Ecommerce Seek

“Your home page is the world’s introduction to you and your company. Make it COUNT!” - Heidi Richards

Think of your home page as the cover of your brochure. It features exciting information about your company, but like a brochure it must be opened to reveal the rest of the message. It is connected to other pages in a way that allows other visitors to your site to move from one page to another by clicking on the highlighted text or images.

Getting your home page up and running on the Internet requires design, operations, and the update of your information. Many Internet Service Providers offer home page construction for free, often with a standard format in their “host” package. This is an inexpensive way to get up and running more quickly on the Internet. In the beginning, it might be an option for your site.

The options of design, operations, and update depend entirely on how much maintenance your site would require and how much information you want the surfer/customer to have. It could be as simple as listing your location, hours of operation, and the types of products and services you provide. Or as elaborate as picture graphics, movement, and even sound.

Design It yourself. This no-frills approach is inexpensive. The many new and easy-to-use software applications available make it affordable to get started. Provided you feel comfortable with this do-it-yourself approach, and feel comfortable learning a new program you can create your own home page. There are, however, some disadvantages. There is no guarantee of quality for the finished product, and it requires a lot of time and energy.

Microsoft offers a free package that allows Word users to build a Web site from their word processing software package. Check out their web site for Internet Assistant for Word (http://www.mircrosoft.com). Adobe has a package called PageMill 2.0, using click-and-drag commands that create web pages. Less than $100, it has the basics needed to create a site. Just call 800-833-6687. Corel offers a Web Graphic Suite of products. More expensive, but you can get more features. Corel’s number is 800-772-6735.

New packages become available frequently. Check out the computer software catalogs and local stores for what’s out there.

Hiring a Designer. Companies specializing in Web site design are abundant. And new companies are springing up all the time. Of course, it can cost up to $500.00 to develop a modest site. And about $30.00 per hour for updating the site. You will still need the Internet Service Provider to host your site.

Updating your site. The more often your site is updated, the more successful it will tend to be. Active sites are updated weekly, maybe even more frequently. If you want your Web site to be more than a billboard, it could require several hours per week to keep the site current. It all depends on the types of products and services you provide.

Make sure your Web Site is “linked” to other similar industry sites, and professional associations.

Excerpted from The PMS Principles - Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business © 2005 - Heidi Richards

Heidi Richards is the author of The PMS Principles, Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business and 7 other books. She is the owner of Eden Florist & Gift Baskets - http://www.edenflorist.com and the Founder & CEO of the Women’s ECommerce Association, International http://www.WECAI.org (pronounced wee-kī) - an Internet organization that “Helps Women Do Business on the WEB.” Basic Membership is FREE. Ms. Richards can be reached at http://www.HeidiRichards.com or heidi@wecai.org

Tags: website, ecommerce, business, marketing plan, marketing, strategy, Internet, planning

Share This

If you’re selling anything online, you’ll need to be able to accept online payments.

There are many ways you can do this, but let’s simplify it down to the hard way and the easy way.

The hard way requires you set up a merchant bank account and then sign up, at quite some considerable expense, to accept online payments on your account. Not only will you have to pay a percentage of each payment you receive, but there is often a monthly charge for running the account too. If you start getting into big figures, you may even find that the bank holds back a sum of money due to you for chargebacks.

A chargeback is where a buyer asks for their money back - either due to fraud or because they are unhappy with the product you have supplied. There are stories of some companies holding back large sums of money to cover the cost of chargebacks.

That’s the hard way!

Now for the easy way.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past five years, you’ll have heard of Paypal. It’s easy to set up and account to take payment for goods, downloadable Ebooks and subscriptions without the need to set up a merchant account.

This online payment system is the quickest and easiest way to accept payment online with cards such as Visa, Mastercard and Maestro on your site. It’s easy to open a Paypal account and start accepting payment online immediately.

This article was submitted by Jennifer Carter. Start your own Internet Businesses.

Tags: online, payment, merchant, business, internet, chargeback, businesses, money, paypal, home

Share This

If the article’s title has led you to an assumption that I have an ultimate “formula” for complete evaluation of Website performance you are unfortunately very far from the truth. In fact such formula does not even exist! There are many different factors that are to be taken into account when assessing Website performance. All I am trying to do in this article is to provide a brief explanation of the main aspects of the Website performance that companies need to concentrate on in order to measure effectiveness of their efforts on the Net.

