I need a website to for a small professional firm. Where do i start - ideas on construction, hosting, maintenance, domain name and associated costs please. Thanks

Hi Sparkly,
Merry Christmas!

Before you start setting up your website(either by yourself or have a designer do it for you.)

There are 3 critical stages to setting up an effective website that actually works( generates leads & sales)

Doing these 3 things will make a difference between a successful website or just another brochure collecting dust in the cyber space

1. Keyword Research.
2. Choosing the right Domain Name & Hosting.
3. Creating Effective Website Content.

Over the next few posts i will break down these steps for you so that you can start implementing them right away.

Should you have any questions please feel free to ask as we move along.

Hello guys. Just posting a professional second opinion. Infinity is right. Many people will launch a website expecting some automatic flood of traffic after hearing various online overnight success stories. Thing is, it takes more work than you'd expect. I like to call internet business 'clicks and mortar' because of this fact. Anyway, follow the steps outlined above and you should be on your way to having a really useful site, instead of just something to brag about when handing out business cards

STEP 1: Keyword Research

Before you begin building your website, you need to identify what the majority of your target market are looking for on the Internet i.e. the search terms people type into Google, Yahoo or Bing to find products or services. (We shall focus on Google since it has the largest market share.)

Once you have this information you can design your website so it appeals to the largest group of your prospects and therefore capture the largest piece of the pie online.

There are two ways of finding this information:
1. Using Google Suggest. ( Basic)
2. Using Google Keyword Tool. ( Advanced)

For example if you were a lawyer in Kenya and you were going to set up a website to sell your services, you would first conduct some research to find out how many people in Kenya are really looking for what you offer and the terms they type into search engines.

1. Using Google Suggest. (Basic)

To begin the keyword research process go to:

http://www.google.co.ke/

Type in the terms or phrases you think people will use when looking for your services and wait Google to give you suggestions based on what people are searching in Kenya.

Then note down the search terms relevant to your products or services.

For this example we will use: Advocates, Lawyers and Law Firms.

1. Advocates



2. Lawyers



3. Law Firms




From the above research we have managed to collect a few keywords that your prospects are typing in Google to find the products or services you offer:

Advocates in Kenya, Advocates Kenya

Lawyers in Kenya, Lawyers in Nairobi, Lawyers in Mombasa

Law firms in Kenya, Law firms in Nairobi, Law Firms, Law Firms in Mombasa.

NOTE: Repeat the above process with as many keywords as you can think of. (For best results put yourself in your prospects shoes and think of what they would type to find what you offer.)

Please read the following other posts about "Websites and Hosting"

1. "Need 2 own website" at http://www.wazua.co.ke/f...aspx?g=posts&t=2261

2. "web hosting company" at http://www.wazua.co.ke/f...osts&t=1467&p=2

3. "Free Website for Wazuarians/skerians" at http://www.wazua.co.ke/f...aspx?g=posts&m=76356