Web Design Company Explains The Benefits To Small Businesses of Developing an E-Commerce Website
E-commerce is a very important aspect of website development. To be able to sell your products and services to a target market that may be located thousands of miles away, a website has to have full e-commerce capability; the ability to accept orders, process payments and deliver the product/service that the client paid for.Why is this important? Humans have an instinct for impulse buying, especially when given access to buying anything without paying for it immediately. This has been made possible by credit cards. A combination of the impulse buying instinct and having access to credit purchases can be used by website owners to their advantage.Studies have shown that 60% of website visitors looking to buy something online are more likely to purchase when prompted to do so immediately through a checkout page than if they had to make the payment offline to a bank account. This is what has given birth to e-commerce.With over $149 billion spent on online transactions in the first quarter of 2010 by China alone, the importance of websites having e-commerce capability can not be overemphasized. To survive in today’s online marketplace, a web business must incorporate a good e-commerce module as part of its website development project.What makes a good e-commerce module? An e-commerce module should be able to perform the following functions for a website:Transform a website into a retail shop that is open 24/7.
Confer an ability to sell worldwide.
Possess an effective content management system that gives the web business owner complete control to manage products, prices, inventory, payment methods, delivery/shipping costs, promotion codes/discount coupons, customer marketing by email, manage downloadable products.
Possess a cookie-enabled checkout system to track returning customers as studies have shown that customers are turned off by having to fill out several pages of ordering details repeatedly.
Home Business Ideas – How to Build Your Own Online Business
Because of the recent poor economical climate through out the globe millions of people are thinking really hard about starting their own profitable online business. If you find your self to be one of those individuals, then this article may be of great interest to you.Many people want to start a online business but have no idea where to start, what it’s about, or what they will need to get their business up and running. Finding the right information and instruction is not always a easy task. I intend to at least point you in the right direction with the information in this article.First let me say that there is no reason for anyone to start out with the idea that there will be no hard work involved when starting your business online. I want you to accept the fact that there are no easy fixes, no get rich quick solutions, and no magic potions for your success. It’s just the opposite, you should prepare yourself to be willing to learn to make some changes as well as sacrifices in your life if you want to truly be successful online.Even though there are no strict online business building methods that are written in stone on how to start your online business you will do well to begin by first:• Finding, then making up your mind on exactly what it is you want to do! You will need to discover what it is that you are interested in doing, what your marketable strengths are. You will also want to take into account is this interest something that others will want to know about, is your interest marketable? Will it have value to others? You will be able to get some ideas about this by doing some internet research on your chosen interest to see if other people are showing an interest. I suggest that you start by using free online keyword search tools such as, Freewords.wordtracker.com, adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal, keyworddiscovery.com/search.html, wordstream.com/keywords these are just a few of the online resources that are available that you can use to help determine the popularity of your chosen online business idea or niche.If you can’t come up with any ideas for a product or service to base your online business on, don’t despair there is a excellent alternative. There is the great option for you to promote and sell other peoples products or services. This is called affiliate marketing, it is a very popular method of having your own business online with out having to develop the product, service or promotional tools related to selling your own products or service online. Many successful internet marketers started out this way, because it can generate a great income they continue to incorporate affiliate marketing into their own business.Because affiliate marketing is an extensive subject all on it’s own and deserves it own article, I will be directing this article more towards starting your business with your own product or service. Even though many of the methods are easily interchangeable.• Next you will want to make a physical map or index of the things that you need to accomplish. Get a pen and paper and write down simple tasks or goals that you will want to complete in reasonable time limits. For example you will want to have a great website for your business so write down the steps that you plan to take to get it up and operational. for instance:1. Write down what you may want your website to look like2. How many web pages will you want or need?3. What kind of information will you show on your website to show your visitors that you are proficient in your online business field or niche.4. Will you create your own website? Or will you spend a fee to have a professional do it for you?5. Get yourself a domain name.6. Find a web hosting service that fits your needs to put your business website.7. Set up your domain name.8. Upload your website to your web host. When you have your completed list, you should have a clear map as to how you will go about getting your website up and running. It would be a good idea to then put this information in your computer so that you will have a permanent record of this valuable information.• Now that your website is uploaded to your web host and running you will want to begin to find ways to get targeted traffic to that site so that your potential customers can view you great offers or what you have to say about your chosen niche.It is a good idea to first start by beginning to build a list of potential customers that will be interested in purchasing your chosen product or service. You can do this by finding a good reliable autoresponder service that will automate the filing and tracking of all the website visitors that choose to give their names and email addresses or opt in to a special offer you will set up for them at your website.A simple web form that has boxes where the visitor can leave his or her name and email address can be easily created by you at your autoresponder service website for use on your web site. This makes it easy for people who visit your site to help you automatically build your all important opt in or email list.Because website traffic to your site is crucial for your online business success, you will also want to get website traffic in other ways. You can get free traffic by means of putting your website on the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN, just to mention a few.Remember the truth about getting the best traffic to your website will be a combination of methods, article submission, having a lot of incoming links to your website are a few.So don’ just rely on one way to accomplish this vital operation.