address for your site. You also will need to arrange to link your site to the Web via a reputable Internet service provider (ISP). The best ISPs will have a reliable up-time rate of almost 100 percent, and should have at least 5,000 on-line clients. Remember: If your ISP goes down or out of business, your Internet presence temporarily shuts down too.

Your company's Internet presence will lack credibility without a unique domain name - one that best describes your firm and its products and services. For more information about registering a domain name, visit the site of the World Wide Web Domain Name Registration Service, otherwise known as InterNic, at http://rs.internic.net/cgibin/whois/. The cost of registration is approximately $35 per year. If the name you want already is taken, you may have to try another variation.

3. Explore the Web for Ideas and Hire an Experienced Web Site Designer.

Before you begin building your site, surf the Net and see what your competition and other companies are doing. This research can provide you with design ideas as a starting point for your site. Next, you can begin to experiment with building your site using in-house resources, or you can hire a professional Web site development firm. I suggest you opt for the latter because you can profit from an outside firm's experience and avoid inventing a square wheel. Remember: If your site is poorly designed or lacks meaningful content, visitors will leave, and they won't come back.

Once you decide to hire a Web designer, don't let a cheap price and/or an impressive graphic arts portfolio be your determining factor. Many graphic artists, while very creative, may lack the specific technical skills and business acumen that is necessary to make a Web site truly successful. Bigger design companies charge more, but are more likely to have business consultants and Internet marketing strategists on hand to guide their design staffs. The right design firm to hire is one that has a hard-earned reputation for producing effective yet distinctive Web sites, and one that is willing to train you to maintain your site.

4. Focus on Function.

Perceptions drive sales, and so your Web site's design should project a positive image of your business. The site should offer a valuable and information-filled experience, while being a fun site to surf. Interesting and useful pages will get results and stimulate response. "Pretty" pages alone won't cut it, but meaningful content will.

Your home page is likely to be the most frequently used entrance to your site, where most visitors will gain their first impression of your firm. Make sure, therefore, that your home page is one of the fastest-loading and most interesting pages within your site. Simple is better. Less is more.

When designing your site, first make a storyboard, or mock-up, for each page in the site. Create logical, intuitive and easy-to-find sections so that your site will be easy to navigate. Visitors are an impatient bunch, and they want to rapidly find what they need. For example, it's all right to expect visitors to scroll down a page to view information, but don't expect them to scroll side to side. Most visitors won't do it; they'll just leave. Also, think long and hard about using frames, as most visitors dislike them.

It's also a good idea to put a navigation bar on every page so that visitors always will have a way to: 1) get to your home page; 2) get out of your site; and 3) contact you. They'll also appreciate your thoughtfulness in not sticking them on a page with a "dead end."

Maximize your Web site's browser compatibility, as all visitors to your site should share the same visual and functional experience. Pages that suggest they are "best viewed using XYZ Browser version 4.20" (or any other disclaimer) could backfire on you. Visitors who don't have that browser will leave - because they're impatient and may even feel you're telling them they're unimportant.

5. Make Sure Your Site Downloads Fast!

Don't get carried away with graphics. Dazzling graphics and pictures are nice, but if it takes too long for your pages to download, they'll chase visitors away. Test your pages on computers that use a variety of different modems. If a page takes longer than 20 seconds to load on a computer with an older, slower modem, then streamline your content. Remember that many of your potential customers will not have cutting edge computers, up-to-date browsers or fast, 56K/V-90 modems in their homes. If you must use a big graphic, put it midway down the page so visitors will have something to read while your "big picture" is loading.

6. Allow Your Visitors to Interact.

Use your global presence to its best advantage - interaction. Provide an internal search feature so that visitors can rapidly find the information they are looking for, and in turn, request information from your visitors, offering incentives for their feedback. For instance, you might establish a "guest book" that prompts visitors to provide information about themselves in return for a special offer or a free gift. Make sure your information forms contain the appropriate fields for all of the information you'll need to provide outstanding customer service.

