Establishing a Web Presence
Issues to consider
- Review your organization's mission and goals and decide how the Web site can further those goals and support your overall marketing strategy and corporate image.
- Make free information available at your site that is of interest to your target market.
- Keep varying the content of your Web site to keep visitors from the target market coming back for repeat hits.
- Keep track of who is visiting your site, either by having them register or sign in a guest book. Or offer to give something away that you have to send to them.
- Have a follow-up plan to turn leads generated by the Web site into sales.
- Consider the Web site part of an overall marketing plan and promote it with press releases.
- Include the Web site address on business cards, letterhead, brochures and all documents that contain your address and phone number.
- Track the number of hits, leads and sales compared to the total costs of the site, and adjust the marketing plan to make the Web site a more effective tool.
Source: "Designing a successful Web page: Build a site that meets your needs", Graves, J., Accounting Today Marketplace, Spring 1996.
Obtaining a domain name
The Name Game: How To Register & Protect Your Domain Name, PC Today Online, 1997
A Domain is Born: How Ideas Become Addresses at the InterNIC, Murphy, R., InterNIC News, 2/97
Hosting the site
Connecting to the Internet
Creating a home page
Web publishing resources
Accounting firms on the Web
Articles
Holley, Charles and Hunton, James E., "Doing Business on the Internet",
Journal of Accountancy, March 1996.
Schmidt, Dennis R., Spindle, Roxanne M. and Yancey, William F.,
"Tapping the World Wide Web",Journal of Accountancy, August, 1996.
Weston, Randy, The Internet: Managing the Connection,
Computerworld, September 16, 1996.
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