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Building an eCommerce Website - Plan for Success
Building your new eCommerce website is like building any new business. It will take time, effort and, most of all, perseverance! The sooner you get started, the better. From the day you first open your website, you need to seek out every possible opportunity to promote and build your new eCommerce Storefront. It may take up to a year to actually see appreciable results - but the only way to achieve that goal is to get started today!
- Choose a Great Website Domain Name. Your domain name - that ubiquitous www.mygiftstore.com is as important to the success of your eCommerce storefront as location is to a brick-and-mortar store. Take your time and select the shortest, catchiest, easiest-to-remember 'dot con' name that you can find for your new business venture!
- Get Started! You cannot begin to build the eCommerce portion of your SMC business until you have your own website. This may seem obvious, but much of what you need to know to build a successful online business can only be learned once you are involved with building your own website.
 Advertise your Website in all of your current venues. The simple truth is that most of the customers who use your website will meet your business through your current marketing efforts. Prominently advertise your website name - your www.mygiftstore.com - at your current house parties; at swap meets; on your business cards; on your letterhead; stamp it on your catalogs - get the word out through every source you have available to you. The sooner you get started the sooner you will begin to reach that critical mass which actually draws people to your website!
- Follow a Website marketing plan. Get a book, such as 101 Ways to Promote your Web Site by Susan Sweeney, C.A. [ISBN 1-885068-37-9] and study it carefully. There are a wide variety of ways to promote your Internet website on the Internet - but they all take time and perseverance. The sooner you get started, the sooner you will begin to realize results from your efforts.
- Work the Search Engines. Getting and keeping your website listed on the search engines is a never-ending battle. It is not enough to simply sit back and hope that your initial basic listing will produce appreciable results. You need to dedicate a regular amount of time seeking out new ways to improve your search engine performance.
- Join a Banner Advertisement Exchange. Join a banner program to advertise your website on other websites. The most popular program is probably Microsoft's Bcentral Link Exchange [http://www.bcentral.com - copy and paste into your browser].
- Send out a Press Release. If you live in a smaller town, write and send a press release to the local newspaper, radio and television stations. Few people realize that a large percentage of the content in your local media actually arrives in the form of a press release.
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Your Web store is a tool
Opening an e-Commerce Web store is a tool that will help you build your business. It is not a shortcut to success. You will have to work as hard at building your on-line business as you would a brick-and-mortar business. The payoff is in the scale. If you succeed on line, the potential is unlimited for many products and services. Unlike its brick-and-mortar counterpart, an e-Commerce website is not limited by geography for products small enough to economically ship and service. Persevere and succeed!
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