Last week I gave a brief intro to each of the 4 Corners of Web Marketing. Today I am going to go into further detail on your website, which you should think about as your base for the The 4 Corners of Web Marketing. This is Part 1 of a 2 Part series on your website.

If you currently do not have a website, you really need to get going on getting one designed and developed.

Some of the reasons you will need a website are:

To make the information on your business available - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year a potential customer can access information on your business.
To put a personal touch on your business - How would you like to meet some of the employees of a business you are thinking of working with?
To network online - You will be driving traffic to your website via the other corners of web marketing and will need a home base for this.
To show your product - A picture is worth a thousand words.
To sell your product - Would you like to have a salesforce working for you while you sleep? Would you like to make sales at 3:00 am or while on vacation in Hawaii?
To attract prospective employees - How great is it to be able to log on to someone’s website and find out about the culture of their company before applying there?

There are so many reasons why you need a site that I will touch on as this column progresses, but these will suffice for now.

If you do not currently have a website for your business, do not try to tackle this yourself with products like Frontpage, Dreamweaver or downloading a template and customizing it. Do yourself a favor and have a professional build your site right the first time, it will save you money in the longrun and allow you to do what you are best at, running your business.

Here are a few things that you should look out for in a web design and development company:

How is their previous work? - Does their portfolio contain sites done for businesses that look professional? Is their site professional?
Can they design or do they have designers on staff? - A web company that does not have a designer more than likely will have a hard time transferring your brand from print to the online world.
Do a quick analysis of their portfolio site - Check to make sure that the company is adhering to W3C’s standards for HTML language by validating their site. Clean HTML code is a sure sign of professionalism in our business.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions - Make sure you ask whatever comes to your mind. The company should not be keeping information from you because you do not understand the technology.
Speaking too much Technology - If they are not speaking to your business needs, but to new technologies and talking above your head, ask them to explain. I see more clients that are sold technology that they certainly do not need.
Make sure the company has a grasp on business concepts - Your site is going to help you grow your business, and please do not have a high school student or your 12 year old nephew with no business experience design a site. I love light blue hippos too, but they are not used in business very frequently.

You must seek out a professional web design and development company that has the resources to build a site that will take your business to a new level, explain technologies to you, have a grasp on business, and develop a product that is accessible to all users through clean code (something I will touch on in the future).

If you currently do have a website, make sure that all of your content is up to date and the branding that is on the site matches your offline branding in content as well as design. This is very important. We do not want to send potential customers from your blog, social network or email newsletter to outdated website content.

Next week I will talk about what type of content should be on your website in order to act as you base for the 4 Corners of Web Marketing. As always - If you ever have any questions on the article, feel free to contact me or post comments below.