Online Business Tips

We are not the first, nor will we be the last to write about this topic. Yet, no matter how basic this information may seem for the initiated, it is still new for more than three quarters of the people out there, especially individuals looking to start their own business and small business owners trying to figure out how to get online effectively.

This article is intended for those that are still figuring out how to get started with an online business, and if it is even the right choice for them. We have other articles about running an online business for those that have already made the choice and are now looking for detailed insights.

Why Online Business Works

Two of the biggest benefits of using the internet to do business are that it can reach a much wider geographic audience than a brick and mortar store, and there is in-depth and timely feedback on every decision that is implemented. Neither of these two factors guarantees success, but they open up new opportunities that wouldn’t exist offline.

Getting started with an online business is appealing to most people for two reasons; it can be managed at any time from almost anywhere and it can achieve success without the need for a lot of capital.

While these facts are true about running an online business, there is a mistaken assumption by some – propagated by many get rich quick schemers – that owning an online business is an easy path to riches without any hard work.

So you've come up with a new concept for a website or your trying to marketing your existing business online, and you need to come up with a domain name. Should I be a .com, .net, .biz? What should I name site? You think of the perfect domain, only to find out it's taken. You get the idea. It's the foundation of your e-business model, so you need to get it right, (or at least close). Here's some tips to get you started in the right direction:

Domain Tips For New Website

Dot Com, Dot Net, Dot Biz -- What Suffix should I get?

The correct use for each domain suffix has been blurred by the lack of available domains. The "dot com" is still a preferable suffix if you're involved any aspect of e-commerce. Outside of e-commerce, the other domains are acceptable and work well. You're on a "dot net" right now. The "dot net" suffix was initially set up for internet service providers, but many are now using the "dot net" for social networks. For the most part, the root of the domain is more important than the suffix. If you can get a "dot com" with the preferred root, then go with that. The "dot biz" and "dot net" with the preferred root are excellent fall backs.

The name of your site/product and your domain don't have to match -- Get a domain with keywords that are being search for.

I wrote a post a few months ago about our experience dropshipping www.digitalmediastream.net/disallusioned-dropshipper. We did have moderate success with it and have since moved on. But this evening I came across an article http://www.income.com/blog/2007/07/17/what-the-heck-do-i-sell/ that is promoting the same "dropshipping is the answer" mentality that I find irritating.

We found that we had to put in much more time to make the business run smoothly than we anticipated and sold the business on to someone who hired a whole staff to make his portfolio of dropship sites run well.

Yes, dropshipping does work. Yes, it is easy to set up and get running. But, it is not entirely hands off. If you want to provide even mediocre customer service, then you will have to be available during business hours to answer peoples questions, track down orders, and coordinate returns. This is all manageable, but it isn't really the part time gig that most people are looking for. Just my ongoing opinion

I learned about SEO about 18 months ago as we started to develop a couple niche e-commerce sites for drop shipping. We had moderate success promoting our sites, but I have come to realize that the world wide web is a medium in which only an SEO practitioner can succeed. The concern I have is that I’m not very good at it, especially the off-page link building that is so important. I’ve read a lot about it and understand the concepts of how I should be promoting my sites, but the truth is that there are a lot of other web developers out there that do it better than me and I’m not entirely willing to pay for the SEO I need. I would be willing to pay a small sum, but the problem is that I have found no solution that everyone can agree is worth it.

I can get better at SEO, but the real problem I see is that a small cross section of successful web promoters are out there setting the bar higher and higher. When I do searches now I have a very skeptical reaction to the top ten results from Google, thinking “I wonder what they did to get there.” I know I have to keep playing this game in the SEO dominated world of the web, but it does seem that the search engine results that we all crave are starting to mean less when you consider how an insignificant site can rise to the top with excellent SEO help while an incredibly relevant site could be missed entirely, not because of content but because of a lack of artificially inflated inbound links. It is an SEO world, but is that truly better or what is really needed.

By all accounts, we had a very successful Holiday Season selling digital frames, some drop shipped and some inventoried to accommodate popularity. We didn't have great SEO, especially on Google, so we used adwords to generate more traffic. It worked well enough that we were quite busy. The reality though was that drop shipping wasn't as simple and hands-off as its promoters would have you believe.

You see, what isn't discussed as often with drop shipping are the hassles that it creates. Selling digital photo frames, a newer technology, in particular created issues for us that we did not expect. The most noticeable was the customer service we had to undertake to help clients get their frames working, or to diagnose when the frames might actually be broken and then facilitate a return. Then there were the stock outs and model changes which caused us to sell products that we couldn't actually get. And we also ran into trouble making sure that our shipping prices were right.

Now, none of this was back breaking or company destroying. However, it wasn't part time work either as is always claimed when drop shipping websites are put up for sale. If you have the patience and time to run a drop shipping company then it's really amazing what can be done. But, if you think it's just going to be a little side hobby to make some extra money, then maybe this will help you think it through a little more. Take it for what it's worth, though we plan to move away from the drop shipping model ourselves.