When my clients ask me to examine their Web sites and give them a complete health-check I usually focus on the on the following 4 factors:

Informational Content

Design

Functionality

Value Added

Informational Content

Informational content of the Web sites plays a very important role in conveying the company’s messages to its customers. Commercial Websites should contain information that the visitors may find useful in their exploits to get to know the company better. If you are buying online from a company you have never heard of before, you would certainly want to make sure that you are dealing with a legitimate reputable business rather than with a group of tricksters who will take your money and disappear in the direction unknown to you. The Website should inform the visitors about the company’s background, latest news, products and services offered and excellency awards achieved.

Not every commercial Website is providing customers with an opportunity to make purchases online. Quite a few sites are focusing on the marketing function and they view their online presence as a support network for their existing sales and distribution channels. Whether you are selling online or simply using the marketing capacity of the Web, you need to provide your customers with sufficient information not only about the company itself but also about characteristics of the products/services offered. Consumers need to know what your products are fit for, price, availability, unique characteristics and (of course!) special offers that they can take advantage of.

Do not hesitate to incorporate some seemingly “useless” stuff such as jokes, puzzles, contests into your site’ informational content. It will help you to attract greater numbers of “accidental” visitors. Chances are you will be able to gradually convert some of these visitors into becoming your loyal customers.

Design

Our life consists of experiences. Make a visit to your Website a nice one! If you are not a professional developer, do not adopt “do-it-yourself” approach. You will be better of outsourcing services of a competent Website designer. Time of home made half-baked Websites is gone. Consumers are expecting sites that are easy to navigate, use good color combinations and contain more than mere text. While pictures and animation are becoming integral elements of Website design, try not to overdo it.
I can think of many sites for respected companies that have been flooded with animations. Designing a good site is not just about displaying a lot of artwork and flashiness. After all, you are not in business of selling cartoons. The role of the artwork is simply to increase the appeal of your site.

Functionality

The fanciness of your Website is if it does not work properly. Try to think from a consumer’s perspective. How often have you been frustrated by defective links, faulty catalogues and failure to log into your account? Unfortunately with many small and medium-sized companies, these problems are quite common. They can usually be attributed not to lack of the technical expertise but to enormous hurry to get the Website up and running.

If your Website is “sort of complete” and ” kind of ready for upload”, hold your horses! It is unprofessional to place an unfinished product on the market. It is true, that time is money but it is better to wait till your Website development project is 100% complete. Make sure that you test every single feature and function of your site prior to uploading. Do not take it for granted that applications or code that were fully functional at the time of initial installment are going to remain unaffected by your later developments. Software and code integration is fairly complex. In many instances, applications that are working beautifully when tested separately may be difficult to integrate into a working system.

Value Added

When you are starting out with a Website, make sure that your expectations from the site are realistic. Plan your Website well by outlining the business objectives you would like it to fulfill. Effective online presence can provide your company with the critical competitive advantages over the rival firms.

Identify the ways you can utilize the powers of the electronic communications to maximize efficiency of your marketing programs, improve communications with distributors and suppliers, expand your market share and provide better customer service to the existing customers. Be aware of the problematic issues you may have to deal with such as channel conflicts and greater expectations from the customers’ side.

When assessing performance of your Website, remember that you are assessing a virtual storefront. Your assessment is never going to be final. Same as with any other storefront, the final assessment is the prerogative of your customers, who are going to be judging your efforts and voting with their dollars!

Michael Baron is the founder and CEO of Baron Consulting Group (BCG) - one of the leading E-commerce consultancy and training service providers in Australia. Michael has been involved in Electronic Commerce since 1997. He has completed over twenty E-Commerce projects in the areas of E-Learning Software Development, Web Site Development, Web Site Mapping and Electronic Marketing for both government and commercial organisations in Australia and overseas. Michael has also published a number of research and white papers and has been lecturing in Electronic Commerce at some of the leading Australian Universities. He is a sought-after speaker at E-Commerce Conferences, Forums and Seminars.

Tags: E-Commerce, business, website

Share This