Setting Up Your Biz Online

Even if you run a brick and mortar store, it's probably in your best interest jump on the e-commerce bandwagon.

Read below for Entrepreneur Magazine's reasons why venturing online is such a fabulous idea.

Not so long ago if you wanted to check when a movie was playing, you'd consult your local newspaper. If you wanted to find someone to remodel your bathroom, you'd open the yellow pages.

But for an increasing number of consumers, those habits are as dated as a pair of faded bell bottoms.

"Today, consumers across all age brackets use the Internet and, particularly for computer-savvy users, the Internet is the first place they'll turn for information about a vendor," says Sadie Peterson, president of SDMarCom Inc., a San Diego-based marketing firm that specializes in working with small businesses.

"The Internet offers an opportunity to introduce yourself to consumers exactly when they are searching for your business—by appearing in the major search engines," Peterson notes. "For niche businesses, the Web presents an opportunity to reach the nationwide or global community, where geographic limitations might otherwise force you out of business."

Nicci Blanke, who started a dance studio in southeast Michigan, is a believer. Her Viva! Dance Center site, created with Microsoft Office Live Small Business, had more than 1,000 hits in its first month.

"Everybody has the Web now," Blanke says. "And I think keeping up with technology is just like keeping up with dance steps. People appreciate that and our Web site allows us to do that."

A Web site can be as much about customer service as it is about selling products and services. Blanke says she has limited office hours, but uses the site to stay connected her young dancers' parents. "The Web site allows us to be available to them 24 hours a day, seven days a week," she says. She posts paperwork, maps to dance competitions, even pictures.

Looking like a serious business
Paul Gryfakis, who runs Parking Padding Solutions out of his Chicago home, thinks a professional Web presence helps potential customers take his business seriously. "Having a Web site does give me some credibility," he says. "I'm not just somebody on the phone or sending you a mailer about my product."

When people go to his Web site, which was also created with Office Live Small Business, they can see pictures of his product, they can see specs, they can learn about the ordering process and they can find out how to get in touch with him.

For Gryfakis, that Web site is the core of his business since products are shipped directly from his supplier to his customers. "I don't have a storefront. I don't need a storefront," he says. "I just need my Web presence."

Clearly there are numerous reasons why even the smallest of businesses can benefit from a Web presence, but here are five key considerations:

Visibility: With more and more consumers logging onto the Web to research products and services, if they are going to find your business, your business needs to be on the Web.

Reach: With a Web site, you are no longer limited to a customer base that is in physical proximity to your shop. Your place of business may be in Boston, but your customers can be in Bangkok.

Customer service: When customers can log onto your Web site and easily find the information they want—when they want it—their satisfaction increases.

Competition: A professional looking Web site can level the playing field for smaller companies trying to compete against larger enterprises. It’s also a way to stay in the game; even if people can’t find you on the Web chances are they can find your competitors.

Credibility: When you can point customers, partners, even potential employees or investors to a Web site, it tells them you are a serious business.

Getting on the Web quickly
At one time having a Web site would have been out of reach for many small businesses, with the cost of hiring programmers, designers and writers and paying for hosting services and the time commitment involved in keeping the site updated.

But the time and expense once associated with having a Web site has been replaced with template-driven software services that make it a quick and relatively painless process to build a Web site.

Microsoft introduced Office Live Small Business specifically to meet the needs of small businesses eager for a Web presence but without the resources and skills to build one from scratch. Utilizing easy-to-use tools and a wide variety of pre-designed page templates, small business owners and managers with absolutely no technical or design skills are now able to create professional looking Web sites with minimal effort. And with the Office Live Small Business service—which includes a domain name, hosting, company-branded e-mail accounts, and project and contact mangement services—you can get started online for free.

Another concern that makes some small businesses reluctant to make the move to the Web is the need to put up a site with lots of different pages. But a Web site today can be a work in progress. At the very least you can start out with a "business card" Web site that contains very basic information about your company:

Name
Logo
Location
Contact information
Brief description of products or services
As time and inspiration permit, you can expand the site.

There are plenty of compelling reasons why small businesses today should have a Web presence. But with the advent of free, easy-to-use services, it's difficult to come up with a reason not to.

Tips for Creating a Fabulous Business Logo

Your business logo is an extension of your business - your ideas, your business dreams and your brand. Below are a few tips by John Williams - Excerpted from Entrepreneur.com.


1. Your branding efforts not only start with your logo but are dictated by it. Your logo appears on all your sales tools, from your business cards and stationary to your website. As a result, your logo design influences the design of all your sales tools--for better or worse. A professional-looking logo can be leveraged to create professional-looking materials. A poorly designed logo can't. In other words, you need a "brandable" logo--one you can make use of when designing other materials to brand your company.

Brandable logos are scalable, memorable and meaningful. If people can't remember what your logo looks like, they won't remember your brand. Think of the logos of some of the popular brands today. Do you think of M-shaped arches, a shell or a swoosh? All are simple concepts, effectively employed by McDonalds, Shell and Nike. How can you tell if a logo's going to be memorable? If you can't look at a logo for fewer than 10 seconds and re-draw it with decent accuracy, it's probably too complex to be easily remembered. (Besides being difficult to remember, most complex logos can't effectively be reduced in size or rendered in black and white, making them useless for such elements as fax cover sheets and other business forms.)


