You’ve heard all about the Internet. And loads about the World Wide Web. Now you want to get there. And you don’t care who your ISP is :-)

Without further ado, lets look at your choices. The way I see it there are three alternatives - but one real choice for most organizations.

Alternative 1 - Web Pages

You put up your information on an existing website. Which means that you get a web address of the form: www.somesite.com/your-company. This is analogous to buying advertising space in a publication. The choice of the site would depend on the type of information that you are putting out (or the type of company that you are).

Is your information of general interest, where even people who “stumble” upon it, could be potential target audience? (Somewhat like someone flipping through the pages of a Business India) Or is your infromation highly specific and targetted towards a niche audience? (Like say the reader of Chemical Weekly)

Currently like most other activities on the Web, the pricing for hosting your pages will be highly variable. On the lower end of the spectrum, if you know someone who has the sopare space, they could carry it for you for practically nothing. On the other hand, if you approach a commercial site, their hosting charges would depend on various factors. Primary amongst which would bw “popularity” of their website. How many people visit their site daily. In the publication analogy - what are their circulation figures? There is an
advertising rate difference between the Time of India and the Free Pree Journal, right?

The advantages of this option are obvious:

Low cost entry barrier

Quick and easy startup

Ideal for personal “homepages”

Alternative 2 - Your Own Domain & Site

You can have your own personal web-identity like: www.yourcompany.com.

You still need the services of an Internet Presence Provider (IPP). The services that your IPP gives you could include site design & authoring, intelligence/multimedia enabling (java, databases, audio, video, etc.), hosting, mail forwarding (and optional POP mailboxes), monthly statistics about visitors to your site, etc.

The registration of your domain name (yourcompany.com) is done with a global administrative body called InterNIC. Your IPP would generally handle the routine formalities for you. However, it may be very helpful (and advisable) for you to think of multiple choices for your domain name.

To illustrate the point, my organization is called QuantumLink Communications Pvt. Ltd. When we setup our website, we first decided (predictably) on a domain name “qlc.com” Cryptic as it is, surprisingly it was unavailable - having already been registered to some company in the US. Next, we tried “qlink.com”, but alas that too was gone. Finally we succeeded with our last choice: qlcomm.com

Don’t take this too lightly. What you should do is give your IPP a list of domain names, in descending order of preference. Assuming that the domain name that you select is not yet registered, you will soon have www.yourcompany.com mapped to your site.

In my opinion, this alternative is the most deisrable (and in today’s time a must) for a corporate.

Your website will let you publish and disseminate information, set up sales
and support operations, etc. Using the web intelligently can result in an effective extension of the company’s marketing and advertising operations. And having www.yourcompany.com on your business cards, faxes, regular correspondence, advertisements, etc. is a excellent brand-building exercise.

Most importantly, if your business caters to an international market, having your own website puts you into another league altogether.

This alternative is more expensive than the first one. However, compared to conventional advertising and marketing expenses, you are likely to be in for a plesant surprise. If you are a corporate, consider this option seriously.

Advantages:

Brand recognition

Customised e-mail addresses (sales@yourcompany.com)

Periodical website “hits” statistics

Larger volume of disk space (for info dessemniation as well as for info gathering)

Alternative 3 - Your Own Infrastructure

The granddaddy of them all. At the outset, let me say that this is impractical (and inadvisable) for most organizations. I include it here for the sake of completeness and with for that tiny minority of people who may actually benefit from this option.

This alternative involves setting up your own hardware (servers, leased circuits, etc.) Which obvisously means that you would need to organize operating space, trained personnel, etc. An extremely involved and expensive option.

The advantages are tremendous. Complete “physical” control over your setup, which means enhanced security! Organizations getting into this scenario are generally service providers themselves or belong to that category where complete control and security of data is not just desirable, but absolutely mandatory. Banks, for instance.

Alternative Summary

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this article, for most people the alternatives are three, but the choice would be alternative 2.

After Getting Online

Okay, so you’ve made your choice. And setup your website. Someone types www.yourcompany.com in his browser and is transported to your website. Neat. It feels good. But now what?

Think about it. You’ve got to get them to come to your website. Time after time. Well, how successful you are at that is quite a bit under your control. The more value you deliver, the ease and convenience that visitors experience while browsing your site, will determine whether they come back again or not.

Supplement Your Website

Good communication is one of the essential elements of a successful business. And what would you say if I asked you to name a mode of communication that is: speedy, cost-effective, efficient and convenient? It wouldn’t take a magician to figure that one out. Especially in the context of this article :-)

E-mail is still the number one reason for an a Net connection. Most orgaizations first get e-mail (whether or not they follow it up with a website!)

If you have a website without a good e-mail setup, that is a serious mistake. If you haven’t already done so, you can add more “net-power” to yourselves by empowering your employees with e-mail. Preferably personal (and private) e-mail-ids.

And you should use functional e-mail ids (services, sales, helpdesk, etc.) which could form the generic e-mail interface of your organization with the rest of world.

Software packages are now available to seriously enhance an organizations e-mail capabilities. Products like the PostMaster allow you to create unlimited, personal e-mail ids over a single Internet account. Besides being packed with a whole load of value-added and convenience features. You can download and try out a free copy of the PostMaster from http://postmaster.co.in

The Future

Good site design, popularizing yoor website, selling on the web (e-commerce), using e-mail effectively, etc. are topics in themselves. And maybe I’ll write about them in other articles. Till then here’s wishing you a successful online presence!

(Published in: Biznet, Dec 1996; Bombay Management Association, Nov 1997; Economic Times, March 1999)