A web development team need not necessarily be an in-house affair as it can also be an outsourced team. The object of forming a web development team is to streamline your website, carry out SEO techniques and increase traffic to help you enlarge your business. As all of us are aware that millions of people utilize the Internet serviceson a daily basis and therefore to properly maintain the website, it calls for a competent team of qualified professionals. The process of maintaining a successful website can at times be strenuous and this the reason why many people opt to outsource at least certain tasks to a professional web development team. All of us know web design and development is a relatively new activity. Web development calls for professional competence to combine all media activities with data processing applications. What special skills do people need for web development and how to bring together the people with those skills to form a useful web development team? The key factor for putting up a web team development team is balancing the IT technical skills with creative skills. Quite often there may be a conflict between a technically perfect design and one that is aesthetically attractive – as the two may seldom combine. It usually becomes evident from a causal glance at a web site as to how the web team is balanced. One way to develop a well-balanced web team is to rely on tools to provide the technical framework, to which creativity can be added. The problem with this approach is that current frameworks provided by web authoring tools are limited and considered by many as technically inefficient. Web designing and development, for it to be perfect, requires both technical and artistic skills. While forming a web development team, do not just include one group of people in the corporate headquarters. Think of all staff members spread throughout the organization who occupy key positions in the functioning of the organization. It is better to include them before they feel isolated and work not in consonance with the corporate strategy. More and more people are beginning to feel that web development is best suited for outsourcing. Either wholly or partly the processes can be contracted out but care must be exercised not to outsource it to your IT supplier, who may not have the required skills. Web design can be carried out by a remotely located team, interacting over voice and e-mail. The web server can be remotely located, or even if locally located can be remotely maintained. It is believed that a web team which is partly in-house with few external members is particularly effective, provided the means of communication and expected response time are clearly understood by both the sides. The software industry has long known that at least half the total cost of software over its full life-cycle is in the maintenance phase. The same logic and arithmetic applies to web sites. To maximize the initial investment in a site, it needs to be as up-gradable as possible. How easy will it be to keep the appearance of the site fresh, even after the original web development team is no longer around to maintain the website and how easy will it be for new members of the web development team to add content, or functionality – are the questions to be borne in mind.
For comments and inquiries about the article visit: atomic55
Subscriptions obtained through another program: e.g., Microsoft Certified Partner Program, ISV Empower, or MSDN Academic Alliance do not qualify for this promotional pricing. Expired subscription licenses do not qualify for this promotional pricing….
Webinar Secrets Revealed; 7 Steps for Any Small Business to Make Big Money Using Webinars…without Spending a Fortune!
Let’s take a look at how you can start using Webinars in your business and seven steps to help you avoid the usual pitfalls and risks when starting out with Webinars.
1. Clearly Define Your Goals It sounds obvious, but you really need to think about the goal of your Webinar(s), so that you can measure your results. What is your goal?
To acquire leads and bring in new sales?
To educate existing customers on a new product/service?
To obtain research or feedback on an existing offer?
If you are looking to acquire leads, there are lots of potential ways to grow your leads. If you’re reaching out beyond just your internal list, the name of the game is promotion. You can promote your Webinar using Press Releases, Banner Ads, Joint Ventures, eMail Marketing to rented lists, Article Submissions, eZine Advertising, Pay-per-Click and more. If you are launching a new product or seeking feedback from your existing customers, then conducting an informational Webinar and Survey could be the an efficient method to fine tune your new project and get real-world feedback from those who matter most – your customers.
2. Choose Your Provider Do a Google search on Webinars or Web Conferencing and you’ll get back around 1,600,000 websites returned. Truth is; there are literally hundreds of companies that offer some kind of product or service for hosting Webinars. Choosing the right vendor for your specific requirements is a critical part of your success. It can often mean the difference between a winning Webinar vs. a Webinar that burns your brand, your customers and a hole in your wallet.
For small businesses you want a vendor who has a solid track record who offers the following:
1) Reliability and Scalability – Ability to handle large groups
2) Ease of Use for you and your attendees – You don’t need to be a ‘techie’ to make it work
3) Affordability – Reasonable price for the services offered
The Big Three you want to consider are: WebEx, GoTo Meeting and Adobe Connect. There are of course other companies but these three make my short list because they score high on the three criteria listed above. Do your research and select the vendor best suited for your specific needs.
What About Free? Yes, there are some Webinar providers out there that are free and they may be quite appropriate for your smaller, more collaborative web meetings with an audience who already knows you quite well. We’re talking Webinars here and that means reaching a larger audience, creating a professional image and delivering your message with minimal concerns regarding performance and reliability. Your Webinars are too critical to risk on a bare-bones service with little track record or limited history of results. Don’t step over dollars to pick up pennies.
3. Having a Compelling Title and Offer To increase your response and maximize your attendance, you must have compelling, targeted, benefit driven topic that will capture the attention of your target audience. Find out any current hot-button issues in your industry and use those in your headline or content description. What problem or issue does your product or services help your audience over come and how will attending your Webinar help them discover a solution to their problem?
