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As with every endeavor in life, you must have an objective or a goal.
Objectives are important so once your site is up - you can evaluate whether you are doing well or not and what improvements you need to make to attain your objectives.
It is good to set goals which include both qualitative and quantitative measures. Here are some common goals:
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1. Resolve a customer problem
2. Reinforce a brand or image, for existing products
3. Educate prospective customers
4. Demonstrate a product or service
5. Create an incentive
6. Sale of products or services
7. Research
8. Get subsribers
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What is the objective of your e-business? What is the objective of your site?
We mentioned in Step 1 that you have higher chances of success if there is an existing need or gap for the product or service that you have in mind. Here, you must design how your product or service will provide the solution to this need or gap. Describe as well how your intended offering is different from the existing products in the market. Some books refer to this as your USP or unique selling proposition.
In this section, decide who is going to be involved in your business. Are you going to hire someone to write your content or someone to build your website?
If you have the budget to do this, you may select this route. However, if you are like most small business owners and aspiring Internet newbie, you may have to wear all the different caps yourslef. In other words, it is going to be a one-man show.
If you do not have any technical background and have no idea whatsoever on how to build a proper website, don't worry. This very website that you are looking at was built without any technical background. All I needed to do was type, cut and paste.
The beauty of doing everything yourself is that you have absolute control of your business. Remember, a good website is never static.You must update it regularly. And if you have to pay someone to update it for you, it's going to be costly especially if you are just starting. Furthermore, you are at the mercy of that person's schedule and availability.
In the Working on your e-business section, I will show you the tool I used to make this website.
Most online businesses start as side businesses; something that you do when you are free from your main work. This set up is fine as long as you keep in mind that you must set aside a reasonable amount of time to work on your project. Start with a simple "to do" list and check each item as you go along. Once you have decided that Internet business is for you, you can progress to a more detailed Project Plan.
a. Decide and select your content
Once you have determined your core business, and your target market, decide what should be in your website.
How do you decide what you should be in your site? Keep in mind that visiting a site is no different from visiting a real store. Your site will be a site worth visiting if: they can get what they came from and they get it easily.
In order to achieve this, your site needs to have the required information (content), it is presented in a comfortable manner (presentation) and very easily accessible (navigation). Your site must also be able to deliver what it promises in the earliest possible time (repsonse time).
All these will be discussed in greater detail in Working on your e-business.
b. Create your Site
This is the most important part of the business plan. If your site is not an extension of your offline business, then your site is your business, your store. If you decide to sell informational products, like an ebook, software, or members-only website, great care should be taken when building your site. In this business model, your site is your salesperson, and therefore, it should be capable of selling on its own, even while you're sleeping.
Building your website will be discussed in detail in Working on your e-business.
The next most important part of your e-business plan is marketing and promotion strategy. After you have built your site, the next step is to get people to visit your site.
No matter how good your product or service is, no matter how beautifully it is presented, if no one gets to see it, it will never be a revenue-generating site.
During the early days of Internet, marketing your site means millions of dollars. This is so because the site is often marketed through offline means such as print and tv advertising.
Since this site is designed for individuals and small business owners, I will present the different startegies that you can use that costs very little, and can even be free. Of course, using offline means still deliver the results that you need. So, if you have a budget to spare for print ads, this is something you should definitely consider.
The different options are discussed in Telling the World about your e-business.
This is the day when you launch (upload) your site for it to be seen by the world. Once you've launched your site, it is time to implement the promotion strategies that you have earlier decided on.
This is the phase where you evaluate whether your site delivers the objectives that you have previously set. If you find that your site is not performing as you planned, you may need to revise your site's content, presentation or your promotion strategies.
This is discussed further in Monitoring and Maintaining your Site.
To continue, click here.
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