| Atricle Dump |
Hubs | Hubbers | Topics | Request |
| #1 in Business | Subscribe Email Print |
|
You are here: Home > Internet and Businesses Online > Ecommerce > How to Avoid Ebusiness Website That Doesn't Do Business? |
|
Atricle Dump - How to Avoid Ebusiness Website That Doesn't Do Business?
Grandiose Plans: Why I Got Out of Bed This Morning from a site targeting youths and teenagers. Whereas a typical teenager may be fascinated by a heavily animated site with background music and pictures of celebrities, a financial analyst who’s sharing a cubicle with another staff wishing to renew her subscription to a financial magazine during office hours may not find animations, pop-ups, and background music really funny. Take a look at this website www.imoonline.org targeting youth audience. It uses pictures of celebrities to attract and sustain the youth audience. Take a look at this small business that sells Italian goods http://www.bellaitaliaonline.com. It uses Italian food recipes and travel information to attract its target audience.“What are you doing up?”That was at 5:00 a.m. and the speaker was my wife. I said, “I woke up at 4:00, didn’t go back to sleep so I got up.”She disappeared as silently as she appeared. I guess she crawled back in bed.Of course I woke up because I had grandiose plans. Every once in a while I have a brainstorm that results in a grandiose plan.Back when I was working for a living, rather than spending the day goofing off, I would go to one of our manufacturing plants that made fine crystal. The Director of R & D there had a strange-looking cookie-jar-like container of very ancient, quaint, and foreign origin and on it were engraved in gold the words Grandiose Plans.I always peeked into that jar-thing when I visited the plant. It was always empty. NO grandiose pl Leave Intro Pages For Adult Websites: Not every Internet user has all the time on Earth to wait for your flash intro page to load. If this is a business website, please skip the ‘into thing’ and take customers straight to business. Your homepage should Effective Exhibiting Don’t be fooled into believing that all you need to do business online is a good website. Before you expend your life-savings developing a beautiful website loaded with amazing graphics, dancing buttons, chat rooms, and photos of beautiful women because your web developer told you that’s how to attract users to a site, read this article.Exhibiting can be a great form of Direct Marketing and if you can get your exhibition stand set-up correctly, i.e. in the right place, with the right staff, offering the right service etc, then the benefits can be even greater. So what are the important considerations and what should one try to do?LOCATION and SPACE Do everything you can to get a spot where you will be noticed and ensure that you are aware exactly of how much space you will have, so that you can effectively plan your stand design.STAFF It may sound strange to say but use the right staff. This is a sales environment and the face-to-face nature of the exhibition may offer some excellent opportunities. Staff should be well trained in preparation for the exhibition and they should be dressed appropriately (according to the typ Attracting Users Does Not Mean Selling Your Products Or Services: A shocker for many new entrants to ecommerce is the hard reality that a website does not make money. It’s only a communication tool to reach out to Internet users. Therefore, the success of an Ebusiness does not rely on a website, but rather on the business model, because it is a business. Think about it, what drives market in a real shop on the corner of a street: the painting, furniture, beautiful sales girl, or how the store does business? Well your guess is as good as mine. It is how the store does business. Walking into a store either to tease a pretty sales girl, or admire the furniture does not result in sales if there are no good products and the workers, perhaps, lack customer service skills. Experience Matters: Most junior web-developers fresh from college are quick to unleash their programming skills with latest web-designing tools. Waoh, the site is beautiful! The real question is how much are you making from the Ecommerce site? Ebusiness is an investment like real estate, taxi business, etc. You are into it because you want to make some money. In other words, it should have a Return on Investment (ROI), and a ‘Payback Period’ because technology outdates quite easily. Your beautiful website does not make money because it’s designed to attract attention but not to make money. A good ECommerce site is a combination of painstaking analyses by an Ebusiness Expert, good programming by a Web Developer, excellent contents by a Web Communicator, aggressive marketing strategy by a Web Marketer, and active maintenance by a Web Content Manager. Don’t throw a fit yet if you do not have the capital to invest on these aforementioned, overpriced professionals. In most cases one person or two can have a combination of the skills above. If you are a small business with a small budget one place you can find very low-cost consultants for analyses, design and content management is at http://www.exposureworld.net Use An Ebusiness Consultant Not A Web-Developer: If you want to start an Ebusiness you should be shopping for an Ebusiness Consultant rather than a Web Developer. Both are not the same. A good Ebusiness Consultant normally has an advanced degree in Management Information Systems, MBA, or Marketing, and several years or working experience in a specific industry. S(he) understands not only the