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Effective Online Business:
Hosting, Marketing, and Management
Strategies
Workshop #I - Introduction
Presenters:
Kelly Burke – University of Hawaii at Hilo
Steven Parente – Aina Hawaiian Tropical Products
Supported by a USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and
Extension Service Grant through the University of Hawaii at Hilo and
College of Business and Economics Dean Dr. Marcia Sakai
Ecommerce and the Internet:
Introduction to Online Retail Overview
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The business case for e-commerce
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The Internet – how it works
Website hosting basics
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Alternatives, costs, services provided
Website development and design basics
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What is e-commerce?
Benefits
Some issues and options
Using a web host’s tools and resources
Website management basics
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Assessing site performance
Payment processing
Order processing and fulfillment
THE BUSINESS CASE FOR HAVING
A WEB SITE
E-Commerce Defined
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E-Commerce
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But that’s ‘narrow’
Internet offers more – E-Business includes
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“Buying, selling, or exchanging products, services,
and information via computer networks.” (Turban,
King, Lee and Viehland – 2004)
Servicing customers
Collaborating with business partners
Supporting electronic transactions within the firm
We mean the ‘broader’ definition here
E-Commerce Business Models
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There are 2 that are most prominent
Business to Business (B2B)
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Business to Consumer (B2C)
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Sells products and services to individuals
B2B is where most of the money is
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Selling products and services to customers who are
primarily other businesses
About 97%
B2C is the most well-known
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Amazon, eBay, etc.
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Forces Driving Online B2C Shopping
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Convenience – 75%
Cost – 38%
Context
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Opportunity to buy at right time and right place
For example: from my desk when I am thinking about –
or reminded about – that book.
* Dataquest, 2000
The Typical Online Customer
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Activity conducted online by % of Internet users
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Research a product before buying – 78%
Buy a product – 67%
Use a search engine – 84%
Source: Pew/Internet.org - 2005
The Typical Online Customer
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Percent of each group that browse online
Age:
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18-29 – 64%
30-49 – 56%
50-64 – 36%
65+ – 12%
Gender:
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Male – 69%
Female – 67%
Income
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Less than $30,000/yr – 49%
$30,000-$50,000 – 73%
$50,000-$75,000 – 87%
More than $75,000 – 93%
Source: Pew/Internet.org - 2005
The Typical Online Customer
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Completed online transactions: 10
Online sessions per week: 6
Unique sites visited per week: 6
Average surfing session: 31 minutes
Time per site per week: 32 minutes
Time online per week: 3 hours, 8 minutes
Source: Harris Interactive, Nielson Netratings
Why Have a Web Site:
Benefits of E-Commerce
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Increase sales
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Reduce costs
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Distributed market exposure
Target narrow segments
Create virtual communities which become targets
Sales inquiries
Price quotes
Product availability
Enhance product value
Benefits work both ways – selling or buying
But are these reason enough for YOU to own a
web site?
Why Have a Web Site:
Benefits of E-Commerce
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Well – of course – a not insignificant reason to
own a web site may be that:
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Your competitors are doing it
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In our survey of Big Island Flower Growers
(mostly small mom-and-pop businesses), 40%
of those responding (29 out of 74) say they
already have a web site
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Also – it’s just not that hard or costly to do
HOW THE INTERNET WORKS
How the Web Works:
Uniform Resource Locators
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Browsers differ in the way they are programmed
So if WWW is to be useful to many – we need
standard way to identify a resource
Example:
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http://www.hawaii.edu:2074/~kburke/course_info.html
URLs specify:
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communication method (protocol) – ex: http
host name – ex: www.hawaii.edu
connection ‘port’ on host – ex: 2074
path on web server to resource / page – ex:
course_info.html
How the Web Works:
The Internet Protocol (IP)
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TCP / IP protocol for communicating
IP addressing – every device on the Internet has
a different IP address
Network Information Center allocates address
blocks
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Class
Address
Network part
A
18.155.32.5
18
B
128.171.12.237
128.171
C
1 92.66.12.56
192.66.12
Host part
155.32.5
12.237
56
How the Web Works:
IP Addresses and Domain Names
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IP addresses are unfriendly
Assign a human readable name to IP addresses
Placed in a distributed, hierarchical, lookup system
In network of thousands of domain name severs (DNS)
Which map domain names to IP addresses
For example: 128.171.xxx.xxx = uhh.hawaii.edu
Domain
Top Level Domain
Organization Name
Organization Type
uhh.hawaii
.edu
How the Web Works:
Protocols and Infrastructure
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Messages versus Packets
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i.e., connection vs. connectionless
Web Server
HTTP
This Machine
Message (example: Page)
HTTP
TCP
Packet 3
Packet 2
Packet 1
TCP
IP
Packet
Packet
Packet
IP
Client
(Browser)
Web Server
Static
Commerce Server
(Storefront)
Dynamic
Pages
Pages
Pages
Pages
Product
Database
Shopping
Cart
Secure
Transaction
Server
WEB SITE HOSTING
Getting Started: Hosting Issues
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Hosting
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Understanding what “hosting” means and your
alternatives?
