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TIPS ON HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN ECOMMERCE WEBSITE

Introduction

This tips document is to be used as a guide to help you put together your very own website. Building your own website can be a very profitable way for you to expand and develop your business, but it can also be a money pit if you do not have a clear idea of what your site is going to do for you or if you are not prepared to maintain and market your website.

Do’s for websites:

• Understand that the Internet is just another channel to market your product or service
• Make sure you have a clear outline of what your site is going to do for you
• Market your site to your end customers - use search engines to research new and cutting edge campaigns to help build your site.

Don’ts for websites:

• Don’t let your site get out of date - update it with fresh content all the time
• Don’t let your site just sit idle - promote it and make sure that it is on all your business’ promotional materials

What makes a website successful?

Many people think that a website is a quick fix, or a profit making machine. But the facts are that it is a business that needs hard work, creative ideas and marketing to make it thrive.

The key factors that make a website successful include:

• Applying different ways to market your site
• Being tenacious
• Making your website an equal priority to your other business’ operations
• Applying different ways to market your site
• Being tenacious
• Making your website an equal priority to your other business’ operations

What is a website made up of?

When putting an ecommerce website together you need to understand what a website is made up of. These four components or areas are:

1. Design and branding: which refers to the look, the logo and the colours of the site
2. Content and html code: means the code used to create what you see
3. Databases and payment processing: are the tools used to make your site functional
4. Add on products and software such as, shopping carts, discussion or notice boards, forums, email programs

Time frames and Costs

To put a website together can take anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months. This timeframe depends on how complex your site is going to be and how clear you are about what your site is going to do. Attached at the back of this document, is a little project management plan, which will give you an idea of an order in which you can put together your website.

Here is a summary of the costs:

• For a contractor to build the site it can cost from $1,000 to $10,000 and up
• Maintenance of your website a month can cost $50 to $1000 a month
• Maintenance of your website a month can cost $50 to $1000 a month or when a change is required
• Purchase of domain name and registration $15 to $100 a year
• Hosting $15 to $500.00 a month
• Set-up costs for payment processing (Free to $400)
• Fees to payment processors which is dependent on the purchase amounts made by your customers set-up costs (Free to $400)
• Marketing budgets (Nil to $5000 a month)
• Opportunity costs, are you best letting someone do the work for you?

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Getting Started - What do you want your website to do?

So you have decided to build a website for your business, this section will assist you to build concepts for your website.

Specifically you need to ask yourself the following questions:

• Are you selling a service or product?
• Do you want to accept payments online?
• How much money do you want to spend on putting a website together?
• Do you want to collect names of your prospective customers?
• Do you want to provide comprehensive information on your site?
• Is it necessary for customers to interact with the site (besides payment processing)? For example is it necessary for customers to have a secure login, post/leave messages or get downloads from your site? Tips: -Look at other websites you like and don’t like and use them as a guide on what you want/don’t want for your own site -Look at competitors’ websites for clues on how to put your site together.

Tips:

• Look at other websites you like and don’t like and use them as a guide on what you want/don’t want for your own site
• Look at competitors’ websites for clues on how to put your site together

Building it yourself or outsourcing?

With each of these options you can do it your self, get some free stuff from the web to do it your self or do a combination of the above.

Doing it yourself:

• If you do it yourself you need to be familiar with html, creating and hosting images and using a programming language to create any databases or integrate any software that you need to make your site functional.
• On the web you can find website templates (for sale or for free) and put the site together yourself. These products can provide easy to use word based functions to help you create the look that you are after. These template services can often come with hosting packages.
• To find these tools search your favorite search engine e.g. http://www.google.ca/ and put in search terms to help you get the tools you need to build your website.
• Be prepared, if you want to do it yourself it may take you longer than hiring a professional -Depending on your interests you may decide to do a combination of both (hire a contractor and do some of the work yourself).
• If you do it yourself you need to be familiar with html, creating and hosting images and using a programming language to create any databases or integrate any software that you need to make your site functional
• On the web you can find website templates (for sale or for free) and put the site together yourself. These products can provide easy to use word based functions to help you create the look that you are after. These template services can often come with hosting packages.
• To find these tools search your favorite search engine e.g. http://www.google.ca/ and put in search terms to help you get the tools you need to build your website
• Be prepared, if you want to do it yourself it may take you longer than hiring a professional -Depending on your interests you may decide to do a combination of both (hire a contractor and do some of the work yourself).

Hiring a contractor:

Hiring a contractor can take away the hassle of doing it yourself. When hiring a contractor it is good to do a lot of the ground work yourself, so you can explain exactly what you are wanting and you then avoid being disappointed with the site and wasting time and money.