7. Be Prepared to Serve Your Customers.

If you want to have visitors buy goods from you over the Internet, your Web site will need to have some sophisticated features for protecting credit card information, processing orders, etc. Many people still do not feel comfortable giving their credit card information over the Internet. However, visitors are more inclined to use their credit cards if they know your site uses an ISP with "SSL-Secure Server" capabilities for encrypting sensitive information. As an alternative to credit cards, you initially may want to provide an order blank that your customers can print out, complete and mail in with a check. Be sure to include your firm's phone number and/or physical address on Web pages and order blanks.

Electronic "shopping carts" also are becoming a popular on-line selling feature. As visitors surf through your various pages, they can simply click on desired purchases and put them into these carts. When they "check out," your Web site must be able to generate the purchase total and applicable taxes and shipping charges. Most sites with shopping cart capability also provide some form of on-screen order confirmation and payment procedures.

Finally, you must determine how you want information sent to you. The method you choose most likely will require some common gateway interface (CGI) programming, which is complex but will set you apart from the amateurs.

8. Publicize Your Site.

You won't receive your desired level of traffic by simply creating and publishing a Web site. As in opening a new store or introducing a new line, you have to advertise your new Web location. When you're satisfied with your site, register it with the most popular Internet search engines, and include your Web address on all your printed advertising materials. Also, to help move your site to the top of search engine listings, make sure its HTML coding contains lots of "hidden" stuff, such as meta tags, key words and site descriptions that the search engines are likely to capture.

9. Update and Maintain Your Site.

You cannot ignore the continual maintenance of your site. It's important to conduct spelling and grammar checks, verification of links and authentication of your source code on every page - before and after publishing. Also, remember that visitors will return to a good thing, and so new, meaningful and relevant content is a necessity to keep them coming. In checking your site's hit statistics, watch out for "Code 404s," which indicate you may have some malfunctions to correct.

10. Allow Room to Grow.

Your Web site should be easy to upgrade so that your company can keep pace with emerging technologies such as audio and video streaming, CGI scripts and powerful e-commerce functions such as shopping carts, merchant connections and electronic catalogs. Your designer needs to know how, when and where to deploy these add-ons to enhance your site's productivity. Always think ahead, and decide how you will handle: changes to your products and prices; the addition of pages to increase the value of your site; updates to obsolete pages, images and links; and improvement of the look of your pages. It's a good idea to keep your Web designer on a retainer to maintain your present pages or add new pages so that you or your people need not become experts on writing source code.

Warm regards,
Niharika Ravia
http://www.rajtechnologies.com/

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By Niharika Ravia

Visit our sponsor:
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http://www.hostmepostme.com
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1. Find a free blogging service, such as www.blogger.com

2. Register a catchy yet philosophically deep name for your new blog: "lifesucks"; "All Things Me"; "Lifehacker"; "Playing With Matches"; "The Internet Slacker", "I Stalk David Hasselhoff".

3. Consider one of the many pre-made website templates offered by the blogging service, or one created by you.

4. Turn your nose up in disgust at the thought of using a pre-made template for your blog.

5. Spend the next seventeen hours creating a functioning website from scratch. If using Microsoft FrontPageTM, relocate all children and elders to a safe area out of your "profanity zone".

6. Complete your self-made blog template by clicking on the "Publish Website" command in Microsoft FrontPageTM.

7. Watch in shock as the aforementioned seventeen hours of hard work gets permanently deleted off your hard drive by Microsoft FrontPageTM.

8. Swear so loudly all dogs within a five block radius begin running in circles and howling.

9. Declare "Screw It" and choose from a pre-made template. Always choose one with lots of kittens and flashing animated gifs.

10. Make sure the template is ready for your first blog entry. You can do this by going to your new blog's URL address and seeing if the page loads properly. It will have no posts yet, of course, as you have not actually written your first blog entry. (If you do see a post written by yourself at this specific moment in time, read it! You've traveled back in time to warn yourself about the "Publish Website" command in Microsoft FrontPageTM).

