Asia Dragon Business - E Commerce & Internet Education - E Commerce Course in English
E Commerce Course in English
01 Planning for e commerce
There are several issues that you should consider before selling your goods and services via the Internet. This guide will help you through the entire process.
Identifying e-commerce opportunities
There are several different ways you might use e-commerce in your business.
Direct sales
E-commerce plays an increasingly important role in the way in which products and services are purchased.
E-commerce systems such as your website can be used to market and sell to customers, and to provide after-sales support. E-commerce can also be an important part of strengthening relationships and improving the efficiency of your dealings with suppliers and other key trading partners.
Many businesses use e-commerce for the direct selling of goods or services online.
If you plan to sell online, you may need to rethink many of your business activities. This is because you will fundamentally change the way in which you interact with your customers. You will also need to work out how every aspect of a transaction is handled - including order confirmation, invoicing and payment, and deliveries and returns.
Pre-sales
You can use your website for pre-sales activities - exploiting the widespread use of the internet to generate sales leads. At its most basic you can have an online version of your promotional materials on your site.
Post-sales support
You can also use the internet to automate aspects of your customer support to reduce the number of routine customer service calls. This can be achieved by using your site to answer the most frequently asked questions, or by putting technical information online.
However you decide to use e-commerce, it is important to define your expectations from the outset. What level of sales are you hoping to make? How many sales leads are you looking to generate? Ensure that targets are put in place so that you can measure the success, or otherwise, of your e-commerce facility.
Making an e-commerce site easy to use
The ease with which a customer is able to use an e-commerce site is an important part of its success. It's also an important part of your online brand image.
Shop front
The shop front is the interface presented to the customer. This often incorporates an online catalogue that enables them to browse for products and identify those they wish to purchase.
Customers should be able to find the product they are looking for quickly. An eight-second guideline is frequently cited - if customers are unable to find the product within that time, they are likely to go to an alternative site.
The design of the shop front should make shopping intuitive, with the customer knowing at all times what stage of the buying process they are at.
Always give the end user the ability to search your site to locate the product.
Shopping cart
This is the software that facilitates easy selection and payment for products purchased by a customer from an e-commerce website. Once the goods have been selected, the customer should find the checkout clearly signposted, so that they can proceed to pay for the goods.
The system should process the order speedily and provide you with a summary, including any packing and shipping requirements. It should also generate a printable receipt and allow you to send a confirmation email to the customer.
Payment software
Most customers will wish to pay for their purchases with credit or debit cards. There are three options for accepting such payments - you can:
• open a merchant account
• use a payment processing company
• set up an online shop within a virtual shopping mall
Trading partner relationships
As well as offering new ways of doing business with customers, e-commerce also provides new ways of building closer links and improving business relationships with key trading partners.
Supply chain management
The concept of supply chain management revolves around having the right product in the right place, at the right time, and in the right condition.
The key aspects of supply chain management include the ability of businesses to:
• exchange information on stock levels
• fulfil orders more quickly
• minimise excess inventory
• improve customer service
• use a networking infrastructure to ensure good response times and speed
E-marketplaces
There are many online exchanges that enable suppliers, buyers and intermediaries to come together and offer products or services to each other, according to set criteria. Buyers and sellers work interactively with bids and offers. When a deal is made, it is a match between the buyer and seller on variables such as price, volume and delivery costs.
Implementing e-commerce
The key tool for delivering e-commerce services is the business website. This must be specified, designed, hosted and maintained.
Specification
The website specification should clearly identify what the site is trying to achieve and how its various components will contribute to this. An understanding of the intended user audience is required for both technical and marketing purposes.
Domain name
Domain names are an enormous help in the branding of a business. Your domain name should be easy to remember and spell, and should show what your business is all about. If not, then potential customers will surf elsewhere and possibly find your competition.
Website hosting
If you purchase a domain name you can either host your own website or have an internet service provider (ISP) host it on your behalf. If you choose to host the website yourself, you will require a fast internet connection, a suitable server and the provision of technical support. However, ISP hosting is relatively cheap and straightforward and is the most preferred option for most businesses.
The type of internet connectivity and the available bandwidth will be an important consideration, irrespective of which hosting solution is selected. Most businesses choose some form of broadband connection.
Software options
An important early decision to consider is whether to use a 'shop' package or build the software from scratch.
Shop packages allow you to configure product information and the look and feel of the shop. However, they can provide limited opportunities for tailoring them to your back office processes.