technology but also the market trends. Take for instance in the medical field, there are pediatricians specializing in children medicine, gynecologists specializing on pregnant women, dermatologist for the skin, optometrist for the eye, etc. Your visit to a doctor starts with a diagnosis, or perhaps a lab visit. That determines the type of doctor you will see. If you are ill you don’t walk to a nurse to get treatment, do you? What makes you think Ebusiness is different? It is the job of an Ebusiness Consultant to recommend solutions to your Ebusiness needs, including the type of website a web developer needs to develop for you. Research Your Product and Target Audience: A corporate website that provides information about a company is different from a dating website that match-makes people; both are different from a news website. Target audience plays an important role in website development. Who is your audience? The online market is segmented into various demographic categories. For instance a site targeting serious-minded financial professionals is quite different from a site targeting youths and teenagers. Whereas a typical teenager may be fascinated by a heavily animated site with background music and pictures of celebrities, a financial analyst who’s sharing a cubicle with another staff wishing to renew her subscription to a financial magazine during office hours may not find animations, pop-ups, and background music really funny. Take a look at this website www.imoonline.org targeting youth audience. It uses pictures of celebrities to attract and sustain the youth audience. Take a look at this small business that sells Italian goods http://www.bellaitaliaonline.com. It uses Italian food recipes and travel information to attract its target audience. Leave Intro Pages For Adult Websites: Not every Internet user has all the time on Earth to wait for your flash intro page to load. If this is a business website, please skip the ‘into thing’ and take customers straight to business. Your homepage should b Do You Have What It Takes to Be in Sales - Take the Quiz ease a pretty sales girl, or admire the furniture does not result in sales if there are no good products and the workers, perhaps, lack customer service skills.Have you ever walked into a retail store where the salesperson was extremely rude and sounded annoyed when you asked about a product their store was selling? Or you received a cold call from a salesperson trying to sell you something over the phone and he/she was just rambling in your ear not allowing you to get in a word edge wise? Or you wanted to return or exchange something and the salesperson gave you a hard time even though you had a legitimate complaint?Many salespeople are inexperienced, not qualified to be in sales or are simply in the wrong profession.So what does it take to be a great salesperson? In part, it starts with some fundamental traits.To quickly determine if you have the qualities or personality traits to become a great salesperson, answer Yes or No to the Experience Matters: Most junior web-developers fresh from college are quick to unleash their programming skills with latest web-designing tools. Waoh, the site is beautiful! The real question is how much are you making from the Ecommerce site? Ebusiness is an investment like real estate, taxi business, etc. You are into it because you want to make some money. In other words, it should have a Return on Investment (ROI), and a ‘Payback Period’ because technology outdates quite easily. Your beautiful website does not make money because it’s designed to attract attention but not to make money. A good ECommerce site is a combination of painstaking analyses by an Ebusiness Expert, good programming by a Web Developer, excellent contents by a Web Communicator, aggressive marketing strategy by a Web Marketer, and active maintenance by a Web Content Manager. Don’t throw a fit yet if you do not have the capital to invest on these aforementioned, overpriced professionals. In most cases one person or two can have a combination of the skills above. If you are a small business with a small budget one place you can find very low-cost consultants for analyses, design and content management is at http://www.exposureworld.net Use An Ebusiness Consultant Not A Web-Developer: If you want to start an Ebusiness you should be shopping for an Ebusiness Consultant rather than a Web Developer. Both are not the same. A good Ebusiness Consultant normally has an advanced degree in Management Information Systems, MBA, or Marketing, and several years or working experience in a specific industry. S(he) understands not only the technology but also the market trends. Take for instance in the medical field, there are pediatricians specializing in children medicine, gynecologists specializing on pregnant women, dermatologist for the skin, optometrist for the eye, etc. Your visit to a doctor starts with a diagnosis, or perhaps a lab visit. That determines the type of doctor you will see. If you are ill you don’t walk to a nurse to get treatment, do you? What makes you think Ebusiness is different? It is the job of an Ebusiness Consultant to recommend solutions to your Ebusiness needs, including the type of website a web developer needs to develop for you. Research Your Product and Target Audience: A corporate website that provides information about a company is different from a dating website that match-makes people; both are different from a news website. Target audience plays an important role in website development. Who is your audience? The online market is segmented into