Getting your business online This booklet answers the following questions:• Why should I get my business online?• How can I get online?

• What are the basics?• How can I take my online business further?

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Developing Your Online Business...

The aim of this handbook is to help UK companies develop and grow their businesses online. It demonstrates that using a website or email to communicate with customers does not have to be a technical minefield and will bring real business benefits. It also shows companies that already have a web presence some of the more advanced things that can be achieved online.

Your business may already be technology focused because you use computers to send email and surf the web. Perhaps you have set up a company website and have started using this to commu-nicate and sell to your customers. If so, you are already reaping the benefits of being online. However, many businesses have yet to fully exploit the Internet as an effective business tool, and this guide is intended to make that step easier to take.

The handbook was produced by Hostway UK, a global web host-ing provider helping UK businesses of all sizes get the most out of the web, and supported by the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies, the membership body for Local Enterprise Agencies in England.

For more information on either of these organisationswww.hostway.co.ukwww.nfea.com

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You may think that your business is not suited to the Internet, or that getting

online is too complicated and expensive. In fact, as the Internet has evolved, the cost and complexity of getting online has dropped dramatically, even for the small-est business.

The fact is, whether people are looking for their local travel agent or lawyer, research-ing a product or even ordering their week-ly groceries, they are increasingly doing it online. Having even a basic web presence can mean the difference between attract-ing a new customer and losing them to an online competitor.

“Since my photography website was launched two years ago, the number of enquiries I have received has doubled. It’s a great way for me to showcase and promote what I can do in addition to my standard portfolio.”

Phil Lynch, Photographer

Here are the top four reasons SMEs are getting online today:

To provide a better service to customers. • • •

To promote their businesses more effec-tively to a wider audience.

• • •To improve and streamline their opera-tional efficiency.

• • •To save money and time updating their sales and marketing material.

Why should I get my business online?

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Before you create your website, it is a good idea to clearly define your ob-

jectives. The benefits of being accessible to your customers via the web are wide-ranging, whatever your product or serv-ice. Ideally, you should identify the areas of your business that your customers find most important, and tailor your site ac-cordingly.

The best advice is to start simply and build your online presence. It could be that your customers’ needs are best served by a rela-tively straightforward, information-driven site. Further down the line, it may be vi-able for you to actually sell your services and products online.

Here are some basic examples of what you can do to get started:

1. Using your own domain name for busi-ness email correspondence gives a pro-fessional impression and creates a com-pany brand, especially when also used on business cards and documentation, or in telephone and business directories like Thomson and Yellow Pages. Email is now becoming a standard form of communica-tion for most businesses, and your ability to deal with enquiries quickly and more efficiently online can give you an advan-tage over your competitors.

2. A “business card” style web site with basic contact details or better still, a “bro-chure” style site that has a number of pag-es showcasing your products and services, will give visitors a good idea whether your company can meet their needs before they even phone you.

3. An enquiries and order form can easily be set up on your site so that prospective customers can send and receive answers to their queries, or even place orders. Sim-ple encryption technology will ensure the protection of sensitive customer informa-tion.

TIP: It is worth visiting your competitors’ web-sites to see what they are offering and to ensure that your site is not lacking key elements.

What are the basics?

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Looking further the line, here are a few ways you can improve efficiency and

obtain added business benefits:

1. Email Marketing By retaining a database of existing cus-tomers’ addresses and allowing potential customers to register their interest, you can send out tailored emails. You can also expand your customer base by buying lists that include target customers and email-ing them about your products, services, promotions and news. Ensure that they have ‘opted-in’ or agreed to receive these services, otherwise you will be guilty of ‘spamming’ (the sending of unsolicited email).

2. Interactive CommunicationsA company newsletter is also an excel-lent way to build customer relationships and generate sales, not to mention website traffic. The key to success here is to re-member that relevant content is vital. You will need to make a commitment to pub-lish it regularly, offer information of value, and realise that it’s going to take time and effort to do it well. You can also make your website interactive, with competi-tions, surveys or customer polls to keep people coming back.

3. Find New MarketsWhat’s the use of having a website if no one knows about it? Once you’ve launched your site, you have to market it effectively to reap the business benefits.

When starting out, a quick and easy way to promote your site is to submit it to popular search engines. Ideally you also need to ‘optimise’ your website so that it is search engine friendly (professional advice is recommended here). A faster route to the top of the search engine results pages is to be found through the Pay Per Click Listings that organisations such as Google and Overture offer. Search results are or-dered by the amount an advertiser bids for any given keyword. This is the most imme-diate way of achieving high search rank-ing for products or services that you offer, and costs can be easily monitored. Bear in mind, however, that the more competitive your product sector is, the more expensive the bidding process will be.

