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MARKETING WITHOUT ADVERTISING
C. Attracting Customers
2. Personal Recommendations
A second function of an architectural website drawing is to track the potential movements of different kinds of customers.
Thousands of casual and accidental visitors will find you on the Internet, and you will have many opportunities to turn many of them into customers if they are looking for something specific that you offer. But personal recommendations are what you want—and what will likely be the prime source for your business. Bear in mind that the entire website and the service or product you provide are the basis for getting each customer to tell other people how good you are.
1. Attracting Newcomers First-time visitors are your most important target market. Everyone must be a firsttime visitor at some point. Even a visitor who is a regular customer in the nonInternet world is a first-time visitor to your website at least once. Your home page must answer nearly every new visitor’s questions about your business, including: • Who are you? • What do you offer? • What is on your website? • What can I do here? • Will I be satisfied? • What can I do if my questions are not answered here? It’s important that you answer all these questions—and that you do it mostly in the top half of the page, designed for a 640 by 480 pixel monitor with a file smaller than 30K.
10 Seconds to Download and Other Useful Tips A few practical quick tips can save you much angst when establishing the look and feel of your new website. • Make your home page simple, so that it downloads within 10 seconds on a 56K modem. • Include a tag line “contact us” page for customers who wonder where you are located or prefer to contact you by snail mail. Enough people still prefer the telephone, so be sure to include your phone number • Avoid horizontal scrolling. • Put your logo on the upper-left corner and use it on all your pages with a link back to the home page. • If you provide information that people might want to copy, provide a quick print feature on your website.