Alternatively you can get a third party to build the software for you, or develop it yourself.
Recognising the ongoing commitment
Even in the planning stages of an e-commerce project, it is important to understand how the website will be maintained on a day-to-day basis. There are also various marketing and security issues that need to be taken into account.
Site maintenance
Changes in product details, product ranges, special offers, up-to-date advertisements and sales information will all need to be maintained throughout the life of the site. In addition, you should consider redesigning the site on a periodic basis in order to improve the features offered to customers and keep the site looking fresh.
Customer feedback
It is important that the site evolves to meet the needs of your customers. There are a number of actions you can take to encourage customer feedback, including carrying out surveys and putting feedback forms on the site.
Marketing
No matter how well designed your e-commerce site is and how competitive your products and prices are, if the customers are unaware of its existence then you will fail to exploit its potential.
Security considerations
Using the internet for business purposes is fraught with risks to security. Hackers can attack systems at any time. Whatever your business, there's a real risk that your system may become the target of an attack that could affect your organisation.
Business continuity
The more successful your e-commerce service becomes, the more reliant you will become upon it. You should consider what risks and threats your e-commerce site might be open to and have contingency plans to ensure that you can continue trading should anything go wrong.
02 Create an online shop
Introduction
Selling products and services online can have major advantages for businesses, leading to increased profitability and lower costs.
This guide tells you about the advantages of selling online, what you need to consider when creating an online shop and the consequences of getting it wrong. If you choose to work with a third party to build your online shop, this guide will help ensure you ask them the right questions.
The guide also explains some legal requirements and the pitfalls that you should be aware of, as well as how to make sure that customers can find your shop on the web.
Benefits of selling online
Selling online has a number of advantages over selling by conventional methods, including:
• making savings in set-up and operational costs. You don't need to pay shop assistants, rent high-street premises, or answer a lot of pre-sales queries.
• reducing order-processing costs - customer orders can automatically come straight into your orders database from the website.
• reaching a global audience, thereby increasing sales opportunities.
• competing with larger businesses by being able to open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• being able to receive payment more quickly from online transactions.
• attracting customers who would not normally have investigated your type of high-street outlet.
• improving your offerings using the data gathered by tracking customer purchases.
• using your online shop as a catalogue for existing customers.
Many businesses can run pilot e-commerce sites without significant investment. However, a fully automated online shop tailored to meet your precise requirements could be expensive.
Whatever form of online shop you choose, take a strategic view.
A basic online shop
The requirements for building a basic online shop are fairly straightforward. A simple setup allows you to sell a small range of products, providing photos, descriptions and prices as well as accept orders online.
The equipment and facilities you will need include a computer, internet access, email, a website and hosting services.
You will also need a hosting package for your shop. There are many e-commerce web-hosting specialists and it's worth shopping around for the best deal. While this service is not necessarily expensive, you tend to get what you pay for. It's important to study the service level guarantee and the type of technical support on offer.
Most customers shopping online will want to pay by debit or credit card. You can subscribe with a payment processor, such as PayPal, who will allow your customers to easily purchase your products using their system.
A basic site is low cost and easy to create for a limited product range.
An intermediate online shop
There a quite a few options to consider for an intermediate online shop. You can develop your own from scratch, buy a software package, use a freeware software package, rent a software package or join a third party shopping mall scheme such as Ebay or Asia Dragon.
Crucially, you can also expect encryption for secure ordering. Making sure checkout procedures are secure and user friendly are essential if customers are going to feel confident about ordering a product or service. Many people will abandon purchases at the checkout stage if the process is not quick and easy.
Some e-commerce packages offer a degree of back-end systems integration, ie they connect to your product database and accounts systems, streamlining the order process and keeping the website up to date. If you update your site content regularly, you will encourage customers to come back to you rather than switch to a competitor.
An intermediate-level site can provide you with a professional looking design, full e-commerce and payment functionality and value-added features, eg account information, customer references and customer alerts.
Planning your online shop
Before building your website, you must create the right processes and procedures to support it and put in place the resources to deal with orders.
You need to work out how to:
• deliver your products or services to fulfil customer orders
• collect payments
• maintain security and demonstrate this to the customer
• let customers contact you
• comply with regulations
You need to ensure that you can deliver goods or services in a reasonable time, ideally the next day. Your business should be ready to deal with calls, emails and queries about delivery - you may need extra staff. Test your website and processes thoroughly. Start with a soft launch - perhaps just to existing customers - before giving it stronger marketing support. Find delivery methods that keep charges low.