Here are some points to consider when hiring a contractor:

• Shop around for the best price, you can pay anywhere from $1000 to $10000 and up for an ecommerce website. This price will depend on quality and complexity of the website
• Review some of their past work (websites they have built) to see if you like what they can potentially do for you
• Do you want this company to maintain the site for you - many businesses forget that they need to pay someone to do their updates for them. To avoid disappointment find out if the service firm can offer you a way to do updates on the website yourself or negotiate a maintenance contract with the purchase of your website (you can sometimes get a better deal all round if you do this before you start). Maintenance costs can vary from $50 to $1000 month and up, depending on how complex your site is and the changes that you need.
• PLAN - it is so important to plan and have a clear idea of what you want your site to look like, many people have wasted thousands of dollars by leaving it all up to the contractor
• Use this guide to help you get started and plan your website

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Deciding on naming and branding?

The name of your website is very important, here are some tips on how to name and brand your site:

• If you don’t have a business name then brainstorm a few different names that you like
• Use an easy to remember name, with easy spelling etc.
• Make sure the name you like has an available domain name, you can check this out http://www.swhois.com/ (For more information on this topic please see Purchasing your domain name in the next section)
• If the name is not available brainstorm some alternatives, use ’-’ or abbreviations
• When ever you refer to your website name always use the name you registered. For example, Just say the name of your site is www.yoursitename.com don’t call it ’YSN’ or ’Site name’, use the full name, ’www.yoursitename.com’ throughout your website and on your business and promotional materials
• Pick colours and fonts you would like to use in conjunction with your name - your contractor can help you with this one
• Would you like to have an icon/logo so that it will help people remember your product? - for example: Nike’s swoosh or tick, whenever we see it we think Nike - you can create this same association with your product or service with the use of an icon/logo and colour themes.
• Please note you do not need to create an expensive icon/logo. If you would like, you can use the name of the site as your brand.

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Purchasing your domain name

So you now have a list of potential names for your new website name. Now you need to verify the availability of at least one of the URLs/ names you have selected is not registered by another person and is available for purchase. This process is called purchasing or registering your domain name. Basically you are buying or registering the right to use your business name on the Internet for a specified period of time.

See if your name is available

The first step is to see if the name you have picked is available. For example, you like the name ’Your Site Name’ - you can see if this name is available as a .com/.net/.biz by going to http://www.swhois.com/
And entering the name in the box and clicking on go.
(Please note - don’t use spaces when entering in searches at swhois)

If the name is taken:

• Try another name
• Use variations of the name eg. Use ’-’ or numbers

Purchasing your domain name

The name you want your website to be called is available, now you need to purchase the right to own it. So if the search results in http://www.swhois.com/ show that the name is available you can purchase your domain name.

You can purchase the domain name from swhois.com or you can shop around on the net for a cheaper price. To shop around for a cheaper price go into your favorite search engine (eg. http://www.google.com/) and enter the term ’domain registration’.

To make the purchase just follow the prompts on the site. Once you have purchased the domain:

• You now have rights to use the name for a specified period of time.
• Your domain name is currently parked (please see definition in the below section) at the place you purchased it at and ready for you to use when you are ready

Tips:

• Don’t wait too long to purchase your name, you will be surprised at how quickly names are snapped up.
• You shouldn’t have to purchase parking, most registration places do it for free
• Purchase the right to your new name for at least two years, please note that you will need to pay for the right to use this name again, once the nominated registration expires (E.g. You chose to purchase your domain for two years; you need to do this again in another two years).

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Shopping around for hosting

You now have your domain name, now you need to purchase space to store all your pages and website functionalities that is viewable on the World Wide Web - this storage is called hosting.

Finding a suitable place to host your website is very easy, there are heaps of places on the Internet that provide this service - just do a search on your favorite search engine to find them.

Considerations and tips for hosting:

• You can do the hosting research before your site is built, but you may not need to purchase the hosting until your site is nearly built and ready to go.
  
• You need to know the approximate file size of your website to purchase the right hosting package
  
• You need to know what database and programming scripts the hosting facility provides - to purchase the right hosting. For example just say a contractor builds your site in programming languages called asp or sql - you need to find hosting that supports this application
  
• Ask your contractor or other fellow business operators where they like to host -If you are not sure about the hosting, good hosting places have great customer support to walk you through your problems
  
• Please know that once your hosting is set-up you need to propagate your domain name to the hosting service. This means that you need to move your domain name from the place where you purchased it (or where it is parked) to the new hosting address. Your hosting service or contractor can do this for you for a small fee or you can use the FAQ’s on the hosting provider’s website to help you do it yourself.

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Structure of your website

There are 3 architectural website designs that need to be drawn up for your site. They are:

1. How the site will actually look to the end user and how those pages will link up
2. The process a customer goes through to purchase on your site
3. The communication processes that happens on the site, for technical enquires, general questions etc.

1. How the site will look

A majority of sites have the following pages as a minimum on their site; (please feel free to add other categories that you feel are relevant to your business)

• Home Page
• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms and conditions
• Email collection form
• Forms and payment processing
• About us
• List of product and services

Tips for your site:

• Use a site you like to give you ideas to model the structure for your website
• Direct your customer to the action that you want them to conduct i.e. to make a purchase, or to leave their email address.
• Make it easy for your customers to contact you
• Make sure that your website delivers key messages and themes that represent convincing arguments for the shopper to buy from you
• Make your site simple and easy to use

2. Process that the customer goes through to purchase on your site.

This is usually defined by the shopping cart that you obtain or the order forms obtained from the payment processor.

