You are running a small business. Or You may have a web site but has not been generating a good income. Or You may have a web site, which is generating a good income, but you want to increase your income. Or You do not have a web site, but thinking of launching one.
If you fit in to any of above categories then this article is for you. The purpose of this article is to educate small business owners of how to launch and operate a successful e-business. Many technical jargons that you don't want to know but YOU MUST KNOW are explained in layman's words in this article.
Remember, web sites are not to stand still and collect E-dust. They should generate good income.
If you believe that having an attractive and a colourful web site is e-commerce or ebusiness, then I am afraid you are wrong. A good e-business solution should include the following.
1. Identify who are your visitors.
2. Identify and present clearly the benefits those visitors of your web site are going to get.
3. Visitors should achieve the purpose of visiting your web site fast (easy navigation). It can vary from find some information to purchasing goods or services. The rule of thumb is that a visitor should fulfil the purpose of visiting your site in maximum three clicks.
4. Information should be clean and easy to read.
5. Web site should be fast and should not take long time to load pages.
6. Web site should get a good Search Engine ranking. Also should get lot of visitors who are interested on your products or services (targeted traffic).
Now you have two options.
Option 1: Develop an e-business solution by yourself.
Option 2: Get a third-party to develop an e-commerce solution for you.
Irrespective of which option you are going to select, you should know few important steps/terms used in the process.
1. E-commerce web site designing:
This is the development part of your web site. You should concentrate on the content of your web site, user friendliness, speed and the structure of your web site. Also it is important to use keywords related to your business properly in order to get high rankings on Search Engines.
Don't worry about this now. I will show you how easy this is. Keep on reading.
2. Domain name registration:
Domain name is the name of your web site Ex: http://www.preventiveguru.com
Domain name is unique for you and nobody is able to use your domain name when it is registered for you (for the period that you purchased). This is done through a web hosting company.
3. E-commerce web hosting:
This is where you store your web pages, so everybody can access your web site. This is done through a web hosting company.
4. Ecommerce Shopping Cart:
Similar to actual shopping carts at Supermarkets, you can use a virtual shopping cart in your web site. So Customers can purchase items online, put them in the cart and pay for the whole lot. Ebusiness software is used to develop digital shopping carts.
5. Credit card processing:
You need to talk to your bank and get a merchant account to process credit cards online. Alternatively, there are companies who do credit card processing for your web site. They charge a small processing fee for each transaction.
5. Shipping:
If you are going to sell hard goods, then shipping is one of the main tasks. Shipping can be done by yourself or there are fulfilment companies who do shipping for a nominal charge. You should sign an agreement with them and configure your web site to notify them about shipping details automatically.
OK, lets consider your options of developing profitable e-business solutions.
Option 1: Do it yourself.
I hear your questions. But it is not a very difficult task. Because there are good tools to automate most of above tasks. Thanks to these tools, business owners don't have to depend on others to run a successful e-business.
Your next step
1. Download FREE e-books for an A to Z explanation on how to do this from below web page.
http://www.preventiveguru.com/ecommerce-website-designers.html
2. Study details about ecommerce automation tools described in the same web page.
Done? Fantastic. You are ready to start your journey.
Option 2: Get a third-party to develop an e-commerce solution for you.
If you decided to go for a third party then you should know what to ask from them and what to look for. Most of ecommerce website developers concentrate on the look and feel of web sites. That along will never make you money.
Below are few important tips that you should discuss with your vendor.
Keywords: What are the main words related to your business and how are they going to use them efficiently?
Navigation: Structure of the web site and how easy to navigate and find information.
Search Engine Optimisation: How are they going to optimise your web site so that it will get good rankings?
Web hosting space: How much of space are they going to allocate for your web site.
Web statistics: Will they provide online statistics about visitors of your web site. Statistics are very important to analyse the performances of each page in your web site. Below statistics are vital.
How many unique visitors per day. How many visits (page wise). Listing of entry pages. Listing of exit pages. Source of the visitor (search engine, web directory etc). What are the keywords that are been used to find your web site?
OK, What's next?
Download FREE e-books from
http://www.preventiveguru.com/ecommerce-website-designers.html
Read them carefully and understand the process in detail.
Then go and see your vendor.
About the Author
The author is the Webmaster of www.preventiveguru.com who has over 12 years of experience in computer maintenance and eBusiness solutions. www.preventiveguru.com contains Free DIY information on Computer troubleshooting, maintenance and ebusiness solutions. A self-help guide for non technical PC users.