Invest Less and Gain More
Every business house worth its name and works on certain budgets. No company would like to spend more than the required amount for getting a task done. If you spend more, it is going to have an impact on the pricing of your product or service and make it more expensive in comparison to the competition. So, if you are looking to sustain your business website with less investment and more gains, you should look at partnering an offshore web development company that can provide you with high quality web design and development at very affordable prices.

Things to Look For in an Offshore Web Development Company
Price does play a very important factor in the selection of any professional web development company. However, most companies would try and find out whether the web development company has the necessary exposure to handling projects on a larger scale, does it carry out functions like software development, website programming and web page development. Further, it is important to find out whether the company hires web programmers and developers for taking care of the projects or does it pass it on to freelancers and sub contractors.

Benefits of Offshore Web Development
A professional offshore web development company will offer you top quality web development services at very affordable prices. Hire the services of an offshore company that is willing to focus on getting more traffic to your website through a series of rigorous tests and high quality programming services. Having an offshore web development partner will ensure that your web designing and development costs are reduced drastically.

Web Programming and Development
There are many companies that offer offshore online web development and web database programming facilities. A professional web development company uses different languages and software like PHP, ASP.net, CSS, JAVA, HTML, ASP, etc. When you are selecting an offshore web development company, make a thorough check and find out how prompt the company is in attending to customer queries. This will give you a fair idea of their professionalism and also their ability to take care of your company’s requirements.

July 19, 2010 ISSUE #57

What Are the Social Media I Should Use?
There are so many types of social media to choose from. Social news, networks, bookmarking, and social sharing are some of the tool. Perhaps the best known are social news sites. These sites allow you to view relevant news stories and then vote on them. Social networks include sites that let you get together with people who have similar interests. It is an excellent way to stay in contact with your customers. Social bookmarking sites help you find sites you might be interested in. Finally, social sharing web sites allow you to look at share videos or photos with your current and potential customers. Your small business web design company can help you get set up on one or more of these social sites.

The Blog
One of the most popular SMO activities is the blog. The blog is a way to provide a link to your website. And as it requires constant updating, it keeps your web site content fresh and inviting. It is important to already have an audience in place to share your blog. This base audience will help to spread the word of you blog and increase visits to both it and your website. Check with your web design company to see if the initial set up of a blog is included in their web design prices. But remember it will be up to you to keep it relevant, updated and exciting.

Are There Any Benefits to Social Media Optimization?
This form of marketing is such a huge factor in a company’s success rates that many web design companies will include it in their web design rates. There are even companies out there set up exclusively to do social media optimization. These social media sites are a great way to manage your company’s reputation as well as build awareness of the services or products offered. In addition these social sites allow you direct contact with current and future customer so you get to know what they are looking for and you can respond to their wishes.

How Do I Participate?
While setting up the initial social media account might be included in the web design cost, it will be up to you to keep the account active. A good way to start is to look around the social media sites and become familiar with how they are used. Begin by starting up a provocative conversation or let others know how you feel about something. Look for references to your industry or comments about your company. Remember the purpose of this social media marketing is to increase your customer base. If you find a negative comment about your company respond in a factual and respectful manner.

Even with low cost web design you should be able to find a company to help you set up your social media marketing strategy. If you are considering hiring an offshore designer look to web design India companies, as they are experts in the social media marketing process. In addition they are known for their very effective but cheap web design.

July 6, 2010 ISSUE #56

Your Web Design
Of course you can have all the visitors in the world visit your site but if they do not hang around long enough to purchase your product or hire your services there is no reason to have a website. Therefore it is vitally important to hire a small business web design company to put together a website that is attractive and makes the potential customer want to purchase your goods. Keep in mind you do not have to spend a fortune for this. Some web design India companies are quite expert at their trade and offer competitive web design rates.

Your Page Title
You want to have a title for each web page that is full of descriptive words but makes grammatical sense. Be sure to remove as many filler words as possible. Your page title will show up on the search engines as a link back to your page. So you also want to make your page title exciting and attractive so potential customers want to click on it. Even low cost web design companies should be able to help you create effective titles.

The META Description
The Meta description will be placed below your title link on a search engines web page. This description usually runs about two sentences and vividly describes what is on that page. The content of the description should include the keywords that you have used on that web page. When hiring a web design company check and see if the META tag description is included in the website design rates.

Write Your Web Page Properly
Be sure when writing your web page content that all of your main keywords are included in the first paragraph on your web page. However do not be overly zealous. Search engines pay attention to the saturation rate of keywords on your web page. They are looking for good informative content and do not want to see the keywords simply typed over and over in a paragraph. Most search engines, and Google in particular, consider anything beyond a saturation rate of 1.5% to 2% excessive. It might be worth while to up your web design cost to include copy writing in your web design package.