“Do-it-yourself” website services
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http://www.1and1.com
http://www.bigstep.com/
http://store.yahoo.com/
Getting Started: Hosting Issues
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Bandwidth
Capabilities and specifications
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Examine the features and functions provided by
different hosts
Example: Comparison of features at 1and1.com
Firewall system
Wireless delivery
Buy, rent, or lease
Maintenance, upgrade, and service of the
equipment
Getting Started: Web Hosting
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Identify what you have resources and time to
do
Identify what will be done “outside” the firm
Identify which external parties will be involved
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e.g., designer, ISP, web host? commerce provider?
Identify how you will assess their
performance
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Decision metrics – e.g., are they reliable?
On-going performance metrics – e.g., is their
“uptime” what they claim?
What is Involved in
Establishing a Web Site?
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Web site considerations
The services wanted
How much your company can
contribute to the site, from
manpower to electronic content
Time to design your site
Time to create and program
your site
Extra fees for software
development
Fees for off-the-shelf
applications tools
The size of the site
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Training requirements
Installation and server
maintenance
Programming
On corporate site hosting
vs. off-site
Secure Server for financial
transactions
Your bandwidth needs
Your server capacity needs
Location of your server at
the Web company or ISP
company location
WEB SITE DEVELOPMENT
Ecommerce and the Internet:
Basic Site Building
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First – your ‘Domain Name’
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Maybe I’d like to use “flowersbykelly.com”
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Check at Register.com to see if it’s available
10 Steps at Yahoo! to developing your site
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http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting/gstart.php
Demonstration in basic site construction
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Using Yahoo! SiteWizards
WEB SITE MANAGEMENT
Ecommerce and the Internet:
Basic Site Management Functions
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Example: Yahoo! Merchant Solutions
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Plans and features
Business Control Panel - Site manager
 Store editor
 Catalog manager
 Order / request processing
 Site statistics
 Order settings
 Promoting the site
On-line Transaction Completion
18%
Complete transaction
Do not complete transaction
82%
Source: A.T. Kearney, 2001
Reasons for Abandoning
On-line Purchases
Did not like returns policy
16
Had to make phone call
16
24
Could not specify product
Could not find product
40
Web site malfunction
42
Did not want to enter credit card details
46
Too much information required
52
0
20
40
Percent
Source: A.T. Kearney, 2001
60
Website Management Issues:
The Shopping Experience
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Industry research shows that up to 80 percent of
shoppers abandon shopping cart before completing
checkout
Techniques for minimizing shopping cart abandonment
rates:
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If the billing information is the same as the shipping information,
include a “Same as billing information” check box to
automatically fill in.
Show stock availability on the product page, so shoppers do not
have to wait until checkout to determine if a product is out of
stock.
Include a link back to product page from shopping cart, so
shoppers can easily go back to make sure they have selected the
right item.
Make it easy to change quantities or delete items from shopping
cart.
Make it easy to select or change product values in the shopping
cart (e.g., color, size).
Include a "Progress Indicator" (e.g., "Step 2 of 5") on each
checkout page (e.g., tabbed pages), so shoppers always know
where they are in the checkout process.
Adapted from Overture.com - 2005
Website Management Issues:
The Shopping Experience
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Techniques for minimizing shopping cart
abandonment rates (continued):
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Provide shipping costs early in the process, so shoppers are not
surprised during final checkout.
Include a prominent "Next Step" or "Continue with Checkout"
button on each checkout page, so shoppers do not get lost.
Keep all information on one screen on each checkout page, so
shoppers do not have to frequently scroll down.
If information is missing or filled out incorrectly during checkout,
give meaningful error message that clearly describes what needs
to be corrected.
If you intend to add your customers to a list for future e-mail
marketing (either from you or a third party), make sure your
customers know this and can easily opt out.