• Once you have interested visitors regularly coming to your website, you will want to have interesting and valuable information there describing the benefits of your online businesses products or service. From your attention grabbing headline to the main content on your site you will want to be laying the grounds for your visitors to make a purchase of your product or service.It will be the benefits that your product or service provides that will make your customers life easier or solve a specific need that will sell your product. Make sure to elaborate on the benefits more so than the features of the product. Although the features of the product may have some importance the benefits outweigh them in the minds of the customer.Learning this very important art or science, what ever you choose to call it, is vital to starting your online business in a positive direction. There is all kinds of information online to help you master this task. keep in mind that practice makes perfect, so do try your hand at writing your own sales copy as much as possible to make it easier for you to recognize when you have done it correctly.• A outstanding method that all internet marketers who have built their own successful online business used to get that success have learned that by providing your opt in list with top quality free information on the subject of your chosen niche will build a great re pore, relationship, and loyalty from those of your customers that join in. It also shows them that you know what you are talking about, proving you to be a reliable source of helpful instruction and information. Believe me having the reputation as an expert in your niche goes a long way to building a profitable online business.• Make sure that your chosen product, niche, service, of your online business will fulfill a need, solves a problem or answers a question that your potential customer may have. Find out what it is that your visitor wants and then provide it to them.• You are now receiving visitors to your website that are anxious to buy your products or services, now you will need a way to get paid or collect the purchase price for them. How do you set up this part of your online business? you will be happy to find that this is just a simple task of finding the right payment gateway for your online business. Their are many online payment services that you can use to do your online billing and payment collections. Some of them are free of charge depending what level of service you want to use. Some will charge a small fee to be figured out by a percentage of the total cost of the product or service or the number of transactions that your business does in a certain time cycle. Some of the better known free online payment processing services are, (PayPal.com, 2checkout.com, Authorize.net, and Merchantexpress.com).Always use your autoresponder to send follow up email to make sure that your customer is satisfied after the sale. Show them that you take a interest in what they think of your product, service or business..• The last but not less important of building your own online business that I will say a little about today is you will want to have a great online customer service department. This is extremely important. Why? Because it is a fact that all businesses will have a customer that for any reason will need to get some kind of help from you. It could be the product was defective, it could be the wrong product delivered, it could be that they need more instruction on how to use your products correctly or to find out more about it. whatever the reason you will want to have a quick and efficient way of resolving any given problem.Just starting out you may want to handle all of your customer help request or tickets by your self with the help of a easy to install helpdesk software that keeps all inquiries in easy to manage format. As your internet business begins to grow this may prove to be a time consuming, overwhelming and tedious task, in that instance you may choose to outsource your customer support to online professionals that will take over that aspect of your online business for a fee. What ever you do make sure that you do handle your customer service or helpdesk in a courteous and mannerable way. You don’t want to loose a return customer because you dropped the ball in this area. How you handle your customer service will also determine if that customer will come back to your site to do business with you down the line.There is really no way for me to go into or list here everything or every aspect of how you will start a successful online business. I hope the information that I have listed will be of some help and at least point you to the right paths that you will need to walk down to succeed.Now it is up to you, choose your business, pick your profitable niche, get your website up and running and promote your online business with gusto. Keeping yourself motivated is the key to your success!
Cyber Security News: 4 Websites to Keep Your Business Safe
Ever wonder where we IT folks get our secret cyber security news? Oh, it’s nowhere special. We just all meet up every couple weeks at Area51 and get our briefings straight from the men in black and their lizard people overlords running the Underground White House. All kidding aside, we simply stay on top of cyber security news by educating ourselves through reliable resources both on and offline.Where you search for information depends upon your industry, but these 4 websites can provide a fount of IT security knowledge to anyone, regardless of industry.Infragard.orgInfragard is a collaboration between the FBI and the private sector dedicated to sharing information and intelligence that can fortify businesses against cyberattacks. The membership is free and you can narrow the information you receive to your specific industry sector – from energy, finance, and healthcare to manufacturing, food services, and beyond.Once you register, you will also receive emails with great information sharing smart tips and breaking cyber security news. And as a member, you even can stay in the know about upcoming cybersecurity events that pertain to your industry and region. Definitely worth the registration.Databreaches.netDatabreaches.net is basically an online list of cautionary tales. As a watch dog for the latest cyber security news, you can expect updates from data breaches large and small. Want to learn about the scope of data breaches and the strategies used by cyber criminals? You get all of the details needed to help you learn from the lessons of big brands and your industry peers.Updates come several times daily and cover unfolding stories as they happen. This is just another reminder of how important an informed and ever-evolving IT security strategy is for any business.Security Bloggers NetworkWant to hear from IT experts about cyber security news, but tired of browsing website after website? The Security Bloggers Network acts as an aggregate and brings together resources from across the web. Everything from industry overviews to the latest cyber security trends and controversies are brought together in one spot.IT Security GuruIT Security Guru is a community of IT folks that provide critical information to the public and their members. They have a “scam of the week” update, keeping people aware of the latest ways that cyber criminals are capitalizing on IT vulnerabilities.Also, you don’t want to be on their top 10 list. They look at some of the biggest and most noteworthy stories from across the web and very few of them are flattering tales of IT security best practices.Finding Specific Cyber Security News SourcesI do not personally vouch for any specific blog or podcast. However, I do recommend that every business look around and find one cyber security blog that is specific to your industry. While it can be interesting to know what is going on in healthcare, if you are protecting a financial services firm, not all of the stories are going to be relevant. I suggest you read everything about your issues first. Of course, there is overall knowledge required, but being aware of specific attacks and threats to your firm is paramount.Worried about all this? Even small businesses get hacked. Being aware of all the latest cyber security news is only half of the equation.