Running a Successful Online Business
If you are thinking about dipping your feet into the ecommerce waters, it is essential to make sure that you have all the right tools at your disposal to be successful. Running a successful online business is more than just putting up a site and hoping people will see it.
If you want to get noticed and make a sensation, youve got to have a website that will get the job done for you. Many business owners make the mistake of trying to do their website on their own, and the results are seldom what they expect.
Whether you need assured quality programming in the UK or website design in the USA, it helps to have a professional working with you to help you avoid common issues that can lead to failure.
Here are just a few of the most common mistakes that business owners make that inevitably lead to failure.
1. Unprofessional design. Even if you are using a program that is made to help you design your own website, there are specific design flaws that you will need to avoid if you want your business to be successful. It can be easy to make a mistake, but unfortunately, these mistakes can live with your company for a long time. An unprofessional design speaks volumes about your business and can leave a lasting bad impression on the public.
2. Failure to make it easy for visitors to use your site. It may seem simple to you, but can the average web user navigate your site easily? This is an issue that plagues many first time site owners, and it can mean the difference between sales and crickets in the background. Youre going to need to have a site that is intuitive and does the marketing for you, without ever having to say a word.
3. Failure to take advantage of new technologies. Every day, something new comes along that makes it easier for your business to run smoothly and reach out to your customers. If you are not keeping up with the times, your website can fall behind and your competitors will take advantage of this. You need these tools if you want to stay competitive in your industry.
4. Failure to stand out from the crowd. One of the biggest problems for new site owners is that they create a site that is bland and uninteresting. Worse yet, many of these sites are forgettable, and that is something that you do not want. You need to be able to have a site design that will grab a visitors attention and make them stick around. Sometimes, to accomplish this, youve got to go with professionals that know how to get the job done and make a difference in how your site is run.
Founded in April 2004, royalatlantisgroup.com is a privately held established ecommerce firm specializing in online website design, website development, website branding, graphic design, web programming and custom application development.
http://www.royalatlantisgroup.com
Customer Service Options For Your Website
When youve got your site ready to go, it is important to consider how you will be handling your customer service for your on-line business. It is a bit different than customer service for your regular physical business and it you may need to assign specific employees to help handle the load. Here are a few options that will help you keep your customer service top-notch.
1. A toll-free number. This is an option that most large companies already have, but smaller companies should consider adding this for online sales. Simply putting a toll free number on your site does a lot to boost customer confidence. You may get very few calls, but your customers will know that they have that option if they need to contact you. You can try a test run for three months to see how much your new toll free line costs and how much use it gets to see if you want to keep offering this feature.
2. Email service. This is the most common form of customer service for online businesses. However, you will need to make sure that you can answer your customers inquiries in a very short time period. It is best to respond within 24 hours, during the week, to make sure that your customers feel secure about doing business with you. Always remember to keep your emails professional and to go above and beyond.
3. Live chat. This is an increasingly popular option for many companies, especially if they do not want to offer a toll free number. It gives customers the option of speaking with a live person and you dont have to worry about phone charges. Live chats give customers that instant gratification when they have a question and once again, youre instilling that confidence that you customers need. It is a good idea to have a custom live chat application built for you that can be branded with your company information.
4. Help Desk. This is an option that works well for companies that deal with online services or informational products. Customers can leave a message and you can have someone on your staff respond to the inquiries as they come in. Once again, you may need to have a special application built for you, but it will reward your company with better relations with your customers.
Online businesses have to work twice as hard to make sales and interact with their customers. These tools can help level the playing field, especially if you are trying to compete against another large online company that offers a similar product or service. Your visitors will appreciate the fact that you are willing to go the extra mile for them and the reward will be their business and loyalty.
Founded in April 2004, royalatlantisgroup.com is a privately held established ecommerce firm specializing in online website design, website development, website branding, graphic design, web programming and custom application development.
http://www.royalatlantisgroup.com
The Essentials of Starting a Successful Online Business
It is a huge task to accurately determine the number of new online businesses startups on a monthly or yearly basis. The picture is further complicated when you consider it on a global scale and in different languages. But just to give you an idea of the extreme dynamic involved.
Lets consider the .com TLD, only.
During the month of October 2007, in a given 24 hour period there are 74 million active domain registrations, almost 230 million deleted domains, a little over 551,000 new domains, and almost 45,000 domains become expired.
Half a million new domains each day. It is safe to assume there are probably tens of thousands of new business startups every year.
230 million deleted domains and 45,000 become expired every day. How many of those do you think are failed businesses?
Among other things, the internet has become a symbol of hope for hundreds of millions. Hope for a better life, or personal salvation. Enter the new online business startup.
Starting a new business online is serious, confusing, and even bewildering for the uninitiated. And doing a search for starting an online business, or even worse making money on the internet, can lead to deep and dangerous waters. This is true even for those who have some experience with doing business online.
What exactly does it take to get your online business off to a great start? What will give you the highest chances for success?
Many factors will have a direct bearing on the success of your new business. Before we get into the nuts and bolts of doing business online, lets talk about the human nature side of business success. It is a critical component that all highly successful entrepreneurs recognize and would never dismiss.
Perhaps the single most important element to success in any endeavor is the ability to focus. Being able to focus on your new business and remain focused. Cultivating and internalizing that one habit of being focused will put you ahead of at least 90% of the rest.
Too many business startups either fail or die a slow death through stagnation because of lack of focus. One recent survey of US small businesses found that almost 50% fail to market their businesses on a daily basis. That is an amazing number and helps to understand why close to 80% of all new businesses fail within several years.
One of your goals is to consistently focus on building your new business. You must nurture it until it enters into profit. Then you continue to market, advertise, and constantly look for growth and development avenues.
