Website Advantages for Your Online Strategy

No one has to tell you that the internet is an overwhelming source of information and is a major resource for individuals and businesses to seek out products and services. If you have a business of your own then you probably already have a website to showcase your company's outstanding products and services. The question that you should ask yourself is "am I taking advantage of all the resources available to best market my business online". If you haven't actively pondered this question and aren't in pursuit of implementing your website's online strategy action plan then you are at a disadvantage. The odds are that your competition is already doing something about it. It takes more than just having a nice website online. A successful online business uses everything at its disposal. The tools available today to heighten the aesthetics of your website, increase the volume of your website, increase the search engine ranking of your website, and increase the overall success of your website include these components: 1. Graphic Design 2. Flash Animation 3. Integrated Shopping Cart (if you sell products online) 4. Content Management (CMS) 5. Rich Media 6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Graphic Design is the process and art of combining text and graphics and communicating an effective message in the design of logos, graphics, brochures, newsletters, posters, signs, and any other type of visual communication. It is important to portray a professional look and feel on your website. A strong graphic design element can significantly help the success of your website. Flash animation is a graphics animation element, written and marketed by Macromedia, that uses vector graphics. The resulting files, called SWF (said like swiff) files, may appear in a web page to view in a web browser, or standalone Flash players may "play" them. Flash files occur most commonly in animated advertisements on web pages and rich-media web sites. Many websites choose to have only a Flash Header, while some choose to build their site entirely within Flash. An Integrated Shopping Cart is a piece of software that acts as an online store's catalogue and ordering process. Typically, a shopping cart is the interface between a company's website and its deeper infrastructure, allowing consumers to select merchandise review what they have selected make necessary modifications or additions and purchase the merchandise. Shopping carts can be bought as independent pieces of software so companies can integrate them into their own unique online solution, or they can be offered as a feature from a service that will create and host a company's e-commerce site. Content Management is the processes and workflows involved in organizing, categorizing, and structuring information resources so that they can be stored, published, and reused in multiple ways. A content management system (CMS) is used to collect, manage, and publish content, storing the content either as components or whole documents, while maintaining the links between components. It may also provide for content revision control. Rich Media refers to media on the web that offers an enhanced, interactive experience. VRML for 3 D, Macromedia Flash and Shockwave would be good examples of languages for rich media. Rich media is often used for banner advertisements, for homepage's and for e-mail communications. It is important, however, for designers considering the use of rich media, to understand the audience they are designing for, and make sure the audience has access to the information being conveyed via the rich media. Rich media is the delivery of video, voice, data, and animation in a manner that can engage, entertain and inform audiences faster and far more effectively than any other type of communication. Rich Media is considered to be the next generation of business communication. Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO, is the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a Web site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine. The higher a Web site ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that that site will be visited by a user. It is common practice for Internet users to not click through pages and pages of search results, so where a site ranks in a search is essential for directing more traffic toward the site. Taking advantage of these online marketing and development elements should not merely be an option for your website; they should be a necessity. It is recommended that you learn more about these methods and implement them into your business' online strategy.