various demographic categories. For instance a site targeting serious-minded financial professionals is quite different from a site targeting youths and teenagers. Whereas a typical teenager may be fascinated by a heavily animated site with background music and pictures of celebrities, a financial analyst who’s sharing a cubicle with another staff wishing to renew her subscription to a financial magazine during office hours may not find animations, pop-ups, and background music really funny. Take a look at this website www.imoonline.org targeting youth audience. It uses pictures of celebrities to attract and sustain the youth audience. Take a look at this small business that sells Italian goods http://www.bellaitaliaonline.com. It uses Italian food recipes and travel information to attract its target audience. Leave Intro Pages For Adult Websites: Not every Internet user has all the time on Earth to wait for your flash intro page to load. If this is a business website, please skip the ‘into thing’ and take customers straight to business. Your homepage should Customer Reviews Dramatically Increase The Credibility Of Your Affiliate Website gy by a Web Marketer, and active maintenance by a Web Content Manager. Don’t throw a fit yet if you do not have the capital to invest on these aforementioned, overpriced professionals. In most cases one person or two can have a combination of the skills above. If you are a small business with a small budget one place you can find very low-cost consultants for analyses, design and content management is at http://www.exposureworld.netAffiliate marketing was a six billion dollar business in 2006, and shows no sign of tapering off any time soon. But as good as business has been for the top affiliate marketers, it could be a lot better for the majority. A real obstacle to achieving the sales goals of many affiliates involves their credibility. If I say a product is great, and I am being paid to convince you to buy it, why should you believe me?The fact is, most affiliate sites on the web today are poorly constructed, and this beggars any authority the owner of the site hopes to convert into sales. Often these sites are thin conduits designed to ferry traffic from search engines to the sites of merchants who have neither the resources nor the time to figure out how to find the customers they need to ensure their business success. Despite th Use An Ebusiness Consultant Not A Web-Developer: If you want to start an Ebusiness you should be shopping for an Ebusiness Consultant rather than a Web Developer. Both are not the same. A good Ebusiness Consultant normally has an advanced degree in Management Information Systems, MBA, or Marketing, and several years or working experience in a specific industry. S(he) understands not only the technology but also the market trends. Take for instance in the medical field, there are pediatricians specializing in children medicine, gynecologists specializing on pregnant women, dermatologist for the skin, optometrist for the eye, etc. Your visit to a doctor starts with a diagnosis, or perhaps a lab visit. That determines the type of doctor you will see. If you are ill you don’t walk to a nurse to get treatment, do you? What makes you think Ebusiness is different? It is the job of an Ebusiness Consultant to recommend solutions to your Ebusiness needs, including the type of website a web developer needs to develop for you. Research Your Product and Target Audience: A corporate website that provides information about a company is different from a dating website that match-makes people; both are different from a news website. Target audience plays an important role in website development. Who is your audience? The online market is segmented into various demographic categories. For instance a site targeting serious-minded financial professionals is quite different from a site targeting youths and teenagers. Whereas a typical teenager may be fascinated by a heavily animated site with background music and pictures of celebrities, a financial analyst who’s sharing a cubicle with another staff wishing to renew her subscription to a financial magazine during office hours may not find animations, pop-ups, and background music really funny. Take a look at this website www.imoonline.org targeting youth audience. It uses pictures of celebrities to attract and sustain the youth audience. Take a look at this small business that sells Italian goods http://www.bellaitaliaonline.com. It uses Italian food recipes and travel information to attract its target audience. Leave Intro Pages For Adult Websites: Not every Internet user has all the time on Earth to wait for your flash intro page to load. If this is a business website, please skip the ‘into thing’ and take customers straight to business. Your homepage should Business 101: Always Pay Your Business Debts en medicine, gynecologists specializing on pregnant women, dermatologist for the skin, optometrist for the eye, etc. Your visit to a doctor starts with a diagnosis, or perhaps a lab visit. That determines the type of doctor you will see. If you are ill you don’t walk to a nurse to get treatment, do you? What makes you think Ebusiness is different? It is the job of an Ebusiness Consultant to recommend solutions to your Ebusiness needs, including the type of website a web developer needs to develop for you.As business owners, we have a responsibility to pay our debts. Whether it’s paying our bills, finalizing payment for a service provided, or paying our employees we are the ones who are accountable to ensure that all business expenses