Step 2: Do The Research. You will need to do some market
research to discover what types of products you will be selling,
who you will be selling to, typical and non-typical costs
involved and how profitable these products will be for you. You
will want to do Keyword Analysis on the major search engines to
find out what your target audience is searching for and how they
are locating your type of business online. Another thing you
might consider is creating a solid business plan. Business plan
creation software and guides are all over the internet. Just
Google Business Plan Guide. Finding out what your competition is
doing is a great way to discover new ideas and plans to being
more profitable. You will want to distinguish your new business
from the competition so be creative, don’t just copy off of what
the competition is doing. Once you have a solid plan in place
you are ready to move forward to creating the business website,
establishing a customer base and then generating revenue.
Step 3: Establish Web Presence. Now that you have your
idea and plan set, it’s time to take action. You can start by
contacting a shared-space website hosting company to establish
web presence. You will also need to purchase your domain name
from a registrar like GoDaddy.com or Register.com. Often,
hosting companies will allow you one free domain name
registration with hosting service activation. Hosting service is
typically sold in annual fees of $240.00 to $360.00. Once you
have your hosting and domain name registered you can build out
the website.
Step 4: Building the Website. Contacting a local website
development company is your next step. Working locally with a
website developer allows you to meet the person or people that
will be responsible for creating your profitable business for
you face-to-face. If you feel that your business idea is going
to revolutionize the internet world and put Google or PayPal to
shame, then you might consider asking your website development
company to sign a non-disclosure agreement. This will ensure
that the website company won’t steal your idea or share it with
any of their other clients. Another good idea is to request a
quote before deciding on a website development company. Most
will offer this as part of a free consultation to find out your
project details. Your website developer will need to know
specific things like the goal of your business, types of web
pages your site will have, the content that will go on each page
and obtain logos, graphics or photos from you.
Step 5: Generating Sales and Customers. After all this is
what you want your website to do right? Unfortunately it isn’t
easy, don’t expect to wake up tomorrow morning with thousands of
pending sales and money flowing into your merchant account. This
will take time, dedication, the right promotion techniques and a
lot of effort on your part. Nowadays creating a static HTML
website isn’t enough to generate sales and customers through
your website. Typical internet browsers are becoming more and
more used to shopping carts, interactive guides, live chat
support, contact forms and quote request forms. These are all
great ideas that once combined will create a very solid and
trust worthy online business website. Your website development
company will be able to set up all of these features for you. If
they can’t, find a new website development company fast! If you
plan on being more personal with your customers, you might be
interested in creating a Blog or Discussion Forum. These are
great ways to generate topics and ideas to discuss. This will
also develop a loyal community who will continually revisit and
shop more on your website.
Step 6: Promotion. Internet promotion is great because it
allows you to target your customers without the large budget
requirements such as print or television and radio
advertisements. The first and foremost internet promotion is
Search Engine Optimization. This is the technique of developing
quality, accurate and reliable content on your website. Search
Engine Optimization also includes, Title, META and ALT Image
tags which Search Engine spiders will index allowing you to
place higher the keywords you are targeting. Other forms of
internet promotion include affiliate programs which allow you to
offer commission based payouts to visitors of your website who
refer people to your site, PayPerClick (PPC) campaigns which
allow you to place in the top one or two spots on a Search
Engine results page for a set bid amount, participating in
online forums, communities and discussions related to your
business’ subject or target audience and writing online articles
such as this one which will increase links back to your website.
Step 7: Managing & Maintaining. Managing your customer
base and maintaining your website content is just as important
as all of the work you put into it in the beginning. Your
website development company will be able to offer you website
maintenance and update service based on a set monthly fee.
Adding new, fresh content to your website is critical in raising
your search engine rankings and getting customers to revisit
your site frequently. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
software is available to help you track customers and maintain a
lasting relationship. Most systems are web based and can be
integrated into your website for you by your web development
company. If you prefer to maintain the content on your website
by making the updates yourself instead of paying your website
developer to do the work, consider a Content Management System
(CMS). Content Management Systems typically cost more to set up,
but allow you to avoid the monthly maintenance fees.
©
Copyright 2007 MJM Design. All rights reserved. This article was authored
by
Matt McWilliam
for
MJM Design.
Matt McWilliam is the owner of MJM
Design located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Read more about
Matt McWilliam.
To get started, request a free quote today.