Outlining
a Plan for an E-Commerce Business
To
gain a competitive edge over your competition
you would be well advised to plan an
outline of the steps you are required
to make to help you succeed in your
business. While this seems like a logical
approach many companies and individuals
seriously neglect or pay little attention
to planning. Hence the failure rate
of new business venture is extremely
high. Don’t underrate to need
to plan.
Planning out your business strategy
accomplishes many things but, above
all, it gives you a roadmap to follow
with certain destinations to reach and
the motivation to reach them.
A business plan is also required if
you need financial assistance to get
your idea off the ground and into a
functioning, viable operation. Anyone
you approach for funding will want to
see your plans, objectives and strategies
before they entertain the thought of
lending you money and investing in your
business.
E-commerce
is basically the sale of goods and services
over the Internet. In fact, online purchases
are the fastest growing form of business
transactions today with at least two
thirds of the population making a purchase
over the Internet. With the millions
of people using the Internet worldwide
the dollar volume , in sales, is huge
and expectations are for it to increase
dramatically in the near future and
beyond.
Even
the traditional "bricks and mortar"
store, needs an online presence today
to stay competitive. There are several
ways your business can benefit from
this growing economy, but most importantly,
you need a well planned web site strategy.
The
sooner you start the planning process
the quicker you will reap the benefits.
So let's start.
To
start the planning process, you can
refer to my "Start Up Business
Guide". It will lead through the
all the strategic areas you should consider,
be it an online or offline business
project. It is written in a practical,
workbook style designed to make you
think about what it really is you are
trying to accomplish. After reviewing
the guide you can read about the special
considerations that need to be addressed
when starting an e-commerce or storefront
on the Internet.
YOU
CAN READ OR SAVE THE START UP GUIDE
BY CLICKING HERE
Choosing
a Domain Name for Your Business
In
order to sell on the web, you need to
build up your credibility. Having your
own domain name is the first step in
that process. In order to choose the
proper domain name there are a few rules
to follow. The domain name you think
fits best may not be available but try
and follow as many of the rules as possible.
1)
Choosing a domain name starting with
the digit 1. This could create problems
for those who have to decide how to
classify those web sites to fit into
the prescribed directories. Web sites
are classified in different ways. One
is based on how "good" they
are. Another way is to list them in
chronological order (and sometimes in
reverse chronological order) based on
the dates the sites were submitted.
The
more popular classification system is
alphabetic.
You can name your domains starting with
"1st". This will ensure that
you get a high alphabetical placement
in those directories which classify
sites alphabetically. Furthermore, depending
on the industry in which your company
operates, it may also send the right
message across to your customers - it
indicates that you are the first company
to consider in your industry.
Yahoo!
- lists web sites alphabetically based
on the Title that had been submitted.
Yahoo! wants the Title to be the official
name of the site.!
2)
Consider starting your domain name with
"A", "B" or "C".
They will be listed after those starting
with the 10 digits, but you still get
a high alphabetical placement with A,
B or C.
3)
Try to register a domain which contains
a popular keyword applicable for your
industry. This will help your customers
remember your domain name better. Furthermore,
for searches conducted in Yahoo!, a
higher ranking will be given to those
web sites which contain the keywords
in the title. Using keywords also increases
the ranking of your web site in some
search engines. The best case scenario,
would be to register a domain in the
form 1st[keyword].com
4)
Be aware the digit 0 is often confused
with the vowel O.
5) Try to avoid using
domains that contain '2' for "To',
'4' for 'For', 'u' for 'You' and so
on. Your customers will easily get confused
if you do so.
There are many companies to use to register
your domain name, with prices varying
between $5-$30 per year. The prices
usually vary depending on whether you
use the same company for your website
hosting. The company I recommend and
use is 1and1 Internet .com. Stay away
from the free domain names offers.
Here’s some homework sites and
products to review we will delve into
these areas at a later date.
Finding
the right niche or product
Keywords
What
is the single most important thing you
can do to insure the success of your
website? Choose the right keywords.
Why
is that, with all of the highly effective
search engine strategies, it's rather
simple. If you don't choose the right
keywords, all of your other strategies
won't help you at all, because those
strategies are built on choosing the
right keywords.
Consider
when a searcher visits one of the major
engines looking for your goods or services.
They type in what they consider to be
the most important topic, or keyword.
Up come the results, ten per page.
So take the time to choose the most
effective keyword phrases, for your
site to be among the most visible.
Wordtracker
is considered to be one of the best
keyword research tool available. In
addition, to finding hundreds of similarly
themed keywords in seconds. Wordtracker
will show you commonly typed misspellings
for the keywords you choose., Wordtracker
also has an easy-to-use interface and
export tools so you can quickly generate
long lists of keywords in the format
you want. Keywords are extremely important
for traffic and search engine ranking
and should play a significant role in
choosing your domain name. You really
should investigate the Wordtracker program.
The
service I use is NicheBot.
They
offer free keyword research services,
innovative web site software, search
engine ranking tools, and more.