get paid in a timely manner.Withholding payments from any person or company will only hurt your business in the long run. I will go into more detail at a later date but for now here are my reasons why:You will lose trust in the person you are withholding payments from. Losing trust in employees and clients will rapidly push your business over the cliff - you’ll be committing corporate suicide.It will be difficult to attain recurring business. Who wants to do business with someone who doesn’t pay them? I sure don’t.If you’re trying to play hardba Research Your Product and Target Audience: A corporate website that provides information about a company is different from a dating website that match-makes people; both are different from a news website. Target audience plays an important role in website development. Who is your audience? The online market is segmented into various demographic categories. For instance a site targeting serious-minded financial professionals is quite different from a site targeting youths and teenagers. Whereas a typical teenager may be fascinated by a heavily animated site with background music and pictures of celebrities, a financial analyst who’s sharing a cubicle with another staff wishing to renew her subscription to a financial magazine during office hours may not find animations, pop-ups, and background music really funny. Take a look at this website www.imoonline.org targeting youth audience. It uses pictures of celebrities to attract and sustain the youth audience. Take a look at this small business that sells Italian goods http://www.bellaitaliaonline.com. It uses Italian food recipes and travel information to attract its target audience. Leave Intro Pages For Adult Websites: Not every Internet user has all the time on Earth to wait for your flash intro page to load. If this is a business website, please skip the ‘into thing’ and take customers straight to business. Your homepage should How's Business? Don't Rush For the Life Boats from a site targeting youths and teenagers. Whereas a typical teenager may be fascinated by a heavily animated site with background music and pictures of celebrities, a financial analyst who’s sharing a cubicle with another staff wishing to renew her subscription to a financial magazine during office hours may not find animations, pop-ups, and background music really funny. Take a look at this website www.imoonline.org targeting youth audience. It uses pictures of celebrities to attract and sustain the youth audience. Take a look at this small business that sells Italian goods http://www.bellaitaliaonline.com. It uses Italian food recipes and travel information to attract its target audience.A couple of years ago I was having a bad time. Sales were down. Business was non-existent. The wind had gone out of my sails. I had a sinking feeling, like I was going down for the third time . . . and I couldn’t even recall the first two. Yet, each time someone asked me, “How’s business,” I would reply, “Good.” It’s kind of a natural reply to a rhetorical question. No one really expects an answer. No one wants to hear bad news, or so you would think.One day, however, a friend asked the same question and I replied, “Horrible.” His response was, “You, too?” We then openly shared information about how we were coping, and what we thought the problem was. I left the conversation feeling much better.A day of so later I visited my A/V supply store, where I have ordered video and photographic gear for years Leave Intro Pages For Adult Websites: Not every Internet user has all the time on Earth to wait for your flash intro page to load. If this is a business website, please skip the ‘into thing’ and take customers straight to business. Your homepage should be professional with links to other sections of the site. Some of your best products should be displayed on the homepage. A user should start doing business right from your homepage, and doesn’t have to dig in to find products. Background Music? Some Users Are In the Office: Imagine receiving a link from a friend to check out a site while you are in the office. On clicking the link you are surprised by a blasting sound of Bob Marley’s ‘One Love’ song at the background. Your office colleagues turn to you and ask ‘What’s that? Not funny at all. A typical modern office is a low-wall cubicle shared with a host of other staff. Font Color/ Size Are Age Determinant: The older your target audience, the larger should be your fonts. A typical example is a retirement home site, or pension fund management site. The patrons are likely ageing retirees. If you are not sure who’s visiting your site, I suggest you use a standard ‘Times New Romans’, or ‘Arial’ fonts, size 12. Colors should be mild. Avoid background colors if you can, unless where research shows such a color can attract certain type of customers. Graphics? Think About Download Speed Before you load up your website with heavy graphics bear in mind that not everyone has the luxury of DSL, broadband, or high speed Internet. Many web-users are still stuck with simple dial-up connections. Downloading graphics can be a thorn in the flesh for dial-up users. If you think that Ecommerce is so easy that even a cave man can do it, so why would you need an Ebusiness Consultant? Well, next time you want to repaint your car try hiring a house painter instead. After all they’re all painters and should know about paints. Tell me how it went afterwards.
HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
Related Articles:Building Attitudes for Positive Results How to Write a Guerrilla Marketing Plan
|