(Course No.)
(City & State)
Executive summary
With the development that is seen with online presence, there has been a need to have website so that information regarding some aspect is readily available. The internet promises faster and reliable advertising for many professionals. This paper will focus on a business plan for my website that will be used for marketing my skills and personal information after graduation. This will be an invaluable tool to market my skills. It will also look at the objectives that the website will target, the scope of the website, the, milestones that will act as a guide in achieving these objectives. Online marketing is far much different from the world of print, broadcast, and out-of-home advertising markets. The Internet is so vast and is evolving at very high-rates such that it is becoming hard to properly target the audiences which are intended. The online marketers are looking for efficient way of reaching their online audience while at the same time they are supposed to minimize expenditures.
Introduction
The website that has been proposed will serve as a marketing tool for my skills after I graduate thus making my attaining of a job easier. The website will act to advertise the skills that I am able to do. The website will give marketing services to those who are interested with the skills I have. In today’s world many employers will search for skills and expertise from eth internet. This makes their work simpler and makes the advertisers able to sell information with much ease. If there are information that need to be changed, this will a simple process as they will just update the information that is available on the website. The objectives of the website are listed below:
- Generate revenue from advert selling and Google ads. After the site becomes popular, it will be easier to use it to sell adverts.
- Strategically position myself into acquiring important information that will be used in the marketing my skills and expertise.
- Enhance communication with friends, potential employers and family members.
Measuring methodology
There will be the need to measure the success of the website that will have been developed. The success of the website will measured basing on various measurement yardsticks. This includes:
- The number of contacts for interview or inquiry of my skills
- The number of potential employers who get back to me after initial discussion using my website
- Potential employers or friends who contact me for administrative assistance on how the website works.
- The number of job procedures that are initiated from my website. This will mean that the website is effective and can be used to market and sell my skills.
My website will have a target market of potential employers and friends who are well connected on their careers. This will be in the quest to have connections to be employed. Even after being connected and landing on a job, I will still be interested in using the website as I will be selling my knowledge and expertise on a freelance basis. There will be a need to include this important information regarding my knowledge and expertise. It will be important to monitor the visitors to my website and how interested they are with my services.
Marketing strategies
Online marketing would attract more clients to the website, increase customers to the hotel business; this would also enhance branding of business and services. The most preferred strategies for my website would first be to begin an online promotion plan and a cost-effective site design and progress strategy. Second is always maintaining great search optimization methodologies to get listed at the top in top search engines. They will also get used to effective electronic mail marketing; dominate a bigger part of my marketing niche with close, reseller and programs associated. It is also useful to call for analysis from a web-based marketing institution or consultant. Third would be to erect a feedback option in mail list and at least publishing articles or making some way to news stories list. Fourth would be to put down and publish web-based press releases, conduct and run competitions and awards through the website. Lastly would be to post blogs and get to know potential clients. From the above steps I would have devised a substantial web marketing strategy that should assist their hotel business appropriately.
Increased visibility will ensure a high number of unique visitors onto the websites, which will in turn translate into high conversion rates and profitability. Multiple Search Engine optimization strategies will be employed. These will include the provision of fresh content, laden with keywords; effective use of meta tags to make it easier of robots to crawl the site; pay per click advertising on search engines as well as other related websites; catchy, but relevant page headers; HTML code optimization; a detailed site index; sustainable building of quality back links among others.
Design milestones
This can be done in a number of steps;
- Installation
- Information Architecture
- Web content
The website development process involved a range of software’s and technologies including Apache, MySQL, and PHP. PHP is a powerful scripting language developed to give web developers highly featured web applications. MySQL is the fast, reliable database manager that integrates well with PHP and is best for internet-based applications.
PHP acts as a plugin for the web server and enables it to send the exact copies of what the web browser request. Therefore PHP is installed in order to run PHP scripts that retrieve and store update real time information from the database. This software is used to generate a webpage before it is sent to the browser that is requesting for it. PHP is an open source and free software that is readily downloaded from the internet.
The services of a web-hosting company are significantly valuable for the hosting of the website. The contents of the built website are uploaded to another location. Therefore, the copy of the website files are retrieved by the web server and served up for the web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox to access it.
In order for PHP scripts to retrieve the requested information, a database is necessary. MySQL is the database used by FBS to store and manage many pieces of information effectively. It is a relational database in that it keeps track of that the relationships between all the pieces of information stored. The choice of MySQL is because it has the capabilities to access server-side scripting languages such as PHP.
The first process in the development of a website involves the installation and the setting up of the company’s web server, PHP and MySQL. In this case, WampServer is the ultimate software that incorporates Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP. WampServer has a build in Apache HTTP Sever essential for the development process. The Internet Service Provider’s SMIP server and mail address are required at this stage. The completion of the installation process will prompt user configurations to specify access rights for the database. This is done to safeguard the security of the client data stored in the databases. MySQL provide simple and easy to follow steps to set up root password and other use settings.
Web hosting is the transfer of web data into the public domain to make accessible to the public. Once the installation has been completed on the developer computer, the next step involve the transfer the PHP scripts to the host servers through the FTP or SFTP transfer protocols. The host will set up compatible MySQL databases, host names, passwords and s. The host allocates an empty database to each, and every client, therefore, knowledge of such information is important. NetBeans is the Integrated Development Environment that will support PHP scripts in editing, deleting, and other like operations. The installation of the Apache software is the next step after the successful running of the PHP scripts. Once Apache is running, the next step involves the installation of the PHP support as well as other configuration settings as chosen by the user.
Wireframe
A wireframe developed before the design of the website gives the insights of what to put into focus. A hand-drawn wireframe determined the website’s IA, which was subsequently, translated into a graphical wireframe. There is the development of mockups and wireframes before the content is translated into the user interface design mock ups and finally the HTML mock-ups. The website will undergo a lot of design so that all information that is required in the development of the website is not ignored. This is important information as it helps the website designer to understand how far they will go in the development process of the website.
Time line table
The development of the website will be as follows:
Projected web development and maintenance costs
The cost of developing the website is shown in the table below. Most of the costs are encountered after the website has been developed. This is due to the fact that most the tools are added when the website is already functional.
Survey /focus
This is the period that will be used to get the feedback regarding the website that has been developed. This is important in the development of the website as information regarding the attitudes of the website users will be evaluated. This is crucial information that will be used in the development of the website.
Conclusion
With the development and enhacement of online presence and information availabiltty, it is important to understand the requirements to go online. This is the reason for the development of the website. With this website, all the details that are required to develop a website that will be used after graduation is important and helpful. The aim of the project is to create a user friendly website contrary to current available websites that are complicated to navigate. Moreover, the vast network with the majority of potential empoyers getting online will promote the company given its availability in the digital platform. Thus, many students will find it time efficient and easily accessible and manageable. The motive of the project has been attained, and attempts to move the personal information into the digital form have been realized.
References
Darlington, K. (2010). Effective website development:. Pearson/Addison-Wesley.
Downey, T. (2012). Guide to Web Development. Springer.
Hourieh, A. (2009). Django 1.0 Website Development. Packt Publishing Ltd.
Lakhani, S. (2009). How to Select a Vendor for Web Development. Lulu.com.
Robbins, T. (2010). Website Development:. Packt Publishing Ltd.
Stefan, L., Christof, W., & Jochen, S. (2008). Designing E-business systems Markets,Services and Networks 7th Workshop on E-business, Web. Paris: Springer.
