Small Business Internet Guide-SBOguide

OK. You’ve done your research and decided its time to make your move to the Internet. Reaching this decision wasn’t easy, but after some serious consideration regarding just how the Internet will support your business plan, you’re finally ready to move ahead.

For the Business Professional:

If you are a professional who wants to use the internet to market your services, then you may not plan to sell products “online”, but you do want to make prospective clients aware of the services you can provide.

This may entail a building a rather simple website that promotes your capabilities and credentials, allows you to talk about your past successes, invites a further dialogue with your prospects and existing clients, features testimonials, and provides full contact and location information (if applicable).

For the Retailer:

If you are a retailer, then you want to use the internet to market your business, make your potential and existing customers aware of your offerings, and provide store hours and contact information. You may also want to advertise special offers, make coupons available, and build a customer base that you can notify via email whenever you have news that might be of interest to them.

Beyond this you may decide to build eCommerce capabilities into your website where you will accept orders for your products via the Internet and fulfill your orders using services such as the Post Office, UPS, and FEDEX. You may also elect to deliver your products via the internet itself in the form of something that the customer can download; software, music, and electronic books are examples.

Much of this can be automated with current web functionality: taking the order, collecting and verifying credit card payment information, allowing customers to track shipment, and soliciting customer feedback. Your website in effect functions as an employee that’s always on duty.

• Create a Newsletter.
• Information about your business – be specific and consider the frequency with which this information will be updated.
• Contact information and directions.
• eCommerce – taking orders online, fulfillment and order tracking.
• Interact with your customer base – special offers, coupons, new products and services.
• How does the website integrate into your business plan? Does your business plan need to be updated?
• How will you measure the effectiveness of your web presence?
• If you don’t have a business plan - see the topic Writing a Business Plan and give special consideration to the role the internet will play.

List other items you want to accomplish with your website and add them to your business plan as well. Decide which elements are “must haves” and which might be optional or done at a future time.

For example, you may want to create a newsletter to distribute to your customer base, but this might be something you would consider adding once you have established your initial web presence.

Once you have made this analysis, you will have a good basis for defining exactly what your website needs to be able to do to support your business operations. Whether you decide to build it yourself, or hire someone to do it for you, you will have built a list of requirements that can serve as the framework for constructing your website.