Construction Business Owner, September 2007 

If you have a toxic-looking office in a scary part of town, you probably won't have many people stopping by to say "Hi." The same is true of websites. 

And I mean "don't work" literally-they don't perform any work. They fail to fulfill their business function.

When you hire a salesperson, you expect them to get leads, qualify them, and make sales. If all they do is sit around the office drinking coffee and making no sales, you fire them.

But what about your website? Is it sitting around doing nothing for you, or is it a key tool in your successful business? Let's take a brief look at five tips you can use to create a new website to drive customers-or modify your existing site to be more successful:

1. Understand the Mechanics of Website Traffic

It's called the "World Wide Web" and the "Net" because it's a network of hyperlinked sites. On the Internet, if your site isn't linked to by another site, it's as if you don't exist. The most important sites that link to you are search engines, because millions of people a day use them to look for information, products and service providers.

If no one is visiting your site, it's probably because no one knows it's there. Have you put it on your business cards or on the side of your vehicles? Have you told friends and family about it? Here are some other sites that you can (and should) link to your site:

• Search Engines (the most important sites of all)
• Online Phone Directories (more people are looking for service providers online)
• Online Industry Directories (membership organizations that will list your business)
• Online Industry Sites for Consumers
• Distributor and Subcontractor Sites
• Paid Affiliates (popular sites that send you customers for a fee per customer)

You can buy linked text ads on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. These appear under the "Sponsored Links." Eventually, your goal should be to have free placement. Start now, since this can take months. Make sure your site has good information and that you've followed all the rules to get noticed and cataloged by search engines. Web designers or Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specialists can help you with this. The better your site is, the higher it will rank in search engines' unpaid results.

Bottom line: The more people see links to your site, the more people will visit your site. Without visibility on the web, you're invisible.

2. Choose a Good Domain Name

The biggest companies have the biggest wallets to buy the best domains or web addresses. Apple Computers owns apple.com, Budweiser owns budweiser.com, and the rest of us have to figure out how to find a domain that hasn't been taken by someone else. Some advice:

• Buy ".com" whenever possible-it's still the best choice
• Avoid dashes in your website address if possible. If a customer leaves out the dashes, they could go to one of your competitors' sites by accident.
• If you're planning to advertise on TV and radio, get an address that's easy to spell and to remember. If your company's name is Associated Builders, and associatedbuilders.com is already taken, you'd do better to buy ab.com or abuilders.com rather than assoc-build.com or something that's almost impossible to recall. You might even consider developing a tagline and using that as your Web address-for example webuilditright.com.
• If you have a memorable phone number (such as 1.800.BUILD), use it as your website address, too. Be sure to buy both 1-800-build.com and 1800build.com.

Bottom line: When buying a domain name, choose simplicity over accuracy. Domains are cheap, so buy more than one if you have several ideas.