Many people think Computers and IT are just one part of the company, and isn’t part of their company’s image. These days that is not true at all! Having a proper network and computer set up is not only essential to your company’s core infrastructure, but its image as well. According to New Media TrendWatch, a service provided by the European Travel Commission, in 2011 over 78% of the United States population was online. That’s a good percentage of people on the internet searching for businesses and services. This is where IT can help your business.
Basic tips for your company’s online presence:
- An easy to type, easy to remember website domain name.
A proper and easy to remember domain name is key to having a business on the web. a domain like mycustomcarshoplosangelescaliforniausa.net is not an acceptable name, for example. It’s excessively long, and gives room for typos, which can lead to no website, or the wrong website. Such as a squatter who grabs a similar name and has a site which downloads a virus or slams a would-be client with spam advertising! Ick!
What would be a proper domain in this case? something like lacustoms.com or lacustomconcepts.com or laautoconcepts.com (note, these are examples, and likely, do exist)
- A well organized and informational website that looks clean and well laid out.
A professional web presence is key to your business. A proper website is like an enhanced business card. Tells prospective clients and vendors a little about yourself, what your company does, and how to get a hold of you. As well as other functions that can help your business, such as an online store, informational blogs (such as this one!) and if you’re a service provider like us, links for assistance. Making it look professional is just as important as it having content. If it looks like a personal geocities page from 1999, you are likely not going to get taken seriously, or at least, you may be seen as a small time business, which regardless of the truth, is how you do not want to be perceived! A good web design can cost money, but it is well invested if done right. Another perk to having a website is exposure to popular search engines, such as google. Google is the hottest search engine at the moment, and “google it” has become a colloquial term for searching for information on the internet. Making sure your company can be found via a search engine is another invaluable key to success.
- E-mail addresses that use your domain name.
Whenever you send an e-mail or post an e-mail address to prospective clients or businesses to deal with, having an e-mail account with typical providers, like yahoo, msn, hotmail, or gmail.com at the end looks very unprofessional and somewhat tacky. It’s reminiscent of the earliest days of the internet when getting a custom domain and all the e-mail settings were expensive. These days, it’s very inexpensive to create an e-mail address for your website. Either through your own e-mail systems (exchange, small business server, etc) through your hosting provider (hosting providers often provide cheap e-mail services) or through microsoft or google’s respective business services, which allow you to use your company’s domain name. so instead of yourcompanyname@msn.com, and likely everyone in your company getting the same e-mails, some of those you do not want to share with every employee, you can set up yourname@yourcompany.com and employee@yourcompany.com. Makes it look cleaner and professional. Potential clients and businesses you may work with will see you as an established, professional company.
These three basic concepts will help make your company look professional when it comes to the web, the rest of course, is up to you.
