Archive for the ‘The Internet’ Category
Offering your services online also means that you have more options then ever when it comes to payment and it’s always an advantage to have as many payment options as possible.
Even a study by CyberSource Corp. stated that generally websites that offer a wide variety of payment options other than just the usual credit card option had a sales conversion rate of 12 higher then those offering one payment option additionally to credit cards to the credit card option.
So the more online payment options you offer the more online payments you will receive, different people like different options for their own personal reasons. It may be that some people view some payment options safer then others.
Anyway here are some of the online payment options you could offer on your site:
1) PayPal
PayPal has become known via the internet site Ebay as it is the main payment method used there. This has made millions of people worldwide of PayPal, generally it is a trusted payment option by people which is also why you should consider offering it as a payment method.
Now Paypal is a all-in-one payment solution. By using PayPal you are accepting Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express credit card payment. PayPal enables people to make use of Bank transfers and using their debit card to top their account up. The best thing about PayPal is that it’s a bit of a Pay As You Go system, what I mean is that there are no monthly fees for it nor are there any cancellation or setup fees. The amount PayPal charges depends on the your sales volume, however it is 1.9% to 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction. For more information got to here to compare the PayPal payment solution .
2) Credit Cards
This is probably the payment method to have available if you are looking to receive payments online. It is also the payment option to have if you are going to offer only one option, (which I personally strongly don’t recommend) this would be the option to pick. Payment via Credit Cards is still the most widely used method when making payment online.
To be able to set up a credit card processing on your website you need to get an internet merchant account.
3) Debit Cards
As most people nowadays have a credit card this is definetly one of the payment methods to have as your payment option. During 2007 debit cards continued to be the most used payment method for online buyers in the UK so it would dfinatly be a mistake to ignore this fact.
4) Give Them Offline Payment Options Too
For some reason some people are unable to make payment online at all and it may be an idea to give your buyers the ability to make payment offline, so for example you could allow them to send you a cheque and only once the cheque has cleared you post the product or offer the service. The offline payment options are also relatively cheaper even though it takes longer to complete the transaction.
For some small businesses it may be the case that the internet is everywhere but their business is not on the internet which means that they are preventing some of their customers from finding them. A few years ago no one really cared about the internet that much and if someone did mention the word "web" you would have probably thought about a spider infestation. However today that has changed and when the word "web" is mentioned everyone thinks about the internet. The internet is playing a key role when it comes to informing people. So if you still don’t care then its time that you think about it a bit more.
Think about your competition
Being in business means that you are also in competition, so while maybe a lot of your competition in your market may have a website it means that they have a competitive edge over you. If you notice that your competitors are not online yet, then take the first step and go online, whatever your business there will probably many good reasons to why it is necessary for you to be online.
So how can you get online?
You are probably thinking about the fact that it could be difficult to design a website and see that as a major obstacle. Well yes it is a major obstacle if you do not know how to do it. However being in business does not mean you have to do everything yourself, the internet has also brought a lot of web developers with it who are willing to develop simple but unique websites at very cheap rates. For example if you go to one of the major webmaster forums like Digital Point there are a lot of people there who provide quality but cheap services at extremely cheap rates. One of the reasons for this is because they are from India or China, the other reason may be that they are young students who want to earn a bit of extra cash. Nonetheless this does not mean that their quality is bad. Business is all about connecting and communicating so it help getting out there and doing just that. While it may be worth learning something about the internet and websites yourself if it interests you but it really is not a must if you don’t find it interesting.
I was talking to a friend about 5 months ago lets just call him "Bill" who owns a small business , an e-commerce website to be more precise , he has been selling online for over 10 years but he hasn’t been keeping up to date with the internet changes and any search engine optimization tips. He says that he makes a good profit even though he spends about 100$ a day on just Google Adwords, but that’s because his profit on the products he sells is pretty good. Bill was telling me that most of his traffic comes from Google because he pays for it but there isn’t much traffic coming from actual search engines naturally even though he had paid SEO experts to improve the site.
I had a look at the site and said to him that the site does not have much content for natural traffic, so I suggested starting blogging about his products and his business in general. But when I mentioned blogging Bill didn’t really looked impressed with my suggestion. Bills idea was that blogging can not work for his business and his products. Well my idea was that it may not work but it will defiantly add content to the site which will increase natural traffic. Also because the information will be related to the products and business trades in it means that the people who visit the site will also probably be interested in the products Bill sells and ultimately this could lead to actual sales. Bill was surprised in my thinking and said that he had never thought about it in that way. Anyway I convinced bill to give it a try and he did, within the first month there was an increase in the number of unique visitors and as he kept blogging and writing more about his products Bill saw a fast increase in the number of people visiting his site. I haven’t really asked bill about the profit but I am assuming it has increased as he has continued blogging ever since.
So what’s my point?
The point I am trying to make here is that until you give blogging a try you will never know if it works or not for your business. You will be surprised to see that it does work and see traffic increase. I am not going to go into details about search engine optimisation here but what I do want you to know is that "unique content" is what gets traffic to your website.
Small business domain registration is not such an easy task anymore. The domain business has got a lot of competition and there are many different top level domains (TLD) such as .com, .co.uk, .net, .biz. However finding a top domain is not easy anymore as most of them have been registered years ago and buying a domain names in the aftermarket can be pretty expensive for a small business. To be honest there really is no need of buying in the aftermarket most of the time, all you have to do is be a bit creative and you can come up with a really good domain. For example when I was thinking of setting up SmallBusinessGlobe.com I knew that SmallBusiness.com was taken years ago before even checking but that really was not a problem, thinking a bit and being creative can really help when searching for a web domain. A domain name can help your business and at times it may be a good idea to check in the aftermarket for the right one if you feel that’s the only option left. However you can also register the best domain for you with just spending the normal fee of about $10 or €7, only because you pay so little for the domain it does not mean that it is a cheap domain, it only means that you were the first one to think of that domain. During your domain search I would recommend that you include generic words in it, for example if you are a wholesale business it may be an idea to include wholesale in your company domain, so wholesalesomething.com. Including a generic word that relates to your business will prove beneficial as the search engines will also favour you and your customer will be able to identify your business area much easier.
What Top Level Domain (TLD) should we pick?
I will touch on this a bit here as it may be a confusing with so many different TLD´s available but I will write something in more detail about it soon. The .com TLD is King of them all as it is the mostly used worldwide. However it is not necessary to have it, if you are targeting the UK market then .co.uk will do the same job, on the other hand if the .com is also available I would registering it too.
Domain Registration
Well this is the easy there are so many companies around so you have a great choice. Godaddy.com is the biggest domain register and has competitive prices, at Godaddy.com it may be wise to find discount coupons in forums and use them when buying some even offer up to 30% discount. There are also other registrars like Name.com that is a bit cheaper but it may be that you want to get web hosting with your domain so I would suggest shopping around and finding the best deal.