Expect to do some tweaking to get Web site right

For many home-based enterprises, having a presence on the Internet makes good sense. And good dollars.<br><br>A simple Web page can serve as an electronic business card. Customers who click on it can find

Friday, March 24th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

For many home-based enterprises, having a presence on the Internet makes good sense. And good dollars.

A simple Web page can serve as an electronic business card. Customers who click on it can find information on products and services and see how to contact a business by telephone, fax or e-mail.

With a more elaborate, colorful array of Web pages, an enterprise can appear bigger, more impressive and more successful than it really is. If you post an online catalog with "shopping baskets" and accept payments by credit card, you can engage in e-commerce and attract orders for your products or services from around the world.

Not without effort, of course. The Internet today is a crowded, noisy, distracting place. No matter how basic or bright, your Web site will be just one more blip in a vast, electronic sea unless you make it known to potential customers.

That means promoting the Web address for your business just as hard as you promote your business's phone number and address.

Maybe harder. A Web page may be an effective electronic billboard. But you will have to steer customers to it by registering it on search engines, including its address on your letterheads and business cards, and taking out advertisements in traditional outlets such as newspapers and magazines.

Check out the business section of your favorite bookstore and look for how-to books on marketing over the Internet and doing electronic commerce. If you prefer an in-depth study with solid lessons from big business, consider e-Business by Dr. Ravi Kalakota and Marcia Robinson (Addison Wesley, $39.95, paperback).

Useful or useless

Web pages can be a godsend for small businesses with limited advertising budgets.

For others, they can be almost useless. Your success will depend on what you are selling, who your customers are, how often you reach them and how they prefer to shop for the products or services you and your competitors offer.

But the Internet can help you sell virtually anything, according to several owners of Texas home-based businesses. You also may earn revenue from other companies that display banner advertisements on your site.

Paulette Mason, owner of home-based Quick Brick in Big Spring, Texas, says the Internet is "part of the future, and I don't want to be left behind." Her Web site (www.quickbrick.com) "will reach a bunch of people that I wouldn't be able to reach otherwise."

Quick Brick, she says, is a method of applying paint to cement, floors and walls to simulate brick.

Ms. Mason says getting her Web site up and running was laborious. She had to work with several Web designers to get what she wanted. And she warns: "Be sure, when the Web domain name is registered, that it is registered to you and not to the person who is doing the Web site design." That problem happened to her and required considerable time and paperwork to straighten out, she says.

Sonja McCuen of Plano, owner of home-based PromoteFood.com (www.promotefood.com), launched her Web site in June. Her business offers professional development for food service directors in schools.

When Ms. McCuen started her venture, she had no knowledge of how to go about developing a Web site. "So I contracted with a friend to help me do it. We logged months of hours working together. I now feel pretty comfortable with Web design on my own," she says.

Lora Wheeton set up a basic Web site two years ago for her Denton home-based business, In His Steps (www.inhissteps.com), which sells books for home schooling, as well as books to the general public.

Now she wants to beef up her Web site and expand it "so people can purchase online," she says. But she doesn't plan to do all of the work herself.

"I've bought several Web design packages, but I haven't found one that I can use to do what I want to do," she says. "So I'll hire someone to get our skeleton up, and then I'll put in our 500 different products myself."

Broadening reach

In one more example of the Web's widening reach, children's authors are now encouraged to set up Web sites to promote their books and their backgrounds as writers, according to the Highlights Foundation, based in Honesdale, Pa. Such sites should be interactive, the foundation recommends, so young readers can send messages to the authors, play games and enjoy other online activities.

Even the U.S. Department of Defense is trying to do more business with small firms via the Web. It is offering free classes in electronic commerce, including Internet basics and Web design, through the Electronic Commerce Resource Centers, or ECRC, program. The Dallas ECRC supports North Texas, Colorado and Utah, and "it focuses on small business," says Angie Williams, an ECRC educational and training assistant. For more information, call 214-599-2500 or visit its Web site at www.dfwecrc.com.

An early step in launching a Web presence is finding a host, an Internet company that will provide storage space on a Web server for the data and graphics files that will make up your site.

Those with e-mail service through America Online, CompuServe, Earthlink and some other Internet service providers already have access to features that allow users to create basic Web pages.

For more complex sites that support online shopping, you will need Web design software or the expert assistance of a Web designer.
"The best thing I did," says Ms. McCuen of PromoteFood.com, "was to invest in a Web site development workshop. I spent about one day and took 25 pages of notes. One of the things I learned about was copyright infringement. Another was that before you ever start creating the content and design, you need to know what you will want visitors to do on your site."

Connie and Si Dunn write for computer and filmmaking magazines and newspapers from their Denton home office. Their column appears monthly in The Dallas Morning News.