The hosts most often use pre developed website templates such as WordPress or Druple. 
This is great for most websites because there is a lot of functionality in these pre developed sites and there are regular updates.
The website hosts which provide such services will also generally provide a range of potential designs for the look of the site making it easy to customise your site and keep it looking professional.
Use this service to help you get the basic website up and running. From there all you need to think about is your content to attract users and search engines, your marketing, your sales process and how you will accept payments through your site.

Here are the skills that you do need in order to start an online business:

Logic
Think of how your website user would buy your product or service. So logic plays a role in constructing the site to work easily and effectively.

Reading
Keep abreast of things happening in your field. Therefore the ability to recognise quality reading material and reading it fast will come in handy.

Research
Website owners need to check on trends and use them to aid their marketing. They also need to find interesting topics for articles and newsletters for their target market.

Writing
Well written content is far more attractive than badly written, badly researched content. Being able to write well will see you far.

Connecting
The World Wide Web is a community. Social services like Twitter and FaceBook have made it even more so. Building a community around your site it vital for all online business owners.

Creativity
Stay two steps ahead of the competition by being creative. It is the only way to keep the edge.

Quick learner
The ability to learn new marketing techniques, website ideas and processes will help you build a successful online business that can make money. Without the ability to learn new things, you will be stuck relying on others to do everything for you.

These are the eight fundamental skills which you need to be successful in your own online business.

1 Have a call to action such as a buy now button.

2 Sell the benefits of the product or service to the user.

3 Use phrases which people search for in your headings.

4 Use good grammar and spelling.

5 Do enough research to make it as interesting as possible. Don’t just copy what everyone else is doing.

1 pick a name

Choose a name which you think describes your website. Don’t get too stuck on a name, though because it is difficult to get a domain name.

2 go online

Go to a website where you can buy a domain name and check if it is available. The chances are that it won’t be, so don’t get despondent.

You can check if it is available on your website host’s site.

Now try alternatives until you find a name you like.

3 buy it

It is often easier to buy your domain name through the company where you will be hosting your site. So do some research and choose a host before you buy the domain name.

Understanding the job

Before we delve into the various types of webmasters, let’s look at the job itself. Typically a webmaster would do the following:

• Dealing with website enquiries, whether that means forwarding them to relevant people or answering them. (daily task)
• Looking at the statistics for the month to see how many users were on the site, how many pages they visited and how they found the site. These statistics are then used to promote the site better and target the audience more. (monthly task)
• Creating and uploading content to the site. This will be the most time consuming of their tasks as you should put up a new article at least once a week, although with a dedicated webmaster you can do at least three a week. (daily task)
• Test the site for any errors and deal with problems which do occur. (daily task)
• Market the site online. This may include posting comments on blogs, being on social media sites or updating information in online directories. (daily task) Take a look at this article to give you an idea of the types of marketing that your webmaster will have to do.

Types of webmasters

Some webmasters are writers with a little technical knowledge, some are marketing people and others are developers. The type of person you hire really depends on what you want to achieve with your website.

Marketer

Marketing people make great webmasters for sites which need to be actively seen online. If your company is dependant on social media as part of its brand building then hire a marketing inclined person.

Writer

If your website is reliant on getting traffic by having great articles with lots of keywords then you may want to hire someone who has the ability to write.

Developer

Hire a developer as your webmaster, if your site is an html site which needs development every time something is changed or added or if you want continual development to the site.

Tip: Developers generally make terrible webmasters because they do not have a good grasp of language or marketing. Whereas writers can be taught enough about marketing to and marketers can be taught enough about writing to make them good webmasters.

Other traits to look for

Apart from core skills there are some other things which all webmaster should have these are:

• Meticulousness. Your webmaster needs to be able to check spelling and grammar before he posts something on the website. He also needs to check everything he makes live in multiple browsers. This can become time consuming and frustrating, so you need to hire someone who is capable of doing tedious, repetitive work properly.
• The ability to strategise. Your webmaster must be able to find the sites where your users are and put strategies in place to get them to your site. This requires that he understands what your site can offer them.
• Ability to use language well. Often webmasters will deal with online clients, so hire someone who has the ability to write a decent letter.