Make recommendations of additional items to buy based on what
is already in the shopping cart.
Adapted from Overture.com - 2005
Web Site Management:
Payment Processing
Web Site Management:
Payment Processing
Steps in Online Payment Processing
1.
Merchant submits credit card transaction to the Payment Gateway on behalf of a
customer via secure connection from a Web site.
2.
Payment Gateway receives the secure transaction information and passes it via a
secure connection to the Merchant Bank’s Processor.
3.
The Merchant Bank’s Processor submits the transaction to the Credit Card
Interchange (a network of financial entities that communicate to manage the
processing, clearing, and settlement of credit card transactions).
4.
Credit Card Interchange routes transaction to customer’s Credit Card Issuer.
5.
Credit Card Issuer approves / declines the transaction based on customer’s
available funds and passes transaction results, and if approved, the appropriate
funds, back through the Credit Card Interchange.
6.
Credit Card Interchange relays transaction results to Merchant Bank’s Processor.
7.
Merchant Bank’s Processor relays transaction results to Payment Gateway.
8.
Payment Gateway stores transaction results and sends them to customer and/or
merchant.
9.
Credit Card Interchange passes appropriate funds for the transaction to Merchant’s
Bank, which then deposits funds into the merchant’s bank account.
Web Site Management:
Payment Processing
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Some things to keep in mind:
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The merchant needs a special Internet Merchant
Account
The merchant needs to arrange for service through an
Internet entity called a Payment Gateway
The merchant needs to submit charges for settlement –
daily or weekly
Merchant’s sign-up process at VeriSign.com
Web Site Management:
Order Processing and Fulfillment
Web Site Management:
Steps in Order Processing and Fulfillment
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Order validated
Settlement of order payment
Customer notified
Items picked
Inventory updated
Items packed (with packing slip)
Shipping labels prepared
Shipper pickup arranged
Shipper picks up
Send shipping confirmation (with tracking
number) to customer
Web Site Management:
Order Processing and Fulfillment
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Merchant has to be notified or become aware
that an order has been placed
One reliable person should be made
responsible for checking / processing orders
It should become part of their ‘job description’
What mode of informing?
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Email?
Manual check of the site?
How frequently / often will the person check /
process?
Web Site Management:
Order Processing and Fulfillment
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Customer has to be notified of order
confirmation
Method – email, phone?
Confirmation of stage in process
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Order placed
Charge assessed to card
Order shipped
Web Site Management:
Order Processing and Fulfillment
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Packaging
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Fulfillment
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Effective AND attractive
Track inventory accurately
Make sure you have enough product
Indicate availability on web site – database inventory
Shipping
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Vendor(s) and methods
Rates – how much and how assessed
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included in price, flat rate, by weight, by number of items
Shipment tracking
Shipment status updates
Remember - foreign shipping may require additional paperwork
Product guarantees and returns
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Post a visible policy with explicit instructions
Handle returns quickly
WEB SITE
PLANNING / OPERATING
CHECKLISTS
AND
OTHER RESOURCES
Website Planning / Operating Checklist
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Have you carefully analyzed your market and competition?
Do you know who your target audience is, and is your website speaking to
them?
Do your prices include a realistic margin for profit when all expenses are
subtracted including shipping, customer service and advertising
Are your prices competitive with similar online businesses?
Are your site’s objectives and purpose clear?
Are your products or services clearly identified?
Are the competitive advantages of your products or services clearly stated?
Do you have a business plan? Have you planned 1, 3 and 5 years out?
Will your website ever make money?
Does your staff clearly understand their organizational duties and who is in
charge?
How is your company’s hierarchy and decision process handled?
Is there a clear path from R&D to sales? How quickly can your company initiate
innovative ideas and products and have them online?
Is your website’s architecture well designed and easy to navigate?
Is your shopping cart easy to use? Is it secure?
Is your electronic infrastructure set up efficiently?
Do your website, product database, shipping, inventory, accounting, e-mail and
customer database integrate well with each other?
Is your database the hub?
Do you have good statistical analysis software in place to track visitor and
customer information?
Website Planning / Operating Checklist
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Does your website have a professional appearance when compared to your
competition?
Is your text well written, concise and free of errors?
Do you change your website frequently to make it ‘fresh’?
Are your photos high quality and well lit?
Are your graphics and photos optimized for the web?
Do they represent your products well?
Do you have click-to-enlarge photos of your products?
Does your website load quickly?
Is your software working well between inventory, fulfillment, shipping, customer
service and accounting?
