Creating An Internet Presence

Some business owners are ignoring the Internet because they feel that they have enough business already. I think this is a mistake. I think that it is imperative to immediately get a presence on the Internet. First, the cost of promoting your company on the Internet can be a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising. Why pass up a potentially profitable account if you don’t need to risk a lot of money? You can always turn down the leads you get if they don’t look profitable.

Second, web-based advertising opens you up to more markets than you can cover by traditional advertising methods. For example, you may get exposed to a national account that is investigating pest control service for several offices in your area. It also exposes you to consumers that may be researching and shopping outside of regular business hours.

The most important reason not to ignore the Internet is that it is here to stay. It won’t be long before it is necessary to do business on the Internet. Two years ago it was clear that a consumer would look in the Yellow Pages for pest control. Today, in many homes and businesses, the computer is always on, can be connected easily to the Internet and consumers use an Internet version of the Yellow Pages. Fast forward two years. Having a website will no longer be a luxury — it will be a necessity.

For a relatively small investment, PCOs should start learning about the Internet now. The Internet is the great equalizer. When used effectively, it can put smaller companies on the same scale as larger ones. PCOs should begin diverting part of their budgets to the Internet now.

There were $15.4 billion of e-commerce sales in 1997. The estimate is for $1.3 trillion of e-business by the year 2003. While it’s true the bulk of this revenue will be business-to-business sales, consumer sales will account for $177 billion. This means that more businesses and consumers will be looking for pest control services on the Internet starting right now. Tonight, there will be consumers that will use an Internet search engine and type in "pest control" and their city name to look for service.

WWW.YOURCOMPANY.COM. First, PCOs need to get a website address. There are two ways you can get an address. You can be a sub-page off another website address, such as www.usanet.com/acepest or you can get your own domain name such as www.acepest.com.

While the first choice is generally free, I would recommend the second choice and get your own domain name. It will cost you $70 plus some labor costs to get it registered. That will cover two years; then it’s only $35 a year to keep the name.

Because popular search engines get thousands of requests each day from companies wanting to get their company listed, it can be difficult to get listed on some search engines. Many search engines will not accept website addresses that are sub-page addresses. Additionally, it looks better for your company to have its own domain name. If you have your own domain name then you can have the same name as your e-mail address, such as mike@acepest.com.

It would be wise to go ahead and get your name registered now, even if you don’t have your website ready. When deciding on a website address, try to pick one that reflects your company name. You can check if the name you want is available at www.networksolutions.com.

SELECTING A COMPANY. The next step is to create a website. Many companies choose to either do it themselves or hire a part-time website designer to create their site. The problem with this is that in the future, the demands and requirements of that website will most likely reach beyond the scope of do-it-yourselfers. However, just going out and picking a company that calls themselves a website development company is not enough. Make sure that the company developing your website understands what you want your website to accomplish.

Second, make sure that the development company has enough people that if the person who is working on your website moves on, there is someone at the same company to continue working on your site.

KEEP THE DESIGN SIMPLE. As far as the look of the website, try to keep the design simple. Avoid the temptation of creating a website that has fancy graphics with lots of bells and whistles. Instead, focus on creating a website that works well and accomplishes your goals.

Our company’s guideline in advertising is to appeal to the largest percentage of shoppers in our target market. In the case of the Internet, the largest percentage of your target market probably has a dial-up Internet connection. This means that you should probably not fill your website with too many pictures and graphics. Large graphics on a website may make it too slow to load for first-time visitors. You risk that they don’t wait around to see your site.

Finally, decide on a purpose of the website and focus on that purpose. If you try to make a website that will be everything to everyone, chances are you won’t be successful at any of it. Because it is so inexpensive to create an Internet presence, you can always start another website to focus on another market. The purpose of your website should probably be to get leads. Make sure your site is focused on getting the names and phone numbers of visitors. You can then leave it to salespeople or customer service representatives in your office to close the sale.

DESCRIBING YOUR SITE. It is important to choose a good title, site description and keywords prior to trying to get your site listed with the major search engines. Most search engines use one or all of these three items to determine how your site will be ranked in search requests. Naturally, when a visitor to a search engine asks to find pest control companies in their area, you want your company to come up first.

There are many things to consider and each search engine uses different criteria to rank sites, but a general rule is to include in the title and the description the phrase that you think people will use to search for your company website.

Although they are becoming less important in search engine rankings, there is also an opportunity to include a list of hidden key words that you think a potential visitor might use when searching for sites. You need to be creative when coming up with this list. PCOs may want to include the following: real estate; the name of your state, town, surrounding towns, counties, etc.; or possible pests. There is no limit to the keywords you can put in your site. Try to cover any word that a visitor might type in when looking for your service.

E-MAIL MARKETING. If you are using a computerized accounting system now to keep track of customer names, addresses and phone numbers, it would be wise to start tracking e-mail addresses as well. E-mail is already being integrated into the advertising plans of many companies.

The main benefit of using e-mail is cost. Everything about e-mail is free. There are no paper, envelope or printing costs. There are no folding, stuffing or labeling costs. And best of all there is no postage. Because of the production involved in trying to get out a mailing piece, many companies don’t do it. Since it is inexpensive and easy to send e-mail, you can make frequent mailings with a narrow focus. You can literally send out one idea or sentence to your customers or prospective customers every week.

The best way to implement an e-mail advertising campaign is to build or buy a list of e-mail addresses and then do a mass mailing. You can get your cus-tomer’s e-mail addresses by starting to ask for them on correspondence and in phone contact with them. You can send out a survey that covers several areas that you have wanted to survey and then also ask for their e-mail address.

CONCLUSION. Because the Internet enables small companies to compete with larger ones, PCOs should create their web presence now. For a small investment, PCOs can advertise to an audience they may not be reaching now. As the Internet generation takes hold, conventional Yellow Pages ads may become less important — so don’t be left behind.