Customers may be wary of paying online. However, you can encourage them by providing a secure area on your website for placing orders and giving debit and credit card details.
As well as online payments, you may wish to offer other payment methods to customers, such as invoicing, particularly if you're selling to businesses, or paying by debit or credit card over the telephone.
With the use of encryption technology, virus-scanning software and a "firewall", e-commerce transactions can be as secure as offline ones. It's important to create confidence in your shop. A professional-looking website with an explanation of your security precautions will help.
Consider how to:
• handle debit and credit card details safely
• ensure that key information on your website cannot be defaced or altered fraudulently
• preserve the confidentiality of customer data such as telephone numbers, addresses etc
Customers will want to know that they can speak to a person if something goes wrong. Your website will therefore need a contacts page including:
• your business name, address, phone and fax numbers
• an email address for enquiries or orders
• the name of the person to contact in the first instance
Avoid online pitfalls
Many e-commerce website's fail because of basic mistakes that are easily rectified. Customers will be put off by:
• out-of-date or incorrect information
• difficult site navigation and purchasing processes
• poor customer fulfillment and late delivery
• lack of customer support
• lack of business information
• poor visual design
Remember - when selling through an online shop, you don't normally have any personal contact with your customers, so you need to try harder to find and keep them.
There are further steps you can take to increase the chances of visitors placing an order and to make them feel more secure about buying from your site. These include:
• making your site easy to navigate and user friendly
• giving a 100 per cent no-quibble money-back guarantee if they don't like or want the product
• making sure photographic images on your site are accurate and show products in their best light
• hiring a customer service representative who can give advice on the phone to customers on more complex or expensive products
• making ordering procedures straightforward and quick
• confirming orders immediately by email
• being honest - eg, telling the customer if you can't deliver on time
• providing a way for customers to track down the progress and availability of their order
03 Accepting online payments
Introduction
For many small businesses, accepting payments online provides some major benefits. Customers increasingly expect this facility and it can improve your cash flow significantly.
It's easy to accept cheques or invoices for your online sales and to process payments in the traditional way. However, because buyers often use the internet for a speedy service, most sales are paid for with credit and debit cards. To accept cards online, you will have to make special banking arrangements.
Online payments using cards are 'card-not-present' or CNP transactions. There are higher risks of fraud with this type of payment and banks require you to operate within a well-defined set of rules and accept a higher level of commercial risk than a conventional swiped card transaction in a shop.
Online payment jargon
Acquirer
An acquirer can be a high street bank or other financial institution that offers credit and debit card accepting/processing services. It acquires the money from the customer, processes the transaction and credits your account. You need to apply for a merchant service agreement if you want a bank to handle your electronic payments.
Internet merchant account
For web-based online transactions you need an internet merchant account (IMA). Obtaining an IMA from an acquirer may be quicker and easier if you already have 'offline' card-processing facilities set up. In this case, just ask your acquirer for an additional IMA ID for use exclusively with internet transactions. This process is normally quick, especially if the risk to your business does not change.
To help protect merchants and cardholders from fraud, the card schemes have developed a service that allows cardholders to authenticate themselves when shopping online. MasterCard's is called 'MasterCard SecureCode' and Visa's is 'Verified by Visa'.
Payment service provider
A payment service provider (PSP) will provide you with a 'virtual' till or terminal that collects the card details over the internet and passes them to the acquiring bank. To take electronic payments over the web, you will need a PSP.
Some acquiring banks offer PSP services as part of their product and there are other less expensive options available.
Selecting the best online payment option
You can use the following scenarios to help you choose the best option for your business.
Internet merchant account
If your business already accepts debit and credit card payments for face-to-face transactions and you also expect a fairly high number of online transactions, most of which will be simple and low risk, then you should apply directly for an internet merchant account and discuss your requirements with the acquiring bank.
Payment-processing company
If your business will not have a large number of online transactions, you do not currently accept debit or credit card transactions and therefore have no merchant account. Also, if you have not been trading long and cannot provide a well-documented operations history you should consider the facilities that a payment-processing company could offer.
Online shopping mall
If your business is small, you do not currently offer debit or credit card sales, you have very limited IT skills and your products are fairly standardised you should consider an online shopping mall.