Knowledge needed

A website can only be truly successful if there is a good understanding of:

• your target market. This leads to a good understanding of what will and won’t work online allowing you to maximize your return on investment for online marketing.
• the company, products and services on offer. You can only be well represented online if your webmaster has a thorough knowledge of what you are offering the public.

Alternatives to hiring in-house

The internet is constantly changing. There are constantly changes from the way your site should be coded to new methods of interacting with the clients online.

It can become a costly exercise to keep up to date with all of these changes, so you might want o look at outsourcing your website maintenance to an outside company.

Another benefit to outsourcing is that you can find a company which provides marketing and writing services by specialists. You may even be able to find a company with in-house developers who can help if a problem occurs.

Tip: If you do outsource the maintenance then get a contract which clearly states what maintenance is involved.

In order to come up with a good system you should look at three things, where the contact comes from, how do you monitor the contacts and what do you do with the information?

Where do the contact comes from?

Typically, businesses get customer contact from several sources. Some of the most common are: Phone calls, feedback from staff, the company website and customer service surveys.

Start off by tracking down everywhere you get customer feedback from. This will ensure that your system caters for all the areas it needs to.

Find out exactly what information is currently provided. For example, your website might have a form which gets filled out online and emailed to your company, the information on this form is probably different to the information which you may have on a complaints form which is printed out and filled out at reception.

Once you have gathered all of the questionnaires you can start to weed out the unnecessary information, such as duplicates.

Now you can categorize the questions so that you have certain questions for certain scenarios. For example, a set of questions for problems, a set of questions for compliments and a series of answers to frequently asked questions.

How do you monitor the contacts?

Once all of your information is sorted you can start to put a system in place that can help you monitor and control your customer contacts.

Tip: If you have a website which is a large source of contacts, then make sure that your system is compatible with your website so that the website automatically populates the system.

The first step is to think about the process which you want your customers to experience. For example, who will deal with complaints and who will deal with queries? Ideally this should be a single person, so that switchboard knows exactly who to put the client through to.

Next you will want to think about the process which should be followed. For example, a client phones in wanting to complain about a fault in his product. From there the person who handles the complaints should send a replacement product to the person. In this case your staff member would get a product code and address from the person and send a replacement.

However, it is not always this simple, sometimes a team needs to be dispatched in order to review the products fault before a replacement can be sent. In this case your staff member would get the person’s address and book a time for the team to come out. This means that the person will need access to the booking system for the dispatch team.

So think through each step of the process as you plan the system. The better equipped you are in terms of planning, the easier it will be for you to get the right system in place.

Tip: If you have a small office and you don’t want to spend a lot of money then you can create a clever system using just spreadsheets. There are professionals who can do amazing things with spreadsheets which alleviates the need for exorbitantly priced systems.

What do you do with the information?

Decide what you want to do with the information which you have collected. For example, queries and complaints need to be dealt with immediately, so put a person in charge of doing so.

The same person can then collect the information and give management a monthly report of the types of problems and queries which were received. This will allow you to prevent repeat problems and see trends.

Tip: Make sure that your system allows for easy categorization of each contact. This will make it easier to manage. Also have a section which allows for notes, so that you can see who did what on each contact.

Once implemented, you will most likely need to make some minor adjustments in order to get it running perfectly so allow some time for testing. Also put someone in charge of managing the project if you are too busy to do so yourself. Having a champion for the system is the only way which it will get done and not put onto the back burner.

While some traditional elements of marketing may apply to the online platform, the differences between online and traditional marketing demand that new factors are considered in the planning process.

To help you market yourself online Succeed has put together a five step online marketing plan.

Niche

When a customer reads a headline in an advert they need to feel an instant recognition that you are speaking to them.

When marketers target too wide an audience this is not possible and so the effectiveness of the advert suffers.

Tip: Niche markets do not have to be small, they only need to be focused. This means that while the general market could be accountants the niche market could be accountants which specialize in SMEs.

To identify a niche market you need to identify what your perfect customer would be. Ask yourself what motivates them to buy.

Through understanding customer motivation you are able to create product or services that help to solve these problems.