Now lets talk about the initial stages of your new online startup.
Youll need to answer some important questions. For example: What is the purpose of your web site? What specifically will it accomplish for your business? Exactly who is your target market? Who are you trying to reach? And how will you do that? Do you know where to find them?
What kind of information, or content, does your site need? How will you market and advertise your business? What are the most cost-effective ways to market and advertise?
One of the most cost-effective ways to market your business is through search engines. The great attraction to search engine rankings is that it is free advertising. And the exposure to massive search traffic can make all the difference between success and failure. It can make the difference between mediocre and dazzling profits.
But achieving high organic search engine rankings requires highly specific knowledge and information. It also requires focus, dedication, and consistent efforts. And most people dont have the time to learn accurate SEO, search engine optimization, principles. Theres a lot of well-intended but inaccurate information regarding SEO available for free. Compounding the SEO issue is the tendency of search engines to periodically change their ranking algorithms.
Lets talk about your website.
Whats the most appropriate design for your business? Every marketing niche has a target market. The people who belong in that marketing niche. People in different niches respond in different ways to different designs.
Heres something about human nature that you can use in your success.
All people are creatures of habit. And it doesnt matter about what kinds of habits. We all just like familiarity in varying degrees. So how will this help you?
Simple. Youll take advantage of that fact through branding your business. If you as a person are the business, youre a consultant for example, youll need to brand your self.
Proper and effective branding of your business is extremely powerful. Your credibility will grow in the eyes of your market. Dont forget how critical trust with your potential customers. Youll be perceived as the expert in your niche. People love experts. You dont need a Ph.D. to be thought of as an expert. You just need to begin branding your self or your business and deliver quality products or services.
How to Identify Your Key Customers
While many businesses are familiar with targeting their customers in the real world, on-line business is a little trickier. In some cases, you will need to throw everything you know out the window and start over. There are three main consumers types that use the internet for shopping, and youll need to figure out how to target each one. Lets take a look at these types and see how you can fine tune your website design for each one.
1. The complete beginner. New people are starting to shop on-line everyday and they may not yet be familiar with the process of finding and purchasing the items they want. These customers are typically quite wary. Theyre drawn to the ease of shopping online, but theyre scared that they may be putting their credit card information at risk. They may be a little hestitant about trusting you.
Solution: Make your site as easy as possible to navigate. This may involve hiring an outside design firm to get the job done. You will also need to make sure that your privacy policy is easy to locate, to give consumers more confidence in your store. The addition of a toll-free number in a prominent location on your site is also very helpful.
2. The internet expert. These consumers want to make their purchase as quickly as possible. They know what they want, theyve been shopping online for years and they know how to spot a good company when they see one. While you might think this would be an easy group to target, they are actually very picky. If your site has a long checkout process, you may lose this customer.
Solution: Create a customized shopping cart that streamlines the checkout process to one page. Design your store so that everything is very easy to find. For this, you may need custom programming to create an application that meets your needs.
3. The hybrid. These consumers like to window shop online, but prefer to make their purchases in the real world. If they find a good deal, they may be convinced to buy online, but youll need to do a lot of work to convince them to make that purchase.
Solution: Build a store that contains a lot of product information. Run specials that are internet only to convince them to purchase online. Make your shipping process very quick and find a way to allow them to choose faster shipping options if necessary. Once again, custom programming can assist you in making an application that can answer all of these needs.
In order to be a successful online business owner, you need to find a way to target all three of these groups. A professionally designed website goes a long way in reaching out to all of your customers, regardless of their type and their shopping preferences.
Founded in April 2004, royalatlantisgroup.com is a privately held established ecommerce firm specializing in online website design, website development, website branding, graphic design, web programming and custom application development.
http://www.royalatlantisgroup.com
Is Your Website User Friendly?
One of the hardest design feats to accomplish when building your website is making sure that it is user friendly. Here is a handy check-list that you can use to determine whether or not your site could use a little help.
1. How long does it take each page to load? Your pages should be loading in less than 3 to 5 seconds. Any longer and you could be losing visitors. Todays web viewers want their information quickly and although most are using high speed internet, some web pages still take far too long to load. There are several ways to optimize your site to ensure that your pages load much more quickly.
2. How many navigation options do you have? Some viewers prefer to click on graphical buttons, some prefer text links. If youre not offering both, you could be losing out on a big segment of your online audience. The best sites offer a few modes of navigation in order to appeal to everyone. Thats not to say that your site should be dripping with navigation options, but you should offer at least two methods of navigation on every page.
3. Is your site viewable in all browsers? A few years ago, it was acceptable to design for one browser, but now there are several on the market and each has a sizeable market share. You will need to make sure that your site loads properly in each one. This will require different coding in some cases, especially if you want the site to appear properly in browsers such as Safari and Opera. Its easy to say that your visitors should just use the browser that you cater to, but in todays market, that is just not feasible.
4. Is your site accessible to disabled surfers? Many site owners neglect to cater to the non-sighted and this can hurt their business. While these people may make up a small percentage of the web audience, it is important that you do not shut them out. By using the right image tags and site layouts you can ensure that everyone, regardless of their capabilities, will be able to enjoy and use your site.
5. Are you utilizing new technologies? Web design has jumped forward light years from where it was just a few years ago. These new technologies make it easier to keep your site updated and they make it easier for your visitors to browse your website. If you are not utilizing at least a few of these new technologies, you could be missing out on a lot of different benefits.
These are just a few indicators that you can use to determine how user friendly your site is. In many cases, you may need a little extra help to implement these changes.
Founded in April 2004, royalatlantisgroup.com is a privately held established ecommerce firm specializing in online website design, website development, website branding, graphic design, web programming and custom application development.
http://www.royalatlantisgroup.com