2. Your logo is a quick visual cue that conveys the essence of your brand in an age when image is everything and time is short. Perhaps you've heard the writer's lament that "nobody reads anymore." In today's markets, not only do you face ever-increasing competition, you also face an audience accustomed to visually stimulating media, convenience and instant gratification. Sure, a few people may read your entire ad, more may read some of it--but everyone will SEE it. The overwhelming amount of choices faced by time-crunched consumers forces them to identify shortcuts. Your logo is such a shortcut: it instantly conveys your brand message and emotional appeal.

3. Awareness and familiarity are keys to growing your business, and your logo is instrumental in both areas. Your logo is your brand's most basic graphic element. It ties together all your sales materials--in fact, your logo may be the only visual element your materials have in common. The right logo helps solidify customer loyalty while differentiating you from the competition.


4. Your logo may be the only thing by which a potential customer can judge your business. Think of small newspaper or Yellow Pages ads. Often all that fits in these small spaces is your contact information and your logo. If your logo projects the right image, it may be the sole reason someone decides to try your company. Conversely, if it looks unprofessional or unclear, it alone may be the reason they choose to look somewhere else.


5. Your logo affords a unique opportunity for you to look like a bigger (that is, more established) business than what you are. With the right logo, you can look like a larger company that's been around for awhile even if you have only one employee and just opened your doors last month. People who see it will associate the positive attributes of big companies--like security and financial stability--with your company. And you can still deliver the entrepreneurial qualities--like personal attention and superior customer service--that you're known for.

Building a solid brand identity is pivotal to success in business today. Lay the right foundation with a professional, brandable logo.


John Williams is Entrepreneur.com's "Image & Branding" columnist and the founder and president of LogoYes.com, the world's first do-it-yourself logo design website. During John's 25 years in advertising, he's created brand standards for Fortune 100 companies like Mitsubishi and won numerous awards for his design work.

YaaY!!! Thank God I'm almost there!!! Almost!!!!

My website designer just sent me my logo and I absolutely love it!!! I chose the pic and they designed my boutique name across it. I also saw a prototype of my site and I can't wait to unveil it..............in a few days. I've been working on this for five years and I'm so glad that I'm almost there - just thought I'd share....

Website Design by Travis at Origins 3 (435-650-1037) Travis and his design team are doing a fab job!! When I started out, I hired this one "nightmare" company that shall remain nameless (since I don't feel like being vindictive and posting their name). I had such an awful experience with them that I decided to just put the whole e-commerce idea to rest until I found Travis. They have been so accomodating to all my petty whims and have kept me in the loop every step of way. I really appreciate it!!! I should done more research before hiring the previous website design company, but oh well - live and learn!!!

Below is a summary of my previous post on Building A website for your Small Biz - Excerpted from Entrepreneurpress.com

What makes a good website? Before getting enmeshed in design details, get the big picture by writing a site outline. A well-thought-out site outline includes: content, structure, design, navigation and credibility.

A detailed outline to prospective web designers makes the process more efficient.

Content: The key to a successful site is content. Give site visitors a lot of interesting information, incentives to visit and buy, and ways to contact you. Once your site is up and running, continually update and add fresh content to keep people coming back for more.

Structure: Next, structure your site. Decide how many pages to have and how they'll be linked to each other. Choose graphics and icons that enhance the content.

Design: With the content and structure in place, site design comes next. Whether you're using an outside designer or doing it yourself, concentrate on simplicity, readability and consistency. Before you start using HTML tags right and left, remember what you want to accomplish.

Navigation: Make it easy and enjoyable for visitors to browse the site. Use no more than two or three links to major areas, never leave visitors at a dead end, and don't make them back up three or four links to get from one content area to another.

Credibility: This is an issue that shouldn't be lost in the bells and whistles of establishing a website. Your site should reach out to every visitor, telling her why she should buy your product or your service. It should look very professional and give potential customers the same feeling of confidence that a phone call or face-to-face visit with you would.

*Melissa Campanelli is a leading expert in small business e-commerce. She is author of Open an Online Business in 10 Days and writes the monthly "Net Profits" column for Entrepreneur magazine, offering valuable advice to online small businesses.

Sources:Open an Online Business in 10 Days and Entrepreneur.com

Setting Up your Brick and Mortar Store

A few weeks ago I did a post on E-Commerce and Brick and Mortar Stores. One of my girlfriends is opening up a vintage clothing store and has been fretting over whether she should sell via a website or "bite the dress" and open up a Brick and Mortar storefront. She has decided to open a store. She's very excited and is shopping around downtown DC for an "affordable" location. She has also decided she's not going to limit her merchandise to only vintage. She's branching out with cool purses, shoes and other accessories.