Tip: As a general rule the problems that take up most of the customer’s time and cause the most amount of pain are the ones that will get the most attention.

The next step in finding the perfect customer is to understand what they expect you to do for them. Understanding what is expected makes it possible to over deliver which in turn creates a better customer experience. This leads to word of mouth promotion.

The final step in finding the perfect customer is to discover how they prefer to consumer information, for example audio, newsletters, websites or video. Once you have identified your customer you can use this information to target your bigger audience.

The business benefits of using niche markets online is that focusing your target will allow you to use cheaper keywords. In turn your traffic will be more targeted and your visibility to the right audience increases.

Brand

The positioning of a brand in the consumers mind is important. Create your brand’s positioning by identifying the features and benefits of your product or service.

When doing this, ensure that the concepts already exist in your customers heads and that they are simple concepts which highlights the benefits of the product or service.

Develop your positioning by asking yourself these questions:

• Am I the biggest player in the market? If you do not occupy this positioning then look at another important metric which sets you apart. For example the only tyre brand that repairs damages for free.
• Am I first? Products that are this first in the market to address a need will usually be dominant in the market. In a crowded market place you might need to create another area that you are first in, for example the first tyre brand to replace tyres under six months old for free.
• Am I the only one in my category? Define a category to create a unique space for your brand, this can be done in simple but meaningful way for consumers. For example, the only tyre brand that repairs damages for free.
• Do I have credentials? If you are certified or your product is approved by a prestigious agency then you can promote the credibility of your brand, making it stand out in the consumers mind. For example, the preferred tyre brand used by paramedics.
• Are the differences quantifiable?  If you are able to measure the benefit then let your customers know, but remember to link this to an emotional benefit. For example your tyres last 50% longer which means your customer save money for something they actually want.
• Can I redefine the product category? Create a unique position through changing the way consumers use your category. For example, our tyres are green. We recycle all used tyres.

Story & Content

New media and blogs have created an expectation among customers to receive content in an entertaining way.

Using storytelling in communications with customers means that you are able to create an emotional connection. You can also show how your product works. This makes it easier to persuade a customer buy.

Successful websites reflect their customer’s needs with the content that they publish. Good online content is able to educate and sell to customers.

Content needs to be strategy driven by answering to an objective. Make use of a variety of different types of content to persuade customers to buy. The right kind of content showed to the right customer can dramatically impact on closing the sales.

Tip: Customers are more likely to watch an online video to the end than to read a full online article. This means that you can engage your customers through and have a better chance of closing a sale.

Search

Keywords are words that customers use to find you on the internet. These words are used by search engines to direct customers to your website, if the search engines cannot find you, then your customers won’t either.

Search engine results can be divided into two categories, organic and pay-per-click. Organic search results are ranked according to the website’s relevance. Pay-per-click results are adverts which people pay for.

Create a list of relevant key words by doing the following:

• Write down your company name, product names and any words that relate to your products
• Next, analyse the list you have create to find real searches that people will use. You can test your list by using a keyword suggestion tool. This will show if the guesses you made on your original list are right or if they need to be adapted.
• Identify your niche words and phrase. For example, if you are targeting book lovers you might want to try the keywords: female researcher, teenage girl book and female action hero on your list.
• Relook at your list and ensure that the keywords and phrases are relevant to your business.

Now you can put your keywords to work. Use your keywords in these places:

• Keyword meta tag: ask your web developer to include your list of keywords in this meta tag. This is what search engines first read when the visit your website to determine how to categorize and rank your site.
• Description meta tag: This is the description that appears when a search engine displays your website on the results page. Use your most important keyword or phrase create a short description of your brand and its benefits.
• Content: When creating content for your website be sure to make use of relevant keywords. However, use them as part of proper sentences, not just a list of keywords.
• Pay-per-click adverts: Use your list to choose keywords to pay for.

Tactics

Blogging and social networking are tactics that are becoming well used by entrepreneurs to network and communicate with customers. But don’t forget the other ways that you can market while giving customers what they want.

YouTube has increased the popularity of online video beyond what any experts would have expected. Besides entertainment, online video has some serious business applications. \

Video can be used to demonstrate products, give tutorials and even to start conversations with your customers.