Another very effective method of finding new markets is through joining an affiliate marketing programme. As as advertiser, you pay referring websites (publishers) a referral ‘commission’ for sending visitors to your site (the advertiser). The proc-ess is managed and vetted by the affiliate programme organisers. These are quick to

How can I take my online business further?

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set up, deliver good levels of traffic, and you can opt to pay commissions based on clicks, leads generated, or only on actual sales.

4. Create a revenue stream: e-commerceAlthough many website owners are happy for their site to be a highly effective com-munications tool, some will see the op-portunity for it to become a fully-fledged business. This is where e-commerce comes in. E-commerce is the most stra-tegic aspect of any website, so it’s worth getting it right from the outset. The cost is also much smaller than setting up a tra-ditional shop front business which means many more businesses can afford to try it.

Before purchasing an e-commerce system, there are a number of key considerations you need to be aware of:

- How will your customers want to shop?- What exactly is your product? - Who is your target audience? - How will they want to interact with your company, and how can your site enhance this interaction?- How do you want to deal with transactions, credit card payments, tax, postage, distribu-tion systems, and customer service?

Before you accept any orders, you’ll need to calculate tax, determine postage costs, and be able to securely process your cus-tomers’ preferred methods of payment.

If you wish to process credit card payments online you’ll need not only a Shopping Cart system, but also a Merchant Account at your bank, as well as a Payment Gate-way account (see glossary of terms). Help is at hand though as there are a number of software companies that have been hard at work over the past few years, making the e-commerce technology process as pain-less as possible. For more information, look at the following websites:

Shopping Cartswww.oscommerce.com

www.cart32.comwww.x-cart.com

www.actinic.co.uk

Payment Gatewayswww.paypal.com/ukwww.worldpay.co.uk

www.protx.comwww.epdq.com

How can I take my online business further? (cont.)

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There are 3 basic steps you need to take to get started:

Step 1. Choose a domain nameBefore you can launch a website or have your own email address you first have to register a domain name. Domain names are an essential tool for distinguishing your company from the competition. Se-lecting an appropriate name enables you to effectively promote your business on-line and can determine how easily visitors can locate your site.

Make your domain name clear, concise and memorable. Registering a name is easy and can be done through a registrar (the usual subscription term is two years). Even if you’re not ready to launch your site, it might be worth registering your do-main name before a similar business beats you to it.

Step 2. Build your websiteThere are three main ways of getting your website built, depending on how much control you want over the creative proc-ess:

• You can use a template site-building tool available from a hosting company that does not require you to know HTML coding. These web-based programs work

Tip: For domain names, watch out for “exit transfer fees” that some companies charge when you wish to leave that registrar or host. A seemingly cheap domain name can become very expensive.

on a simple ‘point & click’ principle and can produce effective results. You can also use off-the-shelf website design programs such as Microsoft FrontPage®, Adobe GoLive® or Macromedia Dreamweaver®.

• You can ‘script’ the site yourself by learn-ing to code HTML amongst other com-mon computer languages.

• You can employ a professional web de-signer to do the work for you.

If your budget allows, outsourcing the creation of your site is the best way to get a professional look and feel. If you choose this option, be sure that you have the abil-ity to maintain the site yourself once it is launched.

“Although our Financial Services’ company is still relatively new, we have been delighted with the response our web presence has generated. Setting up a site was very simple and customers now know about the services we offer. Well worth the invest-ment of time and money.”

Michael Gadsden, 4Independence

How can I get online?

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Step 3. Choose a web hostTo make your site available on the web you need to find a web hosting company. Your web host will be responsible for maintain-ing the hardware (the web servers that ‘serve’ the pages of your site) and network that your website is stored on. Here are examples of three key web hosting op-tions:

Entry Level hosting“Free” hosting is an option. However, there are no guarantees that your site con-tent will be secure or backed-up, or how often your website will be offline due to high traffic or a technical deficiency. Even on a cheap hosting plan, you may also be obliged to carry advertising from third parties. This will not look professional to your audience. If you want your site to be safe, consistently running and have your technical questions answered over the phone, but also wish to keep costs low, you should consider investing in a “entry level” plan.

Shared hosting The most common and least expensive form of hosting service entails your web-site being stored on the same web server as other companies’, thereby “sharing” re-sources. The lower cost of shared hosting reflects this compromise. A basic package

will offer e-mail services, the ability to up-load and maintain your content online, as well as a comprehensive set of administra-tion tools and options that are accessed via a control panel. You will have the ability to scale up the size of your hosting plan and have effective technical support via a helpdesk. Modern shared hosting solu-tions offer a good compromise between cost, flexibility and support for popular technologies.