11. Click on the "Create Post" selection. The window will reload with a box for you to type text in.

12. Put fingers to keyboard in preparation to type your first blog entry.

13. Realize in horror that you have absolutely no idea what you're going to write about.

14. And you've got a whole blog ahead of you.

15. Stand up and get an alcoholic beverage to calm you.

16. Pace back and forth while racking your brain for a great post.

17. Cast resentful looks at your computer monitor while drinking the alcoholic beverage.

18. Come up with a touching yet funny childhood memory you can write about, like when you and all the other fat kids in the neighborhood used to take down the ice cream man not unlike a pack of lions ravaging a wounded gazelle.

19. Or, make your first post about how much you love pets. Remark on the fact that you let your pet pit bull out of the house every night to get some freedom and exercise even though the sirens from the ambulances tearing through your neighborhood constantly interrupt your sleep.

20. Or, make a heartfelt confession about how guilty you feel that you could never be a vegetarian because you salivate every time a nature documentary appears on the television.

21. Sit back down at your computer desk with your great idea.

22. Complete your first post.

23. Experience a fleeting sense of satisfaction that you now have a blog with an actual entry, even though it details your sexual attraction to Yoda.

24. Immediately phone all your friends and family to tell them the URL. Remind your grandmother that 'stiffwoodysdiary' in your blog's address is spelled "all one word".

25. Reload your blog incessantly every two minutes to see if anyone has made a comment.

26. Become enraged when the very first comment made on your very first blog entry is "yuo are teh sUxx0r!" from Anonymous

27. Go outdoors to calm down and get some fresh air, since you've spent twenty-two hours now working on your blog.

28. Tell every person you encounter - jogger, police officer, frantic paramedic - your blog's URL.

29. Head back home when an idea for a blog entry comes to mind, such as the rudeness of paramedics who can't be bothered to talk about your blog because they are busy helping some whiner with pitbull bite wounds on his throat.

30. When back at your computer, immediately refresh your blog's page to see if any more comments were made while you were gone.

31. Grip the edge of your computer desk when the second comment reads "I said yuo are teh sUxx0r!" by Anonymous

32. Click on the "make new post" button on your blog.

33. Realize with horror you've totally forgotten the good writing idea.

34. Stand up and get another drink.

35. Sit back down at your computer desk.

36. Write your second post: how people who make dumb comments on blogs should be strung up by their genitals with barbed wire.

37. Complete the second post.

38. Stand up and get a third drink to calm you down from the blogging experience.

39. Watch TV while thinking you shouldn't watch so much television since experiencing life would probably make for a blog that's actually interesting to read. By going out more, you'll be able to continue to spread the address of your blog to bemused strangers, too.

40. Accept phone call from your grandmother asking you to change 'stiffwoody' in your blog's name to something more polite.

41. Refuse and hang up phone.

42. On the way back to the television, refresh your blog's page again to see if there are any more comments.

43. Experience relief when third comment is a non-abusive one. Become incredibly depressed when you discover it is written by a fellow blogger asking if you ever fantasize about wearing lederhosen while flailing midgets with kielbasa sausage, and if you'd like to meet up with him for same.

44. Stand up and get a much larger, stronger drink.

45. Consider making your third post. Repeat verbal declaration made in step #9, forget blogging for now, go to bed.

46. Just before you fall asleep, realize with horror you'll need to repeat steps #11 to #45 daily to keep your bragging rights about owning a blog (which, ironically, nobody reads).

47. Slip into an uneasy nightmare about being forced to type the word "sUxx0r" on a flaming keyboard while chained to Jabba the Hutt, who keeps demanding "More! More! Jakatooie Blogga Dooie! More!!!"

48. Wake up in the morning. Scream.

49. Read the new comments posted on your blog. Scream again.

50. Repeat for the rest of your life.

51. Welcome To Blogging!

Warm regards,
Niharika Ravia
http://www.rajtechnologies.com/

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