Just like testing headlines when running ads, testing email subject lines is critical to gauging response for Webinars when using email marketing. If you have a known speaker or subject matter expert, whose name is recognized among your target audience, you MUST include their name in the subject line or you are missing out on leveraging their brand or celebrity power. Test different copy and offers within your email invitation. When possible, personalize your email copy (Dear John) and write your copy as if you’re talking directly to that person one-on-one vs. a large group.
4. Make it Easy to Register Your landing or registration page should require no more than one click to get to it. You don’t want make your audience go from the e-mail to a landing page that describes the Webinar and then have to go to another page to get to the registration form. Even worse, putting your registration page on your home page and hoping they find your link to register.
Best practice is to have a single landing. On the left, put the benefit focused copy and bullet points about the Webinar. On the right, display a short registration form asking for only the information that is absolutely required. Also, if you want to create some buzz and excitement around the event, you may want to consider offering a short teaser video clip once they register, preliminary handouts or limiting the number of ‘seats’ available and displaying how many seats are gone in real time.
Research shows that business prospects prefer more detailed copy on Webinar landing pages allowing you to go into a little more depth about the Webinar on your landing page. Adding a speaker’s bio, photo or short video –clip creates credibility and a personal connection — just make sure your registration form is up top in the right column with a big “Register Now” button above it.
5. Maximize Your Attendance Average attendance rates to registrations is about 40% to 60% for Webinars. Being planning your webinar about six weeks out to ensure you have enough time to build out your marketing funnel and process for inviting attendees. About two to three weeks prior to your Webinar, send out your invites. One week prior, send a reminder and send out a final reminder the day before and possibly the day of if your event occurs later in the day.
You may want to offer an incentive the first 50 with a free giveaway to accelerate the early sign-ups. After your Webinar, send out a thank you to those who attended with any pertinent information. For those who registered and didn’t attend, send a “sorry we missed you” email with links to the recording, and related offer.
6. WOW! Factor Presentations Too many starting out with Webinars repeat the same mistakes often made during in-person presentations; death by Power Point, boring presenter, little or no audience interaction and lack of compelling offer or call to action at the conclusion.
Webinars offer you the ability to integrate multiple forms of visual media beyond Power Point such as video, (when appropriate) polling, Q&A, instant feedback tools and more. You can share your desktop, take your audience by the hand and browse your website for live demos, case studies and more. Anyone can put up a slide deck and read bullet points. If that’s all you do, you’ll lose them in New York minute because they can read the bullet points themselves.
Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Have you ever tuned out a boring presenter? It’s amplified even more during a Webinar because people are sitting at their desks and staring at a slide show, listening either via their computer or conference line. At least in person you can make eye contact, and get up-close to keep their attention. In a Webinar you have just two tools to keep your audiences attention. Your voice and your presentation. Don’t let them fall asleep! You keep your audience engaged by making your presentation relevant, interactive and lively. How do you capture and keep the attention of your audience in a virtual environment like a Webinar?
7. Follow-Up, Follow-Up, Follow-Up
After your Webinar, your prospects are in the perfect frame of mind to learn more and be receptive to another offer from you. Be sure to add links to either the main offer or other related offers and up-sells in your e-mail. I’ve seen studies that show nearly 40 percent of thank-you recipients who visited a special post-Webinar thank-you page took advantage of another offer. Of course, integrating phone follow-up for higher conversion is smart if appropriate for your situation.
Most companies fail to recycle or leverage their Webinar content for ongoing marketing and PR benefits. You put a lot of time and money into developing and delivering your Webinars, so be sure to get the most out of them.
Here are some tips: Archive all your recorded Webinars and post them on your website. Consider a single URL that lists all your Webinars and provides a short summary of each event. To encourage site visits and repeat traffic, consider branding the page as an educational library and also include your white papers, eNewsletter archives, and other content that is of interest to your target audience.
Submit your Webinar library URL to major search engines to boost your search engine rankings. Promote your URL in all your marketing and sales collateral including any advertisements both online an offline. Promote the URL at the bottom of your email signature to continue building your opt-in list. At the conclusion of your Webinars, consider a post-event press release summarizing the event and providing some of the most interesting Q&A topics.
About the Author
Geoff Zimpfer, “The Webinar Marketing Pro” has been helping authors, speakers and small business owners put “butts in the seats” through live seminars, tele-classes, Webinars and more for over 18 years. His experience as a National Marketing Director and promoter for authors and speakers including Anthony Robbins and others give him unique insights and a successful track record of creating seminars, Webinars and events of all kinds that attract new clients, build relationships and increase sales. Get your Free eBook and Newsletter at http://www.WebinarMarketingPro.com
Small businesses have been fighting an uphill battle for decades when it comes to marketing. Big corporations have more resources, more brand recognition, and most importantly, more money. This has allowed them to control the conversation. Web 2.0 technologies have leveled the playing field by giving small business an equal voice. Tools like blogs, interactive Web sites, and social networks have b…
In How to Create a Personal Brand as a Business Development Executive, ExecSense examines specific ways to use speaking engagements, published articles and social media web sites as a way to establish yourself and open new doors for yourself professionally. Take the 60 minutes to view this webinar (on your computer, mobile phone, iPod, iPad, Kindle or printed out) to understand how to go about sha…
“What IP Lawyers Need to Know About Web-Based Specimens of Use” is a time efficient way to be in-the-know on recently evolving legal developments for an important intellectual property issue – whether web-based specimens used to support trademark registrations for goods must be more than mere advertising. Take the 60 minutes to view this webinar (on your computer, mobile phone, iPod, iPad, Kindle …
I am software engineer, with 2.5 years of experience in web Development.
