YOUR BRAND, YOUR POWER (Part 1) - by Yemi Ogunshola, Editor

Your site is your brand…Your power.

A website, unless it’s a search engine, should not be made to serve too many different functions at the same time. For instance, a corporate website is meant to brand the company (or person) and project its image. Selling products on that same site is not a good idea. If this is done, the rewards can be minimal, bringing in less than 2 or 3 % of the site’s potential. The solution? Building as many sites as possible or necessary!

Website genre or categories may include Custom Design, Personal, Business, the Modern, or Corporate. These days, available styles may include 3d, Artworks, Cartoon, Clean, Collage, Dark, Futurist, Geometric, Grunge, Minimalist, Paper Made, Retro, Corporate, Urban / Street, Vector, or Neutral. Depending on your type of business, choose your genre well.

Websites may be in the form of E-Commerce, the orthodox simple website, or Content Management System/Blog. Examples of the E-commerce types are osCommerce, ZenCart, CRE Loaded, and Magento Themes. Web Design types include the Static, Flash, Flash Intro, SWiSH , and Dynamic Flash Photo Galleries. Content Management Systems and Blogs may be in the form of PHP-Nuke, PhpBB, WordPress Themes, Joomla, Mambo, and Drupal.

A website is akin to an office in space. The greater the number of the offices, the more the opportunities which each site affords, since each one attracts traffic (visitors), jostles for a position on the web, and combines forces with its related websites to serve its owner/publisher. Multiple sites also offer choice to clients and customers, with each site having a pre-determined (targeted) audience.

A professionally-designed website, well-hosted, supported by a sales letter, a power squeeze page or power squeeze site, is a must for success on the internet. A special auto-responder system for viral marketing makes for even greater possibilities.

Your website reflects your brand: your ideas; your branding; advertising medium; promotional portal; your marketing tool – it reflects completely the way the world looks at you.