Learn more about blogging for your business and many more topics by becoming a member. You'll have access to all 107,801 instructional videos.

Business Goals & Objectives
What do you need for your business?…more profit, more customers, modern up-to-date marketing, more satisfied customers, more business, bigger market share, less cost of running business….I’m sure there’s no one who will disagree with these objectives. As a business owner, this is what we all want for our businesses.
All this objectives can be reached through your website; the purpose of this article is to help you understand how to put the web to work for your business and how to make your online business successful.

The Internet Revolution
The Internet has changed the way we buy and sell products and services and the way we obtain information…they way we communicate…even the way we are getting entertainedThe Internet and the number of people connecting are growing at a phenomenal rate. More and more people are getting on the Internet everyday. Over 1 billion people use the internet daily and over 20 million of them are Nigerians.

So, What exactly is a Website?
A website is a collection of ‘pages’ under one domain name.
For example, www.privateequitypartnership.com and www. dreamcontractsng.com can easily be accessed by anyone with a computer and internet connection from anywhere in the world.
As more people become familiar using the internet, the tendency is to search for everything on the web. How many times do you think a potential customer has tried to find your business on the Internet but were unable to locate you? How many times do you think they found a competitor’s website instead? How may times has someone tried to find a furniture company online….and found Dream Contracts.…but didn’t find yours.

The benefits of a website.

1. Be found. (get new customers) Millions of Consumers today search for products and services online before making purchases. Chances are that if someone is looking for a product or service they will search the internet. Being found on the Internet will give you an advantage over your competition when they call you instead of the competition.
2. Be Accessible 24/7: (get more business.) You are able to conduct business when it is convenient for your client whether it be during the day or in the middle of the night. You are never actually closed. Your website is the perfect employee, it will not sleep and it will work on weekends, it won’t even ask for a promotion. Prospective clients can visit and look at what you have to offer, at any time it is convenient for them, wherever they happen to be. If you choose an e-commerce website, your customers can shop with you 24 hours.
3. Provide Customer Service: (get More satisfied customers)
   Consumers can become educated about your business and get answers to many of their questions which will help to cut back on the number of phone calls you receive with simple inquiries. Your website can provide further support to existing customers by offering information such as troubleshooting procedures, product specification and parts list, how-to procedures, diagrams and special help lines. By having this help available 24 hours a day you will be able to decrease the number of customer service employees you have on staff.
4. Provide Information. (get more credibility) Consumers have more confidence in and prefer doing business with companies that they know something about. Inform visitors about the structure of your company, of your community involvement, the products and services you offer, awards and employment opportunities. In addition to being convenient, another reason people are increasingly turning to the Internet is that marketing is done by providing information, not by persuasion. More and more people prefer to do business and make decisions in this way
5. Save Money (get more profits) A website is very cost efficient when compared to other forms of marketing and advertising. For example, a web site is not constrained by size. You can only say so much in a newspaper ad, or a radio spot. You can supplement that limited information by including your web address in your ads. Then your potential client has almost unlimited information about your company available to them.
6. Sell Online (get even more profits) Why not? Thanks to companies like Interswitch you can receive payments directly into your bank accounts from your website…take orders online and have your customers fill out forms to speed things up.
7. Compete Locally: Some of Your competitors already have a website what are you going to do? Even if you feel you don’t need a website, can you afford to let your competition gain an edge? There are competitions in every business. This is like going for a business exhibition on the internet. You can not stop competition in any business but at least make your identity so that your potential customers are given a chance of comparing and subsequently buying your products or engaging your services with the help of professional business website.
8. Compete Globally (Bigger market share): Having an online presence will enable you to compete with much larger and better companies. The Internet is the closest thing to a level playing field with bigger companies you can find. Websites have no certain place, no country; they are international. If you have a website, then you have something international that overcomes the limits between countries and long distances. A professionally designed website will give your business added credibility and visibility

Get Started TODAY!
The question you should be asking now is not “How much money will a website cost?” but “How much money am I losing without one?”

For those of you that have not created an online presence now is the time to start. It’s not really a choice anymore, but a necessity in today’s marketplace and culture. Start small if you have to, but understand the importance of at least starting.

Contact KrissArt Marketing Design today to get started. Click here to fill out the website form to receive a quote.

Article by Mili of Schnauz Design

I thought it would be useful to solve the mystery and frustration around image sizes and formats once and for all. Clients often feel stumped when asked for high res images for marketing materials because the original designer or photographer cannot be located (an indication of their work ethic most times).
So, let’s see what all these formats and sizes mean, and how to eliminate the source file issue altogether. When dealing with file formats and sizes, one size does NOT fit all.

Requirements for Online – websites, facebook, twitter, pinterest etc:
- Anytime you are going to put artwork or imagery on an online outlet like facebook, a website, blogs, pinterest, twitter etc. you will require 1 of 3 formats – jpeg, png or gif.

- When you need to insert an image into a “template” of some kind (for example, a background for your twitter page, or the cover photo of your facebook page), you will need a particular height and width pixel size. But how do you know what the pixel size is? That information can be found on the support page of facebook or twitter, or simply google it.

- The image must be created according to that size in 72 dpi. For example, facebook’s cover photo is 851px wide x 315px tall in 72 dpi. If this is built in a different dpi, it will become larger or smaller in width and height. Sometimes the website you are posting to is programmed to overcome this by cropping or downsizing the image, but it may not always happen proportionately, so it can look awful! Ever seen a website where the images are squished and look terrible? That’s because it is not programmed to proportionately size images. In this case, you have to size it correctly first and then upload the images. It’s a little bit like trying to squeeze and fit a large square shape into a small rectangle shape. Doesn’t work.

- So how does one size images correctly?
I personally use photoshop (which is an intense and expensive software to purchase if you are not using it a lot). Photoshop Elements is the simpler version for the general consumer.

Requirements for Printing:
- While images online are required to be 72 dpi, images and artwork that is printed needs to be 300 dpi. So if your designer tells you an image is too small for printing and they need a high res image, it means the image u have provided is likely pulled off a website, and they would need a much higher resolution image (possibly the source file). This is especially the case when logos are needed for an invitation design or something, clients send me logos pulled off company websites.

- Photos should only be in jpeg, psd or tiff formats when used in marketing materials/printed materials. Png or gif cannot be used in print. Those are strictly web formats.

- Sometimes a logo pulled off a website MAY be large enough to use in printed materials, if you only need it to be a small logo like .5″ x .5″. BUT, if that same logo needs to be blown up and printed on a large banner and need to be 10″ x 10″ it will be very pixelated when printed. Ever seen an image or logo look really fuzzy and pixelated when printed? It’s because of this. To ENSURE logos or other design elements besides photos print crystal clear, an .eps, .pdf, or .ai VECTOR format file is needed. This allows elements to be blown up as large as needed without becoming pixelated.

I hope this helps clear some basic frustrations with sizes and formats. It is not easy to explain all of it in a blog post, as even some of these basics can have exceptions.

By Mili of Schnauz Design

When another website links back to your site, search engines consider that "backlink" as a vote in favor of the content on your site. The more backlinks your website has from well-known and reputable sites, the higher it can rank in search results. Here, Search Engine Land editor Danny Sullivan offers tips for getting more backlinks and improving your site's SEO. - From www.entrepreneur.com