In the second decade of the world wide web it is expected that building a website is a necessary part of launching a new company. In many cases, the website is crucial to the company’s bottom line: online retailers are the prime example of this. Without an attractive, intuitive, and working website, they will not be able to make their sales. They are not the only ones. In 2011 it is vital that any new business have a website up and running as soon as they open their doors.
Launching a company’s web presence used to mean making sure that there was a simple webpage with an address and phone number. Today companies have to look beyond having a good web design team. They need to create and coordinate profiles across various social media and networking sites. Identifying which sites are appropriate for a given industry and company and ensuring that all the profiles are properly branded and are found by the search engines is a job for an SEO or internet marketing firm.
It is the responsibility of the business itself to oversee the work of both web designers and SEO professionals. In addition to providing direction and inspiration, the owner of the company needs to provide content, logos, images and other media for use in building both the main website and any additional web properties. They are also the final arbiters of any web strategy decisions. They control the budget and must decide where to spend both money and the valuable time of their employees.
Take for example Starlight Apartments. They are a real estate management company that operates across Canada. Their CEO, Daniel Drimmer, has been working for months to build the framework of the company, amassing a portfolio of over 5500 residential rental units and over 300,00 square feet of commercial real estate. He has also overseen a team working to establish the company’s web presence. The result is the successful launch of both the company and its website on Septemeber 1, 2011.
At the heart of the virtual launch is RentStarlight.com. This site seeks to provide Candian apartment hunters with a variety of tools to help them locate the perfect home. Visitors can take interactive property tours of available units to help them narrow their options. The site also boasts the ability to filter searches based on rooms, amenities, and location. Best of all, the site is easily accessed on mobile browsers for those using smart phones or tablets to search the web.
photo by Gary J Wood
A full web presence is more than just the base website and Starlight has recognized that. The company has launched a YouTube Channel, StarlightApts which features videos of available properties. They will also make use of Flickr for sharing apartment photos and floorplans, Starlight’s Twitter account for providing live updates and announcements, and Facebook for connecting with residents and community members. All these properties are registered and branded and being populated with relevant content that will help potential tenants easily find the company across the web.
Each new company will have to make its own choices about which social sites to leverage. Depending on the nature of their industry and their projected customer base, they may consider using LinkedIn, FourSquare, or the soon to be revamped MySpace. They may decide to create and maintain a blog or create podcasts or ebooks. The point is that they must devote time during their startup phase towards planning and building their web presence, because that is the way to reach customers from day one.