One of the biggest problems online marketers face is grabbing the attention of surfers. The second is building instant trust between the surfer and the website. The latter sounds practically impossible but new technology has once again prevailed and brought us one step closer to the goal.

Perhaps you’ve seen it and perhaps you haven’t. Regardless, it’s making a splash in the online advertising/marketing community. What is it? (drum roll please…)

Moving media.

The principle is to place a "live host" on your website that will greet your customers and personally introduce your site and company. The humanized video makes for a far more personalized feel to your site and establishes a sense of trust worthiness and credibility. Many large companies are jumping on the bandwagon and from everything I’ve heard, people seem to think it’s a pretty cool thing.

Two companies appear to have the market cornered on creating and delivering this service. Rovion and Webouts offer the same things essentially however, Webouts appears to be different in that their video person can enter from any direction on your website while Rovion’s are apparently stationary.

The companies allow you to produce your own creative but also have their own teams that can work with you to produce the desired result. The clips can be up to 30 seconds long and Rovion’s starting price for a small campaign is $2,500.

Check out Rovion and Webouts for examples and more information.

There are numerous business models for internet businesses. Some websites focus on sales, other focus on reducing costs or improving customer satisfaction. Whatever the reason, there is a reason for you developing an online business; therefore, you should be able to attain a payoff for your efforts.

There are several different ways to make a profit from your online business:

Portfolio Site – this model operates much like a business card on the web by offering information to target users about a business. In essence, they generate leads either for themselves or for another business by providing information to help aid the visitor’s buying decision.

Commerce Site – The basic commerce model is focused on making sales and profits. This is your basic e-tail store, where orders for products are taken on the website, customers are charged for those products, and then they’re shipped. This model can also apply to downloadable products, such as e-books or web-based applications.

Content Site – Another model is the content model, where it is based solely on advertising, such as banner advertising and sponsorships. For instance, the content is free to users, but is paid for through the companies advertising on the sites. A search engine like Google is considered a content model, because the content is free and paid for with advertising. This is not a new business model – many newspapers and magazines operate in this way.

There are also the community sites, where it does not cost anyone to either post or browse, but the business is responsible for the upkeep. The sites usually offer email, bulletin boards and forums. The site is commonly sponsored by a store that supports the community interest.

Most sites are a combination of different models in order to build traffic and visitor loyalty. A good example of this would be Yahoo, which combines content, community and commerce.

When determining the type of business model for your online business, think about how you will measure the visitors to your site and the money generated – either by sales or advertising. Determine your sales forecast based on the website’s benefits, if you will try to increase the closing percentage, customer satisfaction or retail traffic. Once you determine your sales forecast, then you will be able to compare it to the monetary benefits and expenses.

Getting started with a local business website

1. Register a domain name and find a hosting company. Ideally this would be the name of your store, however, if that domain name is already taken, consider the name of your store and the town where it’s located. For instance: anytownpartygoods.com . Go ahead and register your name right away – even if you’re not ready to publish your website quite yet. You can register a domain name for under $10 at places like GoDaddy.com or http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/ . Both GoDaddy and Yahoo also offer hosting packages – though, you won’t need to sign up for hosting until your website is ready to go live.

2. Create your website. Believe it or not, you can create a simple website all by yourself. Both Yahoo and GoDaddy offer simple website creation tools that will allow you to create a simple, yet professional-looking website. However, for a flashy website with videos or an interactive database, you’ll want to hire a professional. Prices vary with the size and complexity of the website, but you can expect to pay anywhere from $1,000 – $7,500 for a small to medium-sized website. For a local business, you’ll want to make sure your have the following information on your website:

* Homepage welcome – Brief information about what your company does (and why you do it better than the competition).

* Contact information – Your store’s phone number, street address and email address should be at the bottom of every page of your website. Visitors shouldn’t have to search for that information – and many times they won’t.

* Hours of operation – This could go on the homepage, about us or contact us page.

* About us page – This is where you can go into more detail about your company, how long you’ve been in business, your experience, etc.

* Products/Services page – Detailed information about the products you carry or the services you offer. If possible, add pricing information.

* Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) – This won’t be necessary for all local business websites, but for some it can really help to bring customers in. If you are always getting phone calls with people asking the same types of questions, this is the page where you can put the answers. There are plenty of people who just won’t make the effort to call a business, but they will go to their website and learn more.

3. Promote your website – Having a website is great, but if you want potential customers to find it, you’ll need to do a bit of marketing. Once your website is live, go to these sites and submit your website and company information:

* Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/ (free)
* Google Maps: https://www.google.com/local/add/login (free)
* Yahoo!: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit (free)
* Superpages: https://my.superpages.com/spweb/products/business-listing (free)
* Dmoz: http://www.dmoz.org (free)
* Local.com: http://www.local.com/advertise.aspx (free or fee)
* Yellowpages.com: http://www.yellowpages.com/sp/advertise/ (free or fee)
* CitySearch: https://selfenroll.citysearch.com/ (fee)
* Best of the Web: http://botw.org/top/Regional/United_States/ (fee)

There are, of course, plenty of other sites that will help to promote your website, but the ones listed above are a great start. Be sure to also add your new website and email address to all your printed company information (letterhead, business cards, receipts, etc.) You want to get the word out about your website as much as possible – that way your customers can easily tell their friends about your business!