Setting up an internet merchant account
To accept credit or debit card payments directly online, you'll have to set up an internet merchant account (IMA). There are several banks and processors that currently offer IMAs.
Even if you already have a merchant account for face-to-face transactions, you will still need one specifically to accept online payments.
Card users will visit your internet shop to order your goods or services and make payments, and the funds will usually be in your bank account after three or four working days.
The costs
Acquiring banks will charge for their services. There may be a sign-up fee and day-to-day charges may be a fixed fee in the case of debit card transactions or a percentage of each transaction for credit cards.
In addition, where you are using a payment service provider, they will charge you for their service.
If you don't meet the requirements for an IMA, or it's not cost-effective for your business, you can consider using an online payment-processing company or an online shopping mall to handle card payments for you.
Using a payment-processing company
Payment-processing companies obtain payment from your customers' credit and debit cards on your behalf and forward the money to you. They offer a useful alternative for businesses who have a smaller turnover from card transactions or who can't open an internet merchant account (IMA) with an acquiring bank.
Selling through an online shopping mall
An online mall brings together a number of online shops on the same website, often from the same sector. It hosts your online shop and processes payments for you.
Malls will often provide software to help you set up your shop and receive card payments on your behalf. You maintain and update your own shop within the mall, but most of the administration is done for you.
Advantages of an online mall:
• online shopping malls give an immediate online presence
• sector-specific malls can provide an effective route to your target market
• they're easy to set up for people with moderate IT skills
• you don't need to go through the process of setting up an internet merchant account
• you often get help and support in getting your store operational
04 Fulfilling customer orders
Introduction
Once a customer purchases a product from your website, you need to ensure delivery in a timely and efficient manner.
For products requiring physical delivery, a large portion of the cost of selling online can be attributed to fulfilling the customer's order. The effectiveness of your fulfillment process can therefore have a major impact upon the profitability of your operation.
Order processing
The first stage of the fulfilment cycle is the way in which your business processes a customer's order.
How your business handles orders has a major impact on customer service, from encouraging initial interest to prompting repeat business. An effective order fulfilment procedure plays a key part in overall customer satisfaction.
How you handle orders will very much depend on the kind of website you have along with it's back-end facilities. Also, it will vary much depend on your existing order processing facilities.
Delivery of Goods
Ensuring that customer orders are delivered quickly and efficiently is integral to any e-commerce service. Delivering what you promised relies on seamless interaction between your business processes and the actual fulfilment service that you use.
Distribution channels
For businesses selling small numbers of small items, using the post or couriers is likely to provide a satisfactory solution. Larger businesses will need to choose between doing it themselves or outsourcing.
Handling customer returns
Not all customers will be happy with the quality of products purchased via the Internet and there will undoubtedly be a certain percentage of defective or damaged products, irrespective of the quality or type of product being sold.
The fulfilment process must therefore include the capability for handling the returns. This should include giving the customer the option to have a replacement item supplied or their money refunded.
05 E-commerce and the law
E-commerce is all about selling goods and services via the internet. The trader and customer are not face to face at any point, with business conducted remotely, regardless of location. This can pose a number of challenges to the formation and enforcement of contracts.
A number of legislative initiatives affect business conducted online - they can be complex and change regularly.
As far as e-commerce transactions are concerned, the legislation is primarily intended to ensure that online contracts are legally binding.
The ways in which electronic marketing can be undertaken to promote the services of e-commerce providers are also regulated.
E commerce regulations vary from country to country and you should consult your local government office if you are unsure of anything.
06 E-marketing
E-marketing means using digital technologies to help sell your goods or services. These technologies are a valuable complement to traditional marketing methods whatever the size of your company
The basics of marketing remain the same - creating a strategy to deliver the right messages to the right people. What has changed is the number of options you have. Though businesses will continue to make use of traditional marketing methods, such as advertising, direct mail and PR, e-marketing adds a whole new element to the marketing mix. Many businesses are producing great results with e-marketing and its flexible and cost-effective nature makes it particularly suitable for small businesses.
The benefits of e-marketing
E-marketing gives businesses of any size access to the mass market at an affordable price and, unlike TV or print advertising, it allows truly personalised marketing. Benefits of e-marketing include:
Global reach
A website can reach anyone in the world who has Internet access. This allows you to find new markets and compete globally for only a small investment.
Lower cost
A properly planned and effectively targeted e-marketing campaign can reach the right customers at a much lower cost than traditional marketing methods.
