Using a 'Net Presence to add to your Net Income.

"Do you want a web site because you think you should be on the Internet or is it part of a plan?" is the question put to the business owner. "You should at least have a general idea of what you want it to do for you."

Sage advice from someone who's been in the web site design business longer than most of his peers. He's Luke Cyca. He's 17 years old.

As owner of Nutok Interactive, a Swift Current-based Internet design company, Cyca says most business managers come to him looking for answers because they 'don't really know what to do to get started.' Yet they cant escape the moth-to-flame draw of the Internet.

The positive attractions to this relatively new medium have been well documented. Direct and instant communication between a business and its potential clients as well as other businesses is easily done. Updates and changes to everything from schedules to prices is instant.

"It's the cheapest medium there is right now to get a large amount of information out to people right away," Cyca exclaims.

Yet the Internet is a shabby fit for some businesses. It may not pay, Cyca agrees, for certain types of businesses to have a strong presence on the Internet. As well, the pitfalls of developing and maintaining a web site can throw a wrench into the most well-run business. In the end every small-business web site is at risk of being swamped by the ever-growing ocean of huge companies now dominating the Internet.

"A number of industries are well-suited to the Internet while for others it wouldn't make much of a difference to the bottom line," says Yves Noblet of The Noblet Design Group in Regina. "A lot of companies are thinking about a web site. We try to anticipate who they are and convince them they are in need of a web site."

Trent Perehudoff, owner of U Visions Designs in Saskatoon says the three most popular types of web sites searched for on the Internet are music, sex and information. As far as Saskatchewan-based web pages are concerned, music sites barely make the scale while adult sites account for less than 10 per cent.

The vast majority of Saskatchewan's Internet sites are specifically designed to pass along information. But the extent of that information, says Noblet Design Group client relations representative Eira Braun-Labossiere, can range from a 'billboard on the Internet' to a fully functional e-commerce site where business-to-business and business-to-consumer deals are completed using extensive catalogues and databases.

"Every site we do is customized for our client," Braun-Labossiere says, adding a lot of fly-by-night companies can offer a better price but 'their product isn't in the same ballpark.'

"You can get a cookie-cutter web site if you want to do it yourself," Cyca notes.

These home-spun web sites are becoming less common, Noblet says, and are limited to very small companies.

"The originality of the site will be very low and you'll see basic mistakes. Elements are often misplaced, they will have long introductions or use plug-ins that not everyone has. They can be very frustrating."

Noblet sketches the two main camps engaged in ongoing competition for the web design dollar. Every business must carefully consider with which side it will ally itself -- a decision that may predetermine the intent, focus and effectiveness of a web site. On one side are companies like Noblet's, which has an established reputation through 15 years in the design business.

"Design expertise is combined with full technical capabilities," he says, further selling his position: "The merging of creativity and technology gives birth to web sites that are both visually arresting and technically efficient."

On the other side are companies rooted in the technology of the Internet. They know what works the best and the fastest. They're the tekkies.

"I feel it gives me an advantage," Perehudoff says of his technical background. "The software today is 'what you see is what you get' and you can put together a basic web site where the pictures can be dragged and dropped. But then the client comes back to you and asks for something a bit different and if your software package doesn't allow the change you're lost."

"But on the other hand you can have all the technical expertise in the world and if no one notices your page, what good is it?"

The tekkies opened themselves up to competition by boosting the Internet's speed and capacity. From a designer's point of view the average web site's handful of fonts, few colors and inability to handle large pictures was a major problem a few years ago.

"It really wasn't a world made for designers, but that's all changed now," Noblet says. "The acceleration of the delivery mechanism allowed us to be involved in the medium. However, we still are mindful of the limitations and recognize we are working in a medium where there are technical implications to what we do."

Cyca believes large corporations have made the Internet more accessible to smaller companies by helping drive down the price of web design. Where the average price per page of a web site was $200 to $400 a few years ago, the average price today starts at $50 per page.

"There was definitely a gouging going on two years ago," Perehudoff contends. "Now you have to make a commitment to the client if you're going to charge that much. You have to do updates and changes on demand and you have to be available all the time. It gets crazy."

Canadians now rank No. 1 in per capita time spent on the Internet, meaning Saskatchewan businesses may become even more exacting in their requirements of web site designers.

"I think there are a lot of clients who want web sites but are hesitating because of their perception of the time and budget involved. A web site can be like any other marketing tool and save or make the client money," Braun-Labossiere says. "A lot of businesses in Saskatchewan don't realize how quickly the future is gaining on us.