WEB SITES EXPLAINED

Why a Web Site

A simple web site will draw customers to a presentation of your goods and/or services.  It may simply tell your customers what you have to offer.  As it develops, the site may link from a picture of the product to a full page for each product detailing all of its components as well as price.  Your're still telling.  The real power comes when you can interract with the customer such that you make contact and hopefully a sale.  There are plenty of clever tools to help you do that such as forms, e-brochures and commercial interractions. 

Of course Innovative Marketing Solutions (IMS) can provide you with all of these services and more! (We've got to get our pitch in otherwise we wouldn't be practicing what we preach!).  In fact you can get started right away with our Low Cost Site where we offer you all you need to get a window on the web.

Where to Start

Your web site is your window to the public on the Internet.  The people who have arrived there have done so either because you told them about it, they read about it in an advertisement or they got linked there from a search engine or a banner advertisement. DON'T DISSAPOINT THEM!!  A number of web sites use words like "free" and "sex" to get people there and then don't carry through on their promises.

Usually your customers will arrive on the "Front Page" or index of the site. This page should be easy to read and accurately define what to expect in the rest of the site.  Your marketing strategy is to get them past the front page to the real information.  Its like advertising a special and then not having the stock.  Your customers won't visit you again - there's plenty of competition on the web!

The Simple Site

Web sites vary from a basic 4 to 5 page site to sites that run to hundreds of pages.  This is a simple site.  It tells you what we do, provides you with some (hopefully) useful information so that when you decide to get started, you will come to us and it gives you a Contact Page to tell us a little about yourself and to give us the opportunity to build a relationship with you.

Incidentally, We Have a Special Running Right Now on a Simple Site for more info Find out about our SPECIAL OFFER.

This site is intended as a link to people who may need our services - and hopefully you are one of them.  Visit our site links to see a few other sites offering different types of services and begin to think about how you want your site to look.

The Back End

This is the next stage up.  If you have a site that changes a lot, it may be worth spending a little more and having the facility to modify the contents yourself.  Sounds great doesn't it - no more running off to the designer every time I need a change!   The concept is great but take care not to pay too much for a service that you may seldom use.  Many sites of this nature are "dynamically built".  This means that a basic template exists and the server displays your information as and when it is required by the visitor.  The server connects to a database that contains the information relevant to your site.

I'm sure you've noticed that we already have more resources being used and while you don't need to pay your designer every time you have a change, this is usually built in to the monthly fees.

Great for sites that change often, but not if you don't expect too many changes.  If you would like a site like this designed for you Contact Us and we can discuss your requirements.

The Commercial Site

You are a wine reseller and you want to sell you wines using the internet.  We're talking about your typical shopping site.  This site takes the database concept a step further.  Here, all the information about your products is stored in a database (an electronic filing system).  The visitor can make a choice (or a number of choices) as to what to buy and he enters this information either directly or by choosing one of a number of options. 

(some additional detail)  :  When the "submit" (or go or seek etc) button is pressed, these choices are sent off to the database which then puts them in order and sends them back to the server (which is connected to your computer).  The server sends the information to the visitor to display by the browser.  What actually happens is that all of the code that is needed for your browser to display the information properly is generated before it is sent there so, when the browser reads the code, it thinks that is has come from a file on the server.

Another feature of the Commercial Site, is the fact that the visitor can Pay for the goods.  Now we enter yet another realm and this is the area of privacy.  In order for your information to be entered without anyone else having access to it, you enter a zone on the server which is designated as private