Web 
Impressions 
by. J. Carlton Collins, CPA

It is my belief that if your company offers 15 different services, then you need to have 15 different web sites in order to make the right web impression and promote those services. I have never read this idea anywhere before, or heard this idea presented by anyone before. I arrived at this conclusion by myself. Further, I have been arguing this idea for the past three years to thousands of businesses who attend my lectures. So far, no one has even attempted to challenge my premise.  Please allow me to make my case with the following lines of thinking:

Good Growth, Inc.

Suppose that Good Growth, Inc. is in need of a good international tax advisor. Good Growth's management turns to the Internet in search of a list of international tax advisors and relevant information  pertaining to international tax strategy and law. Presented below is a discussion about two hypothetical consulting firms that both offer  international tax consulting - ABC Consultants and XYZ Consultants.

ABC Consultant's web site is a basic web site that contains the same information in the firm's 4-panel fold-out printed brochure. The information clearly states that the firm offers the following 15 services: 1040 tax preparation; 1120 tax preparation; state tax preparation; fiduciary tax preparation; 1065 tax preparation; client write up services; compilation services; financial review services; audits; international tax consulting; SBA loan applications, etc. In this example, because international tax consulting is a mere bullet on the web page, ABC's web site does not rank very high as a result of a web search on the term "international tax consultants". In fact, Google returns 298,000 web site hits, and ABC Company's web site is number 49,300 on that hit list. Only those web sites which are solely dedicated to the topic "international tax consultant" rank among the top 20 to 30 hits. As a result, ABC Consultants are not found by Good Growth, Inc. However, let us assume that Good Growth does find the ABC web site - what then. In this case, the folks at Good Growth are not impressed. The fact that international tax consulting is listed as a mere bullet does not compel Good Growth to follow up - instead, they simply move on to the next web site.

By contrast, XYZ Consultants have created a separate web site to promote each of their specific services.  Their international tax consulting web site exudes international tax information. The title contains the words "international tax consultants".  The keyword list contains the words "international tax consultants". The content spouts off a multitude of relevant international tax information including:

1. A checklist of the ten most important international tax issues to consider; 
2. A list of laws currently pending in Congress which could affect international tax law; 
3. Case studies where the firm assisted other companies with international tax issues;
4. Lists of conferences and seminars on international tax law;
5. Biographies of firm consultants as they relate to international tax issues;
6. The top ten questions you should ask of your international tax advisor;
7. Published articles designed to educate you about international tax issues;
8. References to news stories about companies with international tax problems;
9. A list of links to other relevant international tax information.

As a result, XYZ's web site ranks high in Good Growth's search and is found. When Good Growth's management accesses XYZ's web site - they shout "halleluiah - we've hit the "mother load". The company proceeds to immerse themselves in the XYZ web site, printing pages for their own use and forwarding other pages to their colleagues. Having found many of the answers they were searching for, the folks at Good Growth stop their web search and concentrate on the XYZ material. They find the materials very informative and useful. They conclude that XYZ is a firm that has the expertise they were looking for. They end up calling XYZ and engaging their services.

In this case, having multiple web sites enabled XYZ to make the right impression and land the customer. The web can be a cold environment and you usually have only a few seconds to make a good web impression. Companies wishing to promote their goods and services via the web need to provide separate web sites for each service and product in order to accomplish this most important objective. It is important to note that once a company has created one web site, the second, third and forth web sites are really quite easy. The infrastructure is already in place and additional web impressions are only a matter of a little sweat. Read on as I a develop my point further with another example.

Tower Records and Tapes

We all know about Tower Records and Tapes, but when I visit this web site, I wonder why they only have one web site. Why don't they have fifty web sites. For example, the company could maintain web sites specifically dedicated to country music, rock and roll, classical music, big band, punk rock, and Christian music. The Christian music web site for example might be adorned with pictures on angels, harps, and the pearly white gates of heaven along with a quick reference to the top 50 Christian music songs. Thereafter Tower Records and Tapes could market this particular web site to the church community. Similarly, the country music web site might display cowboy boots and guitars and be marketed towards the country music crowd. In each case, the massive database and engine that has already been developed and published by Tower Records and Tapes is the same database and engine that drives these additional web pages. In this manner, Tower Records and Tapes need not re-create the wheel from scratch, they need only create new home pages that link to the database and engine that is already in place. A key point is that the effort needed to create a second third and forth web impression requires only a small fraction of the effort involved in creating the original web site.

The Cost of Creating Multiple Web Sites 

The cost of this additional effort is a lot less than you might think. Web hosting companies like Interland offer web hosting services which will allow you to maintain up to 15 different domain names for only $68 per month or $816 per year. Domain names cost just $30 per year. As you can see, the hard costs involved is trivial compared to the potential benefits of the additional exposure and multiple images that can be achieved. Of course there is a cost associated with developing the additional home pages and administrating those pages. However this effort does not need to be extensive. I am frequently asked to explain how much effort is involved in creating a web site. Here's what I do when I get this question:

I simply ask them to give me the name of their current web site. I then visit that web site and from my browser menu I choose File, Save As and I download their web site onto my computer - this whole process takes only a few seconds. Next I open that web page up in Microsoft Front Page and edit the page. I quickly change the background color and font. I quickly insert a few pictures of fish which I have previously saved to my computer. I then copy the revised web page out to my web server and browser to that new page. proudly I explain - there you go - there is your new web page, complete with a fishy theme. It already contains your content and links and it is ready to go. The whole process takes me about 5 minutes. People are always impressed by this quick example using their own web page.

Content

It is important to note that any web site needs extraordinarily good content, or else all other efforts are for naught. This whole idea does not work unless each and every web site your create is dedicated to delivery a bevy of relevant, well-written content which is useful to the prosspective customer you are trying to attract. Please keep this in mind.   

Conclusion

I think that the idea that a company should have one, and only one web site is very short sighted. Many companies target different markets via other more expensive efforts such as print ads, television commercials, trade journals, etc. Why not do the same on the Internet where the incremental cost of doing so is minimal? mark my words - this concept will become standard operating procedure with five years - but always remember that you read it here first.

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