Checklist Leading to a Successful E-Commerce Website
Dear readers,
You might have heard about the e-book that just came out called "30 Days To Internet Marketing Success",
by Joe Kumar. He had a brilliant idea; he basically asked some internet marketing experts to answer the following question:
"You suddenly lose all your money, along with your name and reputation, and only have your marketing
know-how left. You have bills piled high and people harassing you for money over the phone. Plus, you have a
guaranteed roof over your head, a phone line, and an internet connection for only one month. You no longer have
your big guru name or JV partners. Other than your vast marketing experience, you're an unknown newbie.
What would you do, from day 1 to day 30, to save yourself?"
The result is a fantastic compilation of easy-to-follow step-by-step guides for successfully starting and marketing a
business online. Click here to find out more.
Oh, and by the way, Joe asked me that question too. I loved the challenge, so I decided to participate. You can find
my answer in the e-book as well.
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Checklist Leading to a Successful E-Commerce Website
by Bill Platt
To succeed in e-commerce, the following eleven steps are those
that every business owner should tackle when developing their
new online business:
The Basic Online Business Development Checklist
1. Determine your products or services Know what products and
services you will be offering and define the common thread that
will tie all of your products and services together.
2. Research your products and services marketplace Find out
who your competitors are and the differences in the product
offerings they deliver to their customers. Find out your
competitors price points and value offerings. Find out who
your customers are. Find out how many customers exist in your
market and how you can reach them.
3. Establish your site goals Determine how you are going to
use your website in the quest to develop your customer base.
Are you going to use it as a billboard on the Internet Super
Highway? Or, are you going to use your site to develop long-term
relationships with your customers? Or, do you intend that your
site should provide everything necessary for an immediate,
one-time transaction?
4. Plan your site layout Understand how you are going to
utilize your site to the fullest of its potential. Make a
pre-determination as to the different sections of your site,
which will be vital to meeting your goals.
5. Plan for growth of your site Understand that your site
will grow and change to meet with the challenges of the future.
Anything that you can do now to simplify the transition into
future design changes will increase your overall productivity
in the maintenance of your online storefront.
Constant Contact makes it easy for anyone to create and deliver
professional email newsletters and promotions to a
permission-based list. Simply add your unique content to one of
the dozens of professional templates and Constant Contact does
the rest. Includes custom sign-up form, list hosting/management
and reporting. Affordable monthly rates.
6. Take a quick lesson in HTML http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/teachingtool/ HTML design
software can help you build your website fast. Learning the
basics of HTML firsthand can improve your effectiveness in
modifying your website. If you ever need to make minor changes
or troubleshoot display or formatting problems in a web page,
you will have the basic understanding of the technology to
work through those problems without outside assistance.
7. Build basic HTML template Your HTML template should be
thought of as your custom letterhead. Each page on your website
will be demonstrated with a basic visual format to secure the
cohesion of your website. It is this basic visual design or
letterhead that you want your HTML template to represent.
8. Build e-commerce section The payment area of your website
is the most important element of your entire design. Without an
effective payment processing system, your customers will not be
able to pay you for your products or services. StormPay is a
third-party payment processor that enables small businesses to
provide secure payment options to their customers. Learn for
yourself the advantages of using the StormPay program on your
website: https://www.stormpay.com/
9. Build customer support section While a FAQ (Frequently
Asked Questions) page can be a very useful tool in keeping
support requests to a minimum, it cannot stand alone as your
customer support system. Some people need one-on-one human
contact to answer their sales and support questions. As a matter
of trust, some folks simply will not do business with a company
that does not offer some type of human contact point --- either
by email or by telephone.
10. Build site content Once you have developed the bulk of
your site structure, the time will come to tackle building your
content pages, which will include your sales pages. As you
conclude building your page content, it may also be helpful
to undertake an understanding of the use of Meta tags with
your web pages. For a quick tutorial on the subject, visit:
http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/meta.html
11. Begin Promoting There are simply dozens of ways in which
you can promote your website --- both online and offline. We
simply do not have enough space here to go into all of the
methods available to a website owner for the purpose of
promoting their website. Our primary goal is always to sell
products or services through our business. Online or offline,
it is important to remember that sales cannot happen where
there is no traffic. To draw traffic to our business, we must
promote our business.
My hope for you is simple. I hope that you will be able to
develop your own online business and you will be profitable
in doing so. It is my hope that this checklist will serve
to help you reach that end.
About the Author
Bill Platt owns The Phantom Writers, a company committed to
helping people to establish an Internet presence & promote
their businesses through the use of Free-Reprint Articles and
Press Releases. Articles are distributed to 6,500+ publishers
& webmasters as part of the package. http://thePhantomWriters.com