Dedicated hostingIf the reliability of your website is vital to your business you need to give dedicated hosting serious consideration. Although the costs are higher, you are no longer sharing resources and it is less likely that your site will encounter the occasional dis-ruption that can affect a shared server. If you have larger than normal traffic, need more web space, or have software require-ments that can’t be accommodated on a shared hosting plan, this will also necessi-tate a dedicated solution. Additional ben-efits come in the form of increased speed and performance.

TIP: Every business is different and a hosting company will be able to talk you through the best options, including specialist support for features like video and audio streaming, data-base, application or e-commerce hosting.

How can I get online?(cont.)

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BandwidthCommonly misappropriated term used in hosting to refer to the amount of ‘traffic’ (see below) allowed per month, measured in gigabytes (Gb). Bandwidth should in fact be used to refer to the speed of your connection to the Internet.

Control PanelThis is an account management toolset that allows you to create, maintain and manage the features that come with your hosting account.

DNS (Domain Name System)Rather like a large phone book, the DNS is responsible for translating domain names into numeric IP addresses. When you type a domain name into a browser the DNS translates that ‘name’ into an IP number – this is the address the website is actually located at.

Domain NameThis is the unique label that identifies a specific website. Typically, domain names convey information about a site and are easier to remember than the associated numeric IP address. See DNS.

E-commerceThe term used to describe business trans-actions and communications conducted

over the Internet or through company networks. Common e-commerce trans-actions include the buying and selling of goods, banking and ordering services on-line.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)A method used to transfer files across the Internet. FTP is typically used to upload and download files between your own computer and the web server hosting your site.

IP address (Internet Protocol)An IP Address is a unique number as-signed to most web servers and other computers connected to the Internet. It’s used by DNS Servers (see above) to find out what server to send a Browser to when you’re typing in a domain name.

Merchant AccountA type of bank account that enables you to accept and process credit card payments online. Merchant accounts handle fraud checks on each transaction and manage the transfer of funds from your custom-er’s credit cards to your bank account. You must have a merchant account in order to perform online credit card transactions. Additionally, you will need an online pay-ment gateway. In some cases, these are included with a merchant account.

Glossary

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Payment GatewayA payment gateway is a service that con-nects your online store with your mer-chant account provider. This service reads the information from the order forms and translates that information for the mer-chant account. The payment gateway also verifies that the customer’s credit card ac-count has the necessary credit available for the purchase.

RegistrarA company that has been certified to reg-ister domain names. There are a limited number of registrars permitted to access and modify the master database of domain names maintained by InterNic. A regis-trar is not the same as a web host, but it is possible for one company to be both.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)A method of ensuring that information submitted through your website is secure and cannot be accessed by unauthorized users. Information submitted via an SSL-secured form is transmitted in an encrypt-ed state.

StatisticsDetailed information regarding your web-site and its visitors, including the number of hits (unique or total), the source of those hits, the most frequently visited or exited

pages and the amount of data transferred, as well as other key visitor information.

TrafficEach time visitors access a web page, im-age, audio, video or other elements of your site, traffic is generated. Your aggregate traffic is the sum of all outward-bound and inward-bound data transfer, including FTP traffic (but not usually email).

Web SpaceWeb space, or disk space, is the amount of allocated file storage you are given on the server. You use this space to store files, web pages, databases and graphics. Web space is always measured in MB (mega-bytes).

Glossary(cont.)

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Choosing a web host needn’t be a minefield - use this checklist as a sensible guide.

1. Check the history of the hosting organ-isation – is the company financially stable, how long has it been trading?

2. Do your research – check independent websites for reviews such as uk.tophosts.com and hostindex.com. If a company is consistently at the top of the list, it is likely to be more stable and reliable.

3. Don’t judge only on price, judge on val-ue for money, including service.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Good hosting companies should understand your concerns and be prepared to discuss your needs with you.

5. Think long-term - choose a host that will be able to service your additional re-quirements as your website grows. This means the ability to upgrade to a more so-phisticated level of service easily.

6. Always check the small print and make sure you are not contracted for any fixed period and that there are no leaving or transfer fees.

7. Pick a company that allows you to trial

its services and test the system, features and reliability over a given period.

8. Your website is an investment. The worst impression it is possible to give your visitors or potential customers is that you are “offline”. Hosting is not a simple commodity but with research you should be able to find the most reliable hosting solution for your allocated budget.

“We are dependent on high quality, reliable host-ing for our web applications and realised early on that dedicated hosting was the only solution for our business. We formed a strategic partnership with a company we could trust that was flexible in its working approach and could provide a high-qual-ity level of service to our customers.”

Marcus Pullen, Aspin Interactive.

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