Freelance
Writers' Series
Career & Business Development Help
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Solutions to Common Online Biz Problems by Yuwanda Black I'll get a website, put up some merchandise or offer a service, and the orders will pour in. Fantasy! The truth is, running an Internet business is probably twice as hard as running a traditional brick and mortar business. Allow me to explain.
1. Getting the word out: Just because you build it does not mean that they will come - customers that is. There are literally millions of websites totaling billions, yes billions, of pages. How will you get found? Driving traffic to an Internet site is not, contrary to popular belief, easy. First, your customers need to have a computer - with an Internet connection. Hopefully, a fast one. If they only log on at work, then there goes weekend and/or spur-of-the-moment, I-saw-it-from-the-window- and-had-to-have-it sales. Solution: Reach customers via their mailbox, in addition to their inbox. Some cost-effective, offline methods are postcards and press releases.A cheap online marketing idea is to put a subscriber box on each page of your website. This costs very little in money and zilch in time once it is set up. Employing traditional with online marketing methods will drive continual traffic to your site. 2. Make a quick connection: If you want your customers to reach you online, you had better have fast-loading graphics. If your graphics don't load/begin to load in 3-5 seconds, most customers won't stick around. They will be off to your competitor's site. Solution: a) Use compression software so that graphic files load quickly. Compression software decreases the size of an image/file for storage or electronic transfer. According to the website www.hostthebest.com, a good file size for a fast loading image is 25k or less. b) Also, try to limit the number of graphics on a page to 6-10. If more than this, break the category into separate pages.3. Maintenance/Upkeep: Just like store display windows, you have to continually dress your site to keep it appealing for old customers and to attract new ones. This means adding new content, products and/or services; updating photos; putting items on sale; finding new links; etc. Think this is easy? Try having to shoot and upload 25 new products, change prices on 20 or 30 items at one time, keep up with special deals and discounts, design e-newsletters, etc. In between, try answering customer queries, figuring out what's in/out of stock, what new products to add/delete and ordering shipping supplies (yes, those brown packing boxes have to be ordered; they don't magically appear). Solution: Start slowly with a few products you can either mass produce, have drop shipped and/or don't require any hands-on work from you. This will allow you to ship quickly, buy in bulk and market effectively. Marketing one product, or a few related ones, is much easier than marketing a full line - especially if you are just starting out.4. Packing the order: There are days when I hate to get an order - yes, you read right - hate it. Why? When you have 20 orders to get out - today; have run out of the right size box and UPS picks up in one hour - it ain't fun. If you make your product and don't have the items readily available, it can be a nightmare. You either ship another day or drop everything you're doing and run out and get what you need to finish - usually paying retail, mind you. If you pay retail, then it probably costs you to process the order. Solution: This is but a small sampling of what goes into running a successful Internet business. Just because a business is online does not mean that you don't have to work hard *********************************
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