A diagram of Frank Da Silva's Internet Presence.

Bismillah hir Rahman nir Rahim. In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

I’m not a web developer. Yes, I make websites for a living. But I’m not a web developer. I’m an Internet Presence Facilitator. Many people make this 1 mistake about going online or doing business online. An Internet Presence, is NOT a website. A lot of the advice I’m giving also applies to individuals on how you can better manage your Internet Presence, so do read on.

An Internet Presence is a multitude of tools and services that identify you on the web. This can simply be an email address, a social networking profile on Facebook, or a directory listing on an online business directory. So, very often, a lot of people think that having a website is the end all and be all of making your business work on the web. And so, they go to the most cheapest web developer on the market, just because you can do that nowadays.

I’m sure the designs they come up with are nice, perhaps because they purchase it off a themes marketplace. But if your online storefront does not make money for you, then what are you missing?

Some of you are going to shout out “marketing! marketing!”. Of course, you don’t sell if you don’t market. But that’s not exactly what’s missing.

I’m very sure you can put together a site, and start purchasing Google Ads and Facebook Ads, run a Twitter campaign and amalgamate that with standard offline marketing like ads on your daily newspaper or on TV. But marketing is not the FIRST step.

The first step, is an Internet Presence Management Plan. And I cannot say it enough that people don’t plan from the beginning they develop their Internet Presence. They just think they need a website and/or a Facebook page, and expect that to work.

An Internet Presence describes who you are, your brand and what could compel a visitor to want your services. From the domain name you purchase, to what you put on your website. Its a mashup if you will of a lot of different sciences that deal with Information, Business, Psychology, Design and Technology.

So what’s a good Internet Presence plan?

1. Understand you, your personal philosophy and how you translate it into your business.
2. A business is not about making money. It is about producing value. So remember that before you start to think about your multi-million dollar online idea. It’s about the value you give to your esteemed clients, not the amount of money you receive.
3. Once you figured out your value, duplicate that to your services and products. Describe its value. Put it into paper.

Ok. That wasn’t an Internet Presence plan. But those are the things you need to think about before crafting a plan! So below are the basic steps you need for a good Internet Presence Management Plan.

1. Choose a domain name based on the value of the name you chose for your business or yourself and also a domain name based on the actual name of your business or yourself. This could be something like nirvanicinternet.com for my value and verbeter.com for my business.
2. Focus on putting up information about your business first. This should go into a website of your business. Not the companion site that discusses the value of what you do.
3. The reason why you need more than 1 website is often because you can’t depend on your businessname.com to stand out from the billions of sites around the web. You need a few that will stick. A companion site allows you to develop your value, while your businessname.com develops your business.
4. Only use your name@businessname.com as your email address even on the companion site. This associates your value to your business name. So if people go to avast.sg for avast antivirus, they will also quickly realise that Verbeter Group is the go to company for providing Internet Security software.
5. Develop the content of your companion site based on your value and your philosophy. For example, this would be an informational site that discusses what you do and how you do things. The nature of the site could be blog or magazine-based. Remember, you are giving value to people, for free.
6. Now we bridge the brand to the site visitors and/or your clients with a marketing plan. This can be using a variety of different platforms, both offline and online. Understand where your crowd is, and focus on a select avenue of platforms. You may want to use a YouTube video to visually describe your value and YouTube has plenty of viewers looking for how-to videos and epiphany clips (something that inspires viewers to take action or have a eureka/enlightened moment). You may want to communicate your brand to your clients on Facebook, or encourage your clients to follow you on Twitter for news on limited offers and even posting ads on Google, Facebook or your newspaper. It’s all about giving value, not receiving money.
7. Marketing gurus will tell you to be consistent. That’s good advice. What does being consistent mean? It means maintenance. You need to maintain your brand everyday. So be consistent in posting new and compelling items on your site.
8. I will tell you to be inconsistent. Stand out. Differentiate yourself from other competitors. Make your value compelling. So everytime you consistently run your marketing campaign, stick out like a sore thumb.
9. Treat your clients with respect. Remember, its your niat (intent). If your intent is just to make money, then you will not have a Nirvanic experience in business. Receive your client gently, as you would to an inquisitive child. They need your help. Help them.
10. NEVER produce an Internet Presence without security. No email without antivirus or antispam. No online forms without spambot checkers. No development without scanning your website for loopholes. Backup! Backup! Backup!

Now of course, an Internet Presence Management Plan is a lot more detailed than this, and it requires the development of your Business Plan and Marketing Plan. If you need help with planning your Internet Presence, Effective Web Presence Solutions for Small Businesses is a very thick book that could help you explore the strategies that go into place in much greater detail. If you’d like, you could even let my web development team do all the work for you for a fee and I can develop a plan and help you Nirvanise your Internet Presence. I’m just a click away.

May your Internet Presence always be well managed and maintained. Amiin.

See larger image Effective Web Presence Solutions for Small Businesses: Strategies for Successful Implementation (Advanced Topics in Global Information Management) (Hardcover) By (author) Stephen Burgess List Price: $165.00 USD New From: $106.75 In Stock Used from: $102.76 In Stock