Do you have a merchant credit card processing account?
Have you decided on transaction policies, types of transactions, privacy policies,
secure data storage for customer data?
Does your staff know what to do in every situation?
Are you able to fulfill orders quickly?
Do you respond quickly to customer e-mail questions and service issues?
Do you have a toll-free telephone number and can customers easily find someone
to talk to?
Do you or the person responsible for your website and marketing have intimate
knowledge of the internet?
How many hours per day is spent online?
Do you purchase, conduct business and research online yourself?
Are you watching for online trends and emerging technologies?
Do you know if streaming media or other interactive technologies are beneficial for
your website?
Other Online Resources
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A lot of small business related information AllBusiness.com
Universal online payment processing –
PayPal.com
Online payment processing and transaction
security – VeriSign.com
Ecommerce and the Internet: Conclusion
We Talked About:
 What is e-commerce and why do it?
 The Internet
 Website hosting basics
 Website development and design basics
 Website management basics
Now You Should:
 Go Out and Explore Some Web Site Options
 Maybe Even Start a Web Site
In The Next Workshop We’ll Talk About:
 How To Effectively Market Your Site
 Online Exchanges and Co-operatives
Effective Online
Business:
Hosting, Marketing, and
Management Strategies
Workshop #2
Presenters:
Kelly Burke – University of Hawaii at Hilo
Steven Parente – Aina Hawaiian Tropical Products
Supported by a USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service Grant
through the University of Hawaii at Hilo and Dr. Marcia Sakai
Effective Online Business Marketing
and Management Strategies
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Marketing your Internet business
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Monitoring your site’s performance
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Extending business opportunities - online
exchanges / cooperatives
Website Marketing
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Excellent customer service
 Word of mouth is the best form of advertising
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Plan a realistic monthly marketing and advertising budget
 Search engines
 Directories
 Traditional off-line media
Website Marketing
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Domain name should suggest your service or products
 Ex: FlowersByKelly.com or flowers-by-kelly.com
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not kelly.com
The text in your website is critical to marketing
 Descriptive, accurate, concise
 Include keywords – more than once – but not too
often
Website Marketing: Three Objectives
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Increase Presence  Optimize
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Drive Traffic  Publicize
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Convert Visitors  Monetize
Website Marketing
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Find out if your site is indexed
 Pages in cache
 At Google  cache:http://your-domain.com
 Ex: cache:http://primal-elements.com - nothing?
 Ex: cache:http://www.primalelements.com
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Number of pages indexed in domain
 At Google or Yahoo!  site:your-domain.com
 At Google site:www.uhhiloagstore.com
 At Yahoo! site:www.uhhiloagstore.com
Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing
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Combination of:
 Your site’s pages (content)
+
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Bid for placement advertising
Sponsored results at search engine sites
 Ex: search Google for “bath soap”
Search Engine Marketing:
Basic Design
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Most search engines use weighted point systems to
display results in a ranked order
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Ranking is result of page “grade”
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Grade = title + description + keywords + H1 tags +
links-into + ‘alt’ descriptions + number of images +
page size
Use a tool at Summit Media to analyze your site
 http://tools.summitmedia.co.uk/spider
Search Engine Marketing:
Basic Design
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It’s all about ‘descriptive content’
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Limit use of multimedia
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Limit use of graphics
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Use long descriptive ‘link’ text
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Ex: Here you will find a listing of all of the courses
Dr. Burke teaches.