I am looking for some projects by which I can earn money.
I have a small team apart from job (we all work in different companies)
we are planning to start some business ………. since we don’t have proper contacts we are not able to get projects ………
We are ready to take any kind of small to medium size projects
You need to send your resume out to real jobs you are qualified to do.
In your cover letter you need to state that you wish to work remotely, from your home office. LOTS of companies, especially in CA operate this way. They usually provide transportation for you to come in for an interview and for you to attend company meetings a few times a year, but otherwise everything is done online.
One of the key determinants of success for today’s high-technology companies is product strategy—and this guide continues to be the only book on product strategy written specifically for the 21st century high-tech industry. More than 250 examples from technological leaders including IBM, Compaq, and Apple—plus a new focus on growth strategies and on Internet businesses—define how high-tech…
More than ever, artists face questions such as how to get started, how to sell their work, how to promote themselves, and what to do once they are working. Starting Your Career as a Freelance Illustrator or Graphic Designer is the book that will answer all those questions, and more!Technology has sent shockwaves of change through the world of commercial art. Digital illustration and design, on…
How a Professional Web Design Helps to Build Trust
The key to a successful online business is building customer trust. Establishing trust in the virtual world can be a difficult task because there are so many websites competing for visitors. One important method of building trust is to create a professional web design.
A business website allows you to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so that you are able to interact with millions of potential customers from around the world. A professional website design tells a visitor that a business is secure, credible, and provides quality goods and services. A key component of internet marketing is to create a trust building website. A professional website design should be business appropriate, well thought-out and implemented, and focused on the visitor.
To build visitor trust, a web design should utilize the following tools:
Content: A professional website should contain educational and informative articles that are relevant to the businesses vision. The articles should also be professionally written that do not contain errors.
Search Engine Rankings: Your website design should be search engine friendly so that it will achieve a high ranking. Make sure you have the appropriate key words, minimal pictures, links, appropriate domain name, a Blog, chat room, the business address, logo, and a contact email and address.
Privacy: Include a privacy policy that is clearly located on the website. Never disclose email addresses to 3rd party companies.
Email marketing: Provide your targeted audience with an “opt out” tool for your email marketing campaigns.
Encourage Visitor Interaction: Provide tools to allow your visitors to interact with the site. This can include webinars, discussion forums, surveys, comment section, polls, and contests.
Showcase Your Company: Include your company’s history, mission, vision, and other important background information. Make sure you have a list of client testimonials. Display pictures of your business that includes both the interior and exterior. You can even include pictures of your employees working such as in a meeting or at their desk.
Create a Blog: Add a Blog to your site which will allow you to keep your visitors up-to-date about new products, services, upcoming events, special announcements, and positive news about the company.
Hire a Professional Design Company: Website design companies know the “ins” and “outs” of creating a professional website. They will help determine your needs and your visitors’ needs, and then design a website that is professional and user-friendly.
Show that User Personal and Financial Information is Safe: Make sure that your visitors know that their payment transactions are safe. Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) uses digital certificates and encryption to perform a series of security checks verifying that the identity of a customer or sender of information is valid. Consider acquiring a trustmark.
Today, having a website is a must for every business. In recent years, web designs have undergone many changes. They have now become more interactive and a place to share information. No matter the size of a business, if you design a website that focuses on building trust, you will drastically increase the number of visitors that will become loyal customers.
About the Author
We utilize web design
to generate dynamic results for our clients. We understand our clients’ needs and we employ trends, tactics, and technology
to deliver clear communication. To learn how to gain a competitive advantage through the Internet
, please visit us!
Small businesses have been fighting an uphill battle for decades when it comes to marketing. Big corporations have more resources, more brand recognition, and most importantly, more money. This has allowed them to control the conversation. Web 2.0 technologies have leveled the playing field by giving small business an equal voice. Tools like blogs, interactive Web sites, and social networks have b…
In How to Create a Personal Brand as a Business Development Executive, ExecSense examines specific ways to use speaking engagements, published articles and social media web sites as a way to establish yourself and open new doors for yourself professionally. Take the 60 minutes to view this webinar (on your computer, mobile phone, iPod, iPad, Kindle or printed out) to understand how to go about sha…
“What IP Lawyers Need to Know About Web-Based Specimens of Use” is a time efficient way to be in-the-know on recently evolving legal developments for an important intellectual property issue – whether web-based specimens used to support trademark registrations for goods must be more than mere advertising. Take the 60 minutes to view this webinar (on your computer, mobile phone, iPod, iPad, Kindle …