Trackable, measurable results
Marketing by email or banner advertising makes it easier to establish how effective your campaign has been. You can obtain detailed information about customers' responses to your advertising.
24-hour marketing
With a website your customers can find out about your products even if your office is closed.
Personalisation
If your customer database is linked to your website, then whenever someone visits the site, you can greet them with targeted offers.
One-to-one marketing
E-marketing lets you reach people who want to know about your products and services instantly.
More interesting campaigns
E-marketing lets you create interactive campaigns using music, graphics and videos.
Better conversion rate
If you have a website, then your customers are only ever a few clicks away from completing a purchase. Unlike other media which require people to get up and make a phone call, post a letter or go to a shop, e-marketing is seamless.
Together, all of these aspects of e-marketing have the potential to add up to more sales.
Stages in developing your e-marketing plan
It is important to recognise that planning for e-marketing does not mean starting from scratch. Any online e-communication must be consistent with the overall marketing goals and current marketing efforts of your business.
The main components of an e-marketing plan will typically include the following stages:
Identify your target audience
Identify your potential customers. If you identify multiple targets, rank them in order of importance so that you can allocate resources accordingly. Profile each target group and understand their requirements and expectations.
Set your objectives
Possible objectives could include awareness raising of your your products or services, entering new markets, launching a new product and focusing on sales from regular customers. You could also improve efficiency by decreasing marketing costs, reducing order-taking and fulfilment costs.
Decide upon the marketing mix
You should choose a mix of e-marketing activities that will help you achieve your objectives and fit with any existing traditional marketing activities you already have planned.
Agree a budget
Careful budgeting allows you to prevent costs spiraling out of control. By identifying the returns you expect to make from your investment in e-marketing activities you can compare these with the costs in order to develop a cost/benefit analysis.
Action planning
Identify the tactics for implementing the selected e-marketing activities.
Measure your success
Build in feedback mechanisms and regular reviews to enable you to assess the success of your e-marketing activities, particularly as e-commerce is such a dynamic and fast-changing area.
The importance of brand and image
The brand and image of a business are vital to its success. Strong brands can generate customer trust, which is particularly important in e-commerce where there are often concerns over privacy and security.
There are several branding options. You could use an existing brand name, create a new Internet brand name or co-brand with another business. Closely linked to these decisions is the choice of domain name for your website.
Using existing brand names
Using an existing brand name can make sense if the brand is well known and has a strong reputation. However, you risk jeopardising your brand's good name if your new venture is not successful.
Creating a new brand
If you want to create a new e-commerce brand then a good name is extremely important. Some factors to consider when selecting a new brand name are that it should:
• suggest something about the product
• be short and memorable
• be easy to spell
• translate well into other languages
• have an available domain name
Co-branding
Co-branding occurs when two businesses put their brand name on the same product. This practice is quite common on the Internet and has proved to be a good way to build brand recognition.
Domain names
Whatever e-commerce brand name you choose, it is essential that the domain name is available to support this. A strong domain name can help customers to find your site.
Building relationships with your customers
A website provides an ongoing point of contact with your customers and can be a useful way of collecting information about them for e-marketing purposes and for building successful relationships with them.
Answering common queries
Answering the common queries customers ask on your website - perhaps in the form of FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) - demonstrates you're ready to help. It may also save you time and money by reducing the number of basic phone queries.
Provide an email facility for queries and customer feedback - but ensure someone checks them regularly. Respond to queries promptly and let people know their comments are appreciated. This process can be automated. Provide full contact details, particularly phone numbers, for people in need of an immediate answer or they may look elsewhere.
Asking visitors to register
Many businesses ask first-time visitors to their site to register. This can be useful for gathering statistics and email addresses for direct mailings.
But asking people to register straight away may put them off. Most people will not sign up unless there is an incentive for doing so, such as an e-newsletter, special offer or access to further information that is not available to non-subscribers. Make sure they've got far enough into your site to want to find out more and tell them how they can benefit by registering. Ask for the minimum details possible.
Customer relationship management
Many businesses invest in a customer relationship management (CRM) system to improve their customer services. The CRM system brings information like customer data, sales patterns, marketing data and future trends together with the aim of identifying new sales opportunities, delivering improved customer service, or offering personalised services and deals.
Getting the technology right
There are several elements that you could include in your e-marketing mix including email, online advertising (such as banner adverts and sponsored links) SMS messaging or setting up a website. The technology you will require to deliver your e-marketing messages will depend on which elements you decide to employ.
