| 1.Domain Name: This is your website address that people will go to find your business online. A domain name is an identification label that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are also hostnames that identify Internet Protocol (IP) resources such as web sites. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System (DNS). |
| 2. Hosting a Web Site: A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own or lease for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center. |
| 3. Website Design: Web design is a broad term used to encompass the way that content (usually hypertext or hypermedia) is delivered to an end-user through the World Wide Web, using a web browser or other web-enabled software to display the content. The intent of web design is to create a website—a collection of online content including documents and applications that reside on a web server/servers. A website may include text, images, sounds and other content, and may be interactive. |
| 4. Shopping Cart & Merchant Account: You have to have a way for people to pay you for the products you offer. Your store's "shopping cart" allows your customers a way to select what they want to purchase and the Merchant Account allows you (as a business) to accept their credit card orders. |
| 5. Drive traffic to your site: What explained above it's the easy part of starting an online business. Web traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site. It is a large portion of Internet traffic. This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit.You will *always* be working hard to find new ways to drive more customers to your business. |
| 6. Search Engine Optimisation: Your traffic will come from search engine result pages. Search engines include Google, Yahoo and Bing. In a typical situation the higher a website appears in the results pages the more traffic it will receive from a search engine. The most common form of SEO is to optimise a web site for “keywords” also known as search terms, relevant to your products and services. By modifying and improving aspects of your website we will help it to improve its search engine rankings. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) produces a higher return on investment compared to any other web marketing initiative. The results of SEO reap long term rewards for a company. |
| 7. Test and adjust your site: Some of the 'on-going' work you will do when you start an online business is constantly testing things on your site such as: advertising messages, sales copy, product specials and deals. As with any retail business the work isn't done just by launching it. To keep the sales coming in you have to make changes so that your online business is converting the most sales. |