Keep in mind when shopping around for a web design company that the web design prices may or may not include search engine optimization. It is a good idea to inquire even of a cheap web design company what is included in their design package.

June 27, 2010 ISSUE #55

What Is Offshore?
An offshore web design company is one that is based in Eastern Europe, Eastern Asian and India. Because of its location, website design company owners can keep the costs low. Therefore there is less expense for office space and lower salaries for hiring employees. As a result offshore companies that offer small business web design can also offer low cost web design as compared to web design companies in America, Canada or Western Europe.?

Why Hire Offshore?
When you hire an offshore company you are investing in expert web design at a low cost. For example, the average rate per hour for a web designer in America can go as high as $75.00 and in Europe upwards of $50.00 an hour. The web design cost in a place like India can run a company from the United States around $10.00 an hour. This is a very cheap web design company when compared to more local web designers. And, you will not sacrifice expertise for the cheaper price.

Finding the Perfect Offshore Web Design Company
So how do you find the right design company with the cheapest website design rates? The trick is to do your research. Begin by using a search engine such as Google to search for an ‘offshore web development company’. Take a close look at all the offshore website design companies listed on the fist 3 pages of the search engine. Pay attention to the design of the company’s website. If you do not like it then move on to the next site. Determine the web design cost and make sure it will fit into your budget. Ask to see examples of the web design company’s work. Check out references from previous customers and make sure they are satisfied.

Services
Determine what you are getting for your web design prices. Find out what type of extras the company will add to your website. Will they include a Flash intro, shopping cart or website management software to maintain and update your site on your own? Find out if their prices include an online marketing strategy campaign. Ask how many web pages are included for the price. Determine if the company charges by the hour or by the project.

Careful research will help you find a very affordable offshore web design company. Remember you will be saving from $40.00 to $50.00 an hour and perhaps more by hiring an offshore web design company. This allows you more money for an advertising campaign, or inventory purchases or simply reinvesting in the company.

June 15, 2010 ISSUE #54

Who Is Out There
Begin your online marketing strategy by paying attention to your competitors. Get online and review their websites, the content and the product advertising. Pay attention to how they are marketing their companies. Are they using press releases, SEO, Adwords or PPC? Is there a money back guaranty? Do they offer a free trial period? Pay attention to your customers. Are they visible on Facebook or My Sapce? Why are they buying someone else’s product instead of yours? What is it about your web design that is attracting or repelling clients? Did you not spend enough on your web site so you have a cheap web design?

Complete Your Analysis
Once you have completed your research, it is time to analyze your finding. Begin by determining the weaknesses and strengths of your competitors. You want to try and copy their strong points but avoid placing their weaknesses on your website or as an online marketing campaign. Examine your own strengths and weaknesses. Use marketing concepts to build your business. Maybe offer some incentives. Bonuses or cash back if new clients use your product or engage your services. Maybe consider investing a bit more in your web design cost to outshine your competitor’s designs.

Your Marketing Plan
Now that you know who your customers and competitors are, and you have determined your strength and weaknesses as well as your competitors strengths and weaknesses, it is time to develop and online marketing plan. There are so many different marketing approaches you need to determine what will work best for you. Begin by reviewing your website. You might want to consider additional low cost web design to add fresh content to your site. Next determine your new marketing methods. May you will blog, or engage in an email campaign. Perhaps you can conduct webinars or link building or focus on PPC or SEO. What will determine how you proceed depends on how much time you have. Can you afford to take a lot of time for search engine optimization? No? Then consider PPC traffic.

How Did Your Campaign Do?
Once you have implemented your online marketing campaign it is important to keep track of how well your campaign is doing. You want to test landing pages and Adwords ads. Pay attention to keywords that customers searched to find you? How much time do visitors spend on your website? Is it over 30 seconds…? A minute? You must keep adjusting your campaign to your findings to stay on the top of the search engines. If you find your time is limited then consider hiring a web design company. For example, a web design India company will implement the marketing strategy for you. Their web design rates are usually quite low and come with marketing strategy assistance.

Online marketing strategy is a four-step process. First you research, then analyze your competitors and yourself. Next design and implement an online marketing strategy and finally monitor the results. Or you can hire a web company to do this for you. Most web design cost includes marketing implementation. Hiring an outside company might be a great idea. Just be sure to compare web design prices to get the best deal.

June 8, 2010 ISSUE #53