This can be one of the most frightening areas for a small-to-medium size company.
Everybody says that you should be on-line. but what does that mean? Then there are credit cards,security, hackers, viruses and and and and...
On-line business is NOT just one thing.
It is simply a way of using the technology to boost your company's success. This should only be done within the comfort zone of the company. It is absolutely no good implementing on-line credit card sales if the company has no internal processes in place.
So let's work through some of the concepts and terms that are often used when people talk about on-line business.
This is like a business card, or branding. Every time you send an e-mail, you are presenting an image of you company to the person you sent the email to. This includes not only the signature, formatting, content, but also your reply e-mail address.
Using greendoors@bigfish.com as your email address implies that you work for bigfish. Having ceo@greendoors.com looks much more professional.
Along with the branded email address should come your branded web site e.g. www.greendoors.com. A pointer this web site can now be included in you e-mail signature.
A branded web site and address allows for better customer response and interest than that available through a hosted addresses such as www.bigfish.com/companies/oceania/yourbusiness/directories/greendoors.html
You may have a small, static, web site that has a couple of pages about who you are and what you do.
Why would some one visit web site, and how would they find the site in the first place?
A web site is not a bill board that once you put it up people will see it. A web site gives you a presence on the web, now you have to find ways to get people to visit and look at your site.
This may be
If the web site is visible and being visited then a percentage of those visitors will become clients. After all you are only going to spend money on a web site if there is some return. Presence alone is not enough.
There are lots of these, thousands in fact. And yes there are companies that will register, i.e. get a pointer to you web site added to the search engines database, with a large number of search engines.
One point to remember here is that search engines work because they are always looking for information on the web independently of any registration. The registration just makes it easier for the search engine to find your site.
If you have links from other web sites, e.g. from suppliers or client sites, then there is a higher probability of your web site being included in a search engine's database. Your web site may also have a better rating, i.e. be displayed more quickly, by having more links to it.
To help your web visitors you should include link to other web sites, and ideally those sites should include a link to you web site.
Think of a link as a thread, with lots of threads from one place to another you can visualize why it is called a 'web'.
Your use of search engines is highly dependant on why you think people will want to visit your web site.
A web site that is visible, and people are visiting forms the basis for passing trade, it like someone looking in at a shop window and most of the same display rules apply.
The types of things that may need to be included on your web site
You dont to have to pay a desuigner each time a price or product changes, you should be able to do that by using an online administration system.
This at a first pass may seem obvious, you sell what you sell. And that is correct, and you can now sell other things, eg information.
Ever get a little annoyed at those people who ask a lot of questions about a product, and then never buy.
Well you can now do two things
You can also have available, either for free or at cost, all sorts for 'soft' products, eg documentation/brochures/progams, any thing that can be stored on a computer.
At this point you are now running an on-line business that complements your main business. Just like any business, it should not be static. Marketing to get people visiting is critical to the long viability of any company.
| on-line Arts | IT consulting |