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Spell check and edit
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Make it easy to move around the site
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Avoid frames
Search Engine Marketing:
Optimization
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Use a descriptive ‘Title’
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No more than 40 characters including spaces
Include keyword in title
Ex: Flowers-by-Kelly Home Page – Orchids for all
occasions
Use meta-tags
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Description meta-tag – should
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Be no more than 190 characters long
Include keywords
Be factual and accurate
Include general product information
Include information about target audience
Not include slang, exaggeration, or hyperbole
Keywords meta-tag
Header ‘H1’ tags
Search Engine Marketing:
Optimization Using Meta Tags
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Title Tag
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Description Tag
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<META NAME = “keywords” CONTENT = “mountain, bike, bikes,
Cannondale, Trek, Specialized, components, gear, frames”>
Header Tag
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<META NAME = “description” CONTENT = “Sore Okole Mountain
Bikes is the place for all of your biking needs, including frames,
components, accessories, gear and popular brands like
Cannondale, Trek and Specialized”>
Keywords Tag
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<title>Sore Okole Mountain Bikes - Home Page</title>
<h1> Sore Okole Mountain Bicycles </h1>
Example of HTML source at Sore Okole Bicylcles
Search Engine Marketing: Bid
for Placement and Keywords
Search Engine Marketing:
Bid for Placement - PPC Advertising
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Register with PPC system (search engine)
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Load account
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Create an advertisement
 Title, body text, link to ‘landing’ page
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Choose keywords to associate with the ad
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For each keyword you associate - bid amount you are
willing to pay for each click for the ad
Search Engine Marketing:
Keywords
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How they work
Keyword analysis
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Keyword rank = meta tag placement + capitalization + font
size + word position in document relative to other words
Identify competitors’ keywords
Look up synonyms
 Bicycle and bike
Consider plurals and spelling mistakes
 Bicycles and bicycels
Research the use of the keyword
 Yahoo! Advertiser Center  Tools  Term Suggestion
 Type in search term
Search Engine Marketing:
Keywords
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Keywords should attract visitors in all three stages of
the buying cycle
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Researching
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Shopping (comparing)
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General keywords  mountain bikes
More focused  cross country mountain bikes
Purchasing
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Specific choices  Specialized Rockhopper (a
brand of cross-country mountain bike)
Search Engine Marketing:
Keywords
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Many sites will have to manage dozens and even
hundreds of keywords
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Every keyword should ‘land’ the visitor at the most
relevant page for that keyword
 Example: ‘Trek’ should land visitor on a page with
Trek bikes - not on the site’s homepage
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Keywords may have to change to reflect ‘seasonality’
Search Engine Marketing:
Keywords
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Matching
 Broad
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Phrase
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“Mountain bikes” – only when search contains this
phrase
Could be in a search for “used mountain bikes”
Exact
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Mountain bikes – whenever search contains these
words
[downhill mountain bikes] – only when search specifies
this exact order of words
Would not show for search of “mountain bikes
downhill”
Negative
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-Used – does not show when this word or phrase is
used by someone looking for used bikes
Search Engine Marketing:
Keyword Tools
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www.Adwords.Google.com
www.Wordtracker.com
 Searches data at large web-crawlers like
www.Dogpile.com
 Stores two months of searches – 300 million searches
 Number of times searched for in last 60 days
 Estimates number of searches per day
 Similar terms & common misspellings
 Comparison of number of times term is searched for
and number of pages returned for the term
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Look for term with many searches and few pages
returned
Search Engine Marketing:
Valuing PPC Search Terms
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Determine how much gross profit (after costs) you make per
sale
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Calculate ‘conversion’ rate
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Is there a ‘lifetime’ value per customer or
Do you value a customer as ‘one time’ only?
Shop.org estimates retail industry average at 2.4%
When possible use your own site statistics
Calculate PPC value – also called Conversion Cost
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If your gross profit is $10 per sale
And your conversion rate is 4% (4 sales per 100 click-throughs)
Then your PPC value is $10 X .04 = $0.40 - that you would be willing
to pay per visitor (PPC)
In other words, you can pay $0.40 per click through and after 25 of
them you would have paid 25 X $0.40 = $10.00 but you’d expect 1 of
the 25 visitors (4%) to buy something - giving you that $10.00 gross
profit, covering your PPC costs
Search Engine Marketing:
Cross-linking and Other Issues
Search Engine Marketing:
Cross-linking
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Page Rank is increased by
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Cross-linking is also a form of ‘Branding’
Use linking strategies that enhance your website's position –
not detract from potential sales
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For instance, link from complementary products sites rather than
from similar products sites
Cross-linking sources:
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More links into your site
Links into your site from more relevant sites
Trade associations
Companies you do business with
Press releases and promotions
Have content people value (ex: history of lei making)
Contact relevant sites
The power of cross-linking
 Check link popularity - for ex: at AltaVista.com link:flowersbykelly.com
Search Engine Marketing:
What Search Engines Don’t Like
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Don’t search or find it difficult to search when they see:
 Frames, images, multimedia (ex: flash, animation),
image maps
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Scripts, excessive formatting code
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Call external scripts – don’t embed in source
Use external CSS files for formatting
Dynamic pages – too many parameters, too many
possible pages
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Avoid frames, images, animation unless necessary
Move images and image maps to bottom of page
Use static pages when possible
Use one or two parameters at most
Will not search sites that demand cookies for site
access
Search Engine Marketing:
Submit to the Major Engines
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AltaVista – www.altavista.com
AOL.COM Search – search.aol.com
Ask Jeeves – www.askjeeves.com
Google – www.google.com
Overture – www.overture.com
Excite – www.excite.com
Fast – www.alltheweb.com
HotBot – www.hotbot.com
Lycos – www.lycos.com
MSN Search – search.msn.com
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Don’t forget Froogle – www.froogle.com
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Search Directory Marketing
Search Directory Marketing
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Directories are different than engines
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Index by categories rather than keywords
 So – there are far fewer categories
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Why submit to directories?