If you are planning to use email as part of your e-marketing plan, make sure the technology you choose is right not only for the message but for your customers. When deciding what technology to use you should consider:
Computer set-up and performance
This can vary widely. For example, some computers don't have sound cards, making music or video files pointless.
Firewall's
These often limit the size of file that can be received.
Compatibility
Different programs will display emails differently. An email with images or an HTML component could end up looking messy on a different set-up, or even cause the program to crash.
To establish even the simplest of website's you will need fast internet access and a server to host your website, or an Internet service provider to host the site for you. If you want your website to have an e-commerce facility you will also need an e-commerce software package. You are also likely to require the expertise of a website designer if you don't have the expertise in-house.
Data privacy
Technology gives you the opportunity to collect lots of information on your customers. This doesn't mean you should use it carelessly though. It is very important to ensure that any data you collect about your customers is handled carefully and in line with the law.
07 Generate business from your e-marketing plan
The overall objective of any marketing initiative is to help sell your goods or services. Used successfully, e-marketing can enhance customer relationships and increase your business' profitability.
Your e-marketing plan needs to consider which techniques to adopt in order to attract potential customers to your e-commerce website and keep them coming back.
There are a variety of different approaches that you can take, and your e-marketing plan will usually include a mix of different strategies that are best suited to help you meet your overall objectives. Some of these will be innovative, while others will be automated versions of traditional marketing techniques.
Email marketing
More and more people have an email address that allows them to receive documents or other files electronically. It is a fast, flexible and effective way of getting marketing messages through - such as newsletters or special offers - without the time lag and costs associated with printing.
It's essential not to overuse email marketing. What makes it so effective - the personal, time-sensitive interaction - can also irritate people if it is irrelevant or unwanted.
You should also consider compatibility. Different programs will display email differently. An email with images or an HTML component could look messy on a different set-up, or even cause the program to crash.
Advantages of email marketing
• flexible - you can send plain text, graphics or attach files - whichever suits your message best
• easy for people to forward on to others, building your reputation by word of mouth
• people can click on links and follow your call to action immediately
• less intrusive than telephone marketing
Potential problems with email marketing
• files need to be small enough to download quickly
• unsolicited commercial email or "spam" irritates consumers. You need to make sure that your email marketing complies with privacy and data protection laws
SMS marketing
Text messages or short messaging service (SMS) messages are the messages that people send from their mobile phones.
Text messaging is increasing at an enormous rate. One of the primary reasons behind this growth is that text messaging has become increasingly used as a business tool.
Text messaging enables information to be sent to groups of people quickly and conveniently in much the same way as email, making it an increasing popular e-marketing channel.
You will need to employ a mobile phone agency to send out the texts for you.
Promoting your website
For your online shop to be effective, customers must be able to find it easily. When you choose your internet address (URL) or domain name, try to make it simple and easy to remember so that customers will be more likely to go to your site rather than those of your competitors.
There are three main ways that people arrive at website's - direct navigation, web referrals and search engines.
Direct navigation
A good way of generating web traffic is to make sure you include your web address on all printed material. flyers, adverts, posters etc.
Some examples of direct marketing:
• advertising in traditional media, such as newspapers or the television
• adding your website address to all letterheads, business cards and other stationery
• adding to flyers, brochures, posters and all other promotional material & gifts
• advertising website on company vehicles
Web referrals
Web referrals are an important means of attracting visitors to your site. There are a number of ways you can generate these.
Some examples of web referral marketing:
• include your web address in all email footers
• emailing your customers with a newsletter
• online advertising - the use of banner and pop-up adverts on other website's to drive people to yours
• publicising your site through related website's
• article marketing and press releases
• reciprocal marketing - finding sites with complementary content and agreeing to have links or banners to each other's sites
• negotiating joint ventures with other sites
• blogs, forums & community website's- you can set up your own, or monitor others, join the discussion and point people towards your website
• getting your website listed prominently in shopping directories
• getting into local online business directories, such as those produced by local Chambers of Commerce
• adding an 'email this to a friend' button on your site
Search engines
While search engines are far outstripped by direct referrals, they can still prove useful for attracting customers. Competition for a high ranking on the major search engines is intense because few web users look beyond the second page of results.
If you are expecting your website to generate significant commercial returns, it will be well worth spending the time and effort to ensure you get the most out of your search engine placement.