But it is important to identify the steps someone goes through to make a purchase on your site. For example:
Step 1: Viewing products
Step 2: Ordering a quantity
Step 3: Setting up an account
Step 4: Making purchase
Step 5: Receiving of the goods.

With these basic steps outlined you need to ask your self these questions:

1. What information do I need to collect from the user to process their request?
2. What extra software or code is needed to make these steps happen? (read the next tip for some suggestions)
3. What process would you like the customer to go through if any of these steps are not completed

Tip:
You may need to re-visit the five steps and the three questions above, while you are putting your site together. Remember doing this ground work is important for your site, it will give you a better idea of how you would like your site to end up and it will give you more control over the final product.

3. Communications outline

You may have noticed on other ecommerce sites, they have a communication process, where they have mapped out all auto-messages and communications to customers that conduct an activity on their site. For example a user submits their personal information; and a subsequent communication is sent out to the customer as a reply.

What you need to decide on is at what times will you communicate and when you would like to respond. For example ask your self the following questions:

• Would you like to send out an auto reply when a customer submits a message?
• Do you want to (or need to) communicate to customers after they have made a purchase or during the purchasing process?
• Do you want to communicate to your customers on a regular basis and tell them about new offers?
• Do you need to provide any instruction pages before during or after an action is carried out by the user?

Tips:

• Some shopping carts and payment processes supply some of these auto reply communications. For example replies after a payment is made or if there was trouble processing the sale.
• Revisit this plan when your site is nearly finished to ensure your communications have the intended messages and impact

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Payment processing, Shopping carts, Order forms

Once again there are a wide variety of options for businesses in this area.

Definitions

What is meant by payment processing is the company that processes your payments that your customers make on your site.
A shopping chart is a software that displays a variety of goods that a customer can choose from and allows the user to buy multiple items and pay for them at one time.
An order form - is a form which is only useful if you only have one or two items that can be purchased.

Provided with this supplement is a consideration document for payment processing, read over this to give you tips in choosing your provider.

Tips:
Make sure that the payment processor, shopping cart or order form provider:

1. Allows you to collect any additional information you need to run your business
2. Collects the information you need to run your business and then gives you reports to view this information ( if they do not offer this you may need to get your website contractor to build you a feature that does this)
3. Provides you with easy to use reporting and sales summaries
4. Supplies you with the services you need to make your business a success

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Drafting content

Your content will make or break your site, follow these tips to ensure you have great content.

Tips:

1. Content layout assists in making your site easy to use
2. Use white space
3. Use images appropriately, to support messages and themes
4. Make sure that your content is simple and to the point. A lot of websites have too much information or not enough reducing the effectiveness of their site
5. Proof read your content before you upload it
6. Try and give your contractor all the correct and accurate content in one hit, repetitive changes to content can cost you more money
7. Keep your site content relevant and up to date
8. Don’t take content directly from other sites, otherwise you will be infringing copy write laws

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Communications and managing client names and emails

As mentioned above a communication process is needed to give your customers information at the right time to assist in their purchasing at your website. Good communication will even ensure that you have repeat business.

You need to set up email address for your web site - all you need to do is ask your hosting company to help you set them up.

Next you need to consider how you will:

• Collect email addresses
• Manage all these details
• What programs you will use to send out email to your customers?

Collecting email addresses

To collect email addresses can be done in two ways, building a form to collect them or collecting them when a purchase is made. Please note that some payment processing solutions offer forms and a database to help you collect and manage your email addresses.

Managing email names

Managing emails is more then having a database to house all your names, it is about, being able to keep it clean, up to date and accurate. This means:

• Unsubscribe users who do not want to receive your marketing messages
• Being able to update changes to your customers details and
• Removing contact details which are incorrect (i.e. cleaning email details from your database that result in a bounce back or an undeliverable message)

It is important to do this, as you will not risk being labeled as a spammer (a person who sends unsolicited email). If you are labeled as a spammer by your customers you could have your site black listed (which prevents your communications ever being received) or worse your hosting company kicking you off.

Bulk Email program to send out email to your customers

This is a program that sends the same communication out to your entire database. It is fast and effective way to keep in touch with your customers.

Tips when looking for an email program:

• Easy for you to use and create your email messages
• Lets you know which email addresses are incorrect so that you clean your master database

Marketing

Once your site is set up, there are a number of ways that you can market your site, here are some ideas that you might like to consider:

• Search engine submissions - submit your site to search engines
• Search engine optimization - to improve your ranking in the search engines
• Directory submissions - submit your site to sites that promote similar products to your own e.g. The KEDC business directory - contact … for more information
• Pay per click advertising
• Advertise on other websites
• Affiliate programs - please contact Income Access for more information visit http://www.incomeaccess.com/ or phone 514 849 8595
• Purchase lists for email marketing (You need to make sure this list is qualified to avoid being labeled as a spammer - please see the above topic)

For more information on these areas you can research these topics on the web.

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Checklist - Project Management Plan

Below is a time frame and suggested order to put your website together in.

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