How is doing business online different than in the real world and what you need to do to be successful?

What is different about doing business on the web?
Two major differences:

1. Competition – usability
2. Location – search engines – links

Competition
Aside from all the technical factors (HTML, ecommerce, hosting, search engine placement, etc.), the biggest difference is your competition.

You may have little or no competition or even more competition than in the real word. In either case, you need to find out who is your competition.

Your online competition is different – different businesses, different “selling” terms, different in many ways.

Start a research project and search for similar products and/or services on the web. See what is out there – take a note of what they are selling, their approach on how they sell, their content, their search engine placement, and SEO techniques.

Just like in the real world, you need to know your competition.

1. Usability
Usability is making your site user-friendly.

Just like a bricks and mortar business your website:

1. needs to be found
2. needs to be easy to use
3. easy to remember
4. free of errors
5. easy to learn

For success, your website should be equal to or better than the competition’s in regards to the above list. This will help make your online presence equal or better in the eyes of your customers!

Location
On the Web, your business location is your domain name, (www.vwebworld.com).

Your domain name should be in all your brochures, advertisements, and letterhead. A domain name is as important as your brand and should be easy to remember.

One thing to consider is that a domain name can affect how your site is placed by various search engines. If you have one or more of your keywords within your domain, it can help increase placement within some search engines.

1. Search engines
The #1 factor on how a visitor finds your web site.

So, what to do?

Let’s work on the basics … make sure you have a page title, description, and key words.

Include your key words within your page title, description, and the first text content found on your web page. Whenever possible include your keywords in headings (h1, h2 tags), links, and title attributes.

Lately much attention and money has been spent on search engine optimization (SEO). This is the art of using the right keywords, page title, description, and other factors to help place your domain high in search engine rankings.

The goal is when someone searches your keywords, your site appears first (or at least on the first page) of the search engine results. The problem, there are many web sites fighting for the same keywords; and, many search engines each with their own unique forumula on how they “score” your web site.

Today, you can be #1; tomorrow you could be #67. SEO is a continual effort – at any moment it can (and will) change.

2. Links
The second way people find your website is via a link from another site. Arguably links are more valuable than searches, because a link from another site is like a recommendation. – like someone telling his neighbor to go to Joe’s auto because they do good work.

Links also help in search engine placement – getting links can be as a simple as asking for candy.

Find sites that relate to your products/services and that your visitors would likely visit. Ask the owner if they would be interested in reciprocal links. The more links you can find the higher your search engine placement.

One key factor that would greatly help search engine placement is how external links are identified on other site. For example, if you sell natural baby shampoo your external links should be “Natural Baby Shampoo” not “visit Shampoo’s-R-Us”.

One more difference about doing business online – your business is open 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

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