The science of getting noticed by the search engines is called 'Search Engine Optimisation' or SEO.
Improving your website listing in search engine results
If you want to build your audience it is essential that you are listed in web directories and search engines. This can be a difficult and time-consuming process but you can get your website listed prominently with time and effort.
Use the web tools provided by the search engines to help you optimise your search engine performance and improve your website's ranking. Many of the main search engines - such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN - provide tips, advice and tools to help you improve your website's search ability. You should also resubmit your site details regularly to the main search engines.
Don't forget to take full advantage of search engines by ensuring that they pick up all of the key terms that you think your customers will use to find your site. Each product will have its own key words and descriptions. Your website designer can help you include the key phrases and metadata (information that describes a web page, but isn't visible on the pages) when designing and building your website. You should write a description of your site and the services it offers and place it prominently on your home page. Think about how people are going to find your site - pick key words and make sure they are in your page title and repeated further down the page. Ask friends and family to get involved with this for some objective feedback.
Get other website's to link to your site - many search engines rank sites according to how many other website's link to them.
The majority of search engines place little value on the 'meta' keywords - ensure that the keyword phrases you chose appear in your web page title and the page body text. This will improve organic search engine listings.
08 The Past, The Future, The possibilities
A brief history
The Internet was the result of some visionary thinking by people in the early 1960s who saw great potential value in allowing computers to share information on research and development in scientific and military fields.
The theory of packet switching over a telephone network was developed, which was to form the basis of internet connections.
The Internet, then known as ARPANET, was brought online in 1969 under a contract let by the renamed Advanced Research Projects Agency which initially connected four major computers at universities in the southwestern US.
The early Internet was used by computer experts, engineers, scientists, and librarians. There was nothing friendly about it. There were no home or office personal computers in those days, and anyone who used it, whether a computer professional or an engineer or scientist or librarian, had to learn to use a very complex system.
The Internet matured in the 70's as a result of the TCP/IP architecture. It was adopted by the US Defence Department in 1980.
In 1986, the US National Science Foundation funded NSFNet as a cross country 56 Kbps backbone for the Internet. They maintained their sponsorship for nearly a decade, setting rules for its non-commercial government and research uses.
In 1989 another significant event took place in making the nets easier to use. Tim Berners-Lee and others at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, more popularly known as CERN, proposed a new protocol for information distribution. This protocol, which became the World Wide Web in 1991, was based on hypertext - a system of embedding links in text to link to other text, which you have been using every time you selected a text link while reading these pages.
In 1991, the first really friendly interface to the Internet was developed at the University of Minnesota. The University wanted to develop a simple menu system to access files and information on campus through their local network.
Since the Internet was initially funded by the government, it was originally limited to research, education, and government uses. Commercial uses were prohibited unless they directly served the goals of research and education. This policy continued until the early 90's, when independent commercial networks began to grow. It then became possible to route traffic across the country from one commercial site to another without passing through the government funded NSFNet Internet backbone. In 1993, Mosaic, the first proper browser was introduced and available to all.
Microsoft's full scale entry into the browser, server, and Internet Service Provider market completed the major shift over to a commercially based Internet. The release of Windows 98 in June 1998 with the Microsoft browser well integrated into the desktop shows Bill Gates' determination to capitalize on the enormous growth of the Internet.
The future
Due to rapid developments of technology and infrastructure the internet has grown and improved at a phenomenal rate across the world.
In some countries, such as the UK, we are already seeing the future due to massive investment in the infrastructure to deliver extremely fast networks. Apart from super fast internet, the UK now has some areas where all electronic media and communications are delivered via the internet. These include telecom's, videocoms, radio and television.
In the UK the only retail sector that is growing is on-line with traditional retailing on the decline.
The internet is changing peoples lives in developed countries enabling people and business to communicate in new ways through high-speed interactive video conferencing.
All personal data, media, music and pictures can now be stored on-line for instant access from any computer and a variety of devices such as television, mobile phone and other personal computing devices.
Technology is converging replacing the television with a complete media, communication and computing package available throughout the home. In the UK people can use the internet to manage all aspects of their lives.
Developing countries are where the UK was only about 10 years ago and the pace of change in the developing world is fast.
No one really knows what the future holds, but the internet is here to stay and many billions of people across the world will be enjoying its benefits within the next few years.
The internet is relatively new and is comparable to the early days of electricity, radio or television. And look how they changed the world for everyone!