 Another channel of exposure
 Each one is one more ‘link into’ your site – remember
cross-linking
Search Directory Marketing
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Major directories are
 Google Directory – fed by Open Directory Project
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Yahoo! Directory
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Fourteen categories – thousands of subcategories
So may be difficult choosing a category to be listed in
Submitting costs $$$
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Open Directory Project – www.dmoz.com
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LookSmart – www.looksmart.com
Search Engine Marketing:
Webmaster SEO Resources
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Google’s webmaster pages
 http://www.Google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
 http://www.Google.com/webmasters/faq.html
Yahoo help
 http://help.Yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/index.html
Search Engine Watch
 http://www.SearchEngineWatch.com
Pandia Search Central
 http://www.Pandia.com
Open Directory Project
 http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching
Non-Search Engine Marketing:
Non-Search Engine Marketing
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Advertising banners
 Typical ad = 468 x 60 pixels (about 1” x 5”)
 Are they effective?
 Click through rates of 1 – 3 per thousand impressions
 Buying them
 Costs dropping – ~$20 for 1,000,000 impressions (banner.com)
 Link ‘exchanges’ – ex: flower sellers could partner with gift sellers or
gift-card sellers
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Remember - having link partners also looks good to search engines
Are they right for your products or services?
Banner strategies
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Banner should load quickly and have a ‘call to action’ – ex: “click
here for…”
Have inventory of 5-6 banners
Have them rotated every 5,000-10,000 impressions
Use multiple banner exchanges for different networks of targets
Look / negotiate for more ‘targeted’ exposures (they target using
‘keywords’ that you bid on)
Monitor click-throughs for each banner and from each exchange
Non-Search Engine Marketing
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Opt-in e-mail databases
 Promotions, e-mail marketing, direct mail marketing
 Build lists from store front, web site, catalogs
 Buy lists from list sellers
 Response rates higher than with banner ads – as
much as 5%-10%
 They are targeted
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Effectiveness of banner ads and email programs may be
considered as “Brand Building”
Non-Search Engine Marketing
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Affiliate programs and promotional partnerships
 Pay to have leads sent to you (pay per-click or persale)
 Ex: www.myaffiliateprogram.com
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Bonus point strategies can develop repeat business
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The importance of traditional advertising
 Print – can cost $2 - $3 per sale
 Radio, television – can cost $10 - $40 per sale
Website Marketing:
Follow-up Management Issues
Website Marketing:
Follow-up Management
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Collecting / analyzing visitor and customer data
 Discovering your customers’ patterns, wants and
desires
 Using software to analyze the data
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Ex: uhhiloagstore at Yahoo! Store
What to analyze
How often
ROI (Return On Investment) from advertising and
marketing
 Measuring advertising effectiveness
 What is your “Cost Per Conversion”?
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For example Google has a “Conversion Tracker” tool
Website Marketing Checklist
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Does your domain name make sense with your service or products?
Is the text in your website descriptive, concise and accurate?
Do you understand how search engines work and that most use a weighted point system to
display results?
Do you understand what bid-for-placement marketing is?
Do you understand what sponsored results are in the search engines?
Do you understand what cross-linking is?
Do you know linking strategies that enhance your website's position and do not detract from
potential sales?
Do you know that some past internet marketing techniques can actually get your website
penalized with the search engines?
Have you planned for a realistic monthly marketing and advertising budget?
Is online marketing such as advertising banners good for your products or services?
Would traditional advertising work with your online presence, such as print, radio and
television?
Have you considered creating an opt-in e-mail database for promotions, e-mail marketing and
direct mail marketing?
Are there promotional partnerships available for your products or services?
Do you have bonus point strategies in place to develop repeat customer traffic?
Do you have the software in place to collect and analyze visitor and customer data?
Do you analyze it regularly and learn your customer patterns, wants and desires?
Do you have a good ROI (Return On Investment) from your advertising and marketing? Do you
know how to tell?