She called me to get some advice on whether to go strictly Brick & Mortar or whether she should simultaneously set up an online store. My advice was a resounding "YES." In my opinion, Brick & Mortar storefronts and online sales are not mutually exclusive. There is nothing wrong with having a website and a Brick & Mortar storefront. The most important element is doing enough research to identify your target market. With the right planning and preparation, having both will ultimately give her more exposure and allow her to reach a broader market.

The biggest advantage I think she will get from opening a Brick & Mortar storefront is the "hands-on" relationship she will have with her customers. As convenient as the Internet is, it still lacks that warmth you get when you walk into a store and get "one-on-one" attention from the owner ----of course I am talking about a small business establishment. My girlfriend plans to run the store herself with occasional help from her fabulous mother. An advantage of the Internet is that it has unlimited shelf space unlike brick and mortar stores that only have so much shelf space.

She's really big on European fashion and wanted to set up her displays like the European stores do. She asked me to take some storefront pictures for her during my last trip. I took several, some of which I don't have anymore, but I will post the ones I kept. For those of you trying to figure out the best way to set up your store displays, CLICK HERE for some tips!!

Below is the latest Italian Fashion as of two weeks ago!!!!

Building a Fabulous Website

Excerpted from Entrepreneurpress.com*

What makes a good website? Before getting enmeshed in design details, get the big picture by writing a site outline. A well-thought-out site outline includes: content, structure, design, navigation and credibility.

An outline helps you get the most out of your e-commerce budget. You'll know whether you or someone in your company can do each piece or if you need outside help. That way, when you hire someone, it will be for only the parts of the job that you'll need to have out­sourced. Lillian Vernon, who founded the well-known catalog company Lillian Vernon Corp. in 1951, designed her original website for a frac­tion of what her competitors spent. How? "It's a total misconception that you have to throw [big] dollars at an e-commerce solution," she says. "You have to be a very careful shopper among vendors."

A detailed outline to prospective web designers makes the process more efficient.

Content: The key to a successful site is content. Give site visitors a lot of interesting information, incentives to visit and buy, and ways to contact you. Once your site is up and running, continually update and add fresh content to keep people coming back for more.

Structure: Next, structure your site. Decide how many pages to have and how they'll be linked to each other. Choose graphics and icons that enhance the content. Pictures of adorable children of different ages, for example, might work well if you're selling children's clothes, with pictures of toys and books that site visitors can click on to jump to other pages within your site where they can buy these items. At this point, organize the content into a script.

Your script is the numbered pages that outline the site's content and how pages flow from one to the next. Page 1 is your home page, the very first page that site visitors will see when they type in your website address, or URL. Arrange all the icons depicting major content areas in the order you want them. Pages 2 through whatever correspond to each icon on your home page. Following our example of selling children's clothes, perhaps you'd start with the icon labeled "birth through one year" as page 2. Pages 3 through 12 might be all products and services pertain­ing to that age range. Page 13, then, would start with the icon from your home page labeled "one to three years."

Writing a script ensures your website is chock-full of great con­tent that is well organized. Write well, give site visitors something worthwhile for their time spent with you, and include a lot of valuable information and regular opportunities to get more con­tent. Whether you offer a free newsletter, a calendar of events, columns from experts or book reviews, content and its structure becomes the backbone of your website.

Design: With the content and structure in place, site design comes next. Whether you're using an outside designer or doing it yourself, concentrate on simplicity, readability and consistency. Before you start using HTML tags right and left, remember what you want to accomplish.

For example, if you have a pet products website, you recognize that many pet owners have both dogs and cats. You want them to be able to shop and order in the way that's most comfortable for them. Perhaps they want to get their pet food order out of the way first, then shop for toys and fashion accessories. Maybe they prefer to shop for their cats, then focus on shopping for their doggie goodies.

Cue them with graphics, colors and fonts that make sense to you. Should all cat-related text and icons contain blue, while dog items are red? Should all food text and graphics be green, toys red and accessories yellow? These subtle cues make all the difference in how visitors respond to your website. Keep surfing the internet to research what combinations of fonts, colors and graphics appeal to you, and incorporate pleasant and effective design elements into your site.

Navigation: Make it easy and enjoyable for visitors to browse the site. Use no more than two or three links to major areas, never leave visitors at a dead end, and don't make them back up three or four links to get from one content area to another. For example, if you have a website for convention planners, make it easy for visitors to link to city sites where they can find information about theaters, river cruises, museums and the like so convention atten­dees can check out recreational activities on their own.

Credibility: This is an issue that shouldn't be lost in the bells and whistles of establishing a website. Your site should reach out to every visitor, telling her why she should buy your product or your service. It should look very professional and give potential customers the same feeling of confidence that a phone call or face-to-face visit with you would. Remind the visitors that you don't exist only in cyberspace. Your company's full contact information--contact name, company name, street address, city, state, zip code, telephone, fax and e-mail address--should appear on your home page.

*Melissa Campanelli is a leading expert in small business e-commerce. She is author of Open an Online Business in 10 Days and writes the monthly "Net Profits" column for Entrepreneur magazine, offering valuable advice to online small businesses.

Sources:Open an Online Business in 10 Days and Entrepreneur.com