Another popular tactic is the use of podcasts. These can be likened to downloadable talk radio shows. Podcasts are a great way to communicate with people who are on the move but who have access to their MP3 players and like to consume content as the work.

Videos and podcast can be made cheaply by anyone with a digital video camera and a microphone.

For online video tips visit www.webvideouniversity.com

Email signatures are prime real-estate to market your products and services. Keep in mind to always link back to your website.

Newsletters are a good way to communicate frequently with customers, remember to include valuable content along with your sales messages.

White papers are detailed reports or eBooks that are good for companies with long sales cycles as they help to inform and persuade customers.

Product catalogue

First you need to consider the products that you are going to sell and how you are going to present them to your audience.

You want to have a website with a good product description and pictures. You should also be upfront about price and how shipping works.

Tip: Have the ability for people to rate your products and put a description of their experience. People are far more likely to trust the opinion of others than what you tell them.

Shipping

Once you know what you are going to sell, think about how you will ship the goods. Also consider how much to charge for shipping and whether you will use the post office or couriers. The post office is cheaper but far less reliable.

You also need to factor in changes in costs and add systems for updating your website when there are such changes.

Note: Make a plan for what you will do when you are lucky enough to have a lot of sales but you don’t have enough help packaging and shipping the goods. Will you be making enough money to hire some help?

Returns

In all ecommerce businesses there is a measure of returns. Either the product has not arrived or the product was damaged. Work out how you will handle the returns and what your policies are going to be.

You could have the amazon.com approach where you pay for people to return the goods to you while the replacement is shipped. This leaves a great feeling of customer service.

Or you could have the kalahri.net approach, where it is up the users to send back the goods at their own cost and once the goods are received then the replacement is processed. This could bring about problems if people require the goods for a deadline of some kind.

Either way, make your returns policy clear on all your invoices and on your website.

Tip: Set a period of time in which a customer can return the goods. And add extra package protection if you find that a lot of goods are returned as a result of shipping damage.

Payment gateway

You will need to set up a payment system with your bank. You might want to investigate what the different banks charge for such facilities because certain banks will charge service fees and a small percentage of each sale while others charge a larger percentage with no service fees.

Setting up a payment system is fairly simple. All you need to do is call the bank and tell them that you want to set up the payment gateway. They will ask you a bunch of questions or you will have to fill out some forms. Then your website developer will set up the rest from their side.

Tip: Check what forms of payment you can use with your payment gateway, some do not accept debit cards or EFT’s others do.

Security

Make sure that your payment system uses proper internet security. The last thing you want is for your client’s information to be used by someone else.

Also make sure that your clients can contact you should they need to report a stolen credit card number that was used after they made a purchase on your site.

Marketing

This is a vital part of making your e-commerce site successful. You must have a marketing strategy both online and offline to boost the visitors to your site.

You also need to have a good convergence strategy to help you turn these visitors into buyers.

Tip: put your website address on every piece of correspondence that you send out, make sure it is on your business card and include a good reason for people to visit your site.

Alternatives to your own e-commerce site

Instead of selling all the goods through your own site you could look at selling your goods through a site like Kalahari.net or amazon.com.

Tip: There are many online shops in the world, but do your research properly and note that Paypal doesn’t work with South African banks, so it is no use trying to do business with a site that will only pay you into your Paypal account.

The company took this research and created a campaign to educate their customers. This strategy led to greater customer retention and an increase in units sold.

Why would you want a blog?

Blogs are an effective way of setting yourself up as an expert in a particular field. They are a useful addition to any business person’s personal brand because it allows you to have a portal through which people can experience your expertise, without it costing them anything.

In other words, if you are a personal trainer you could set up a blog on health. You could talk about recipes that are healthy and exercises that work well. All the while you have a block on the side of your blog promoting your services.

Blogs are also content heavy which means that they are search engine friendly. As a result, blogs which are populated often will find their way up the search engine rankings faster than most websites.

Another good reason for having a blog is that more often than not people are looking for information or solutions when they are on the internet. For example, a person is looking for an accountant or financial tips. Either way a well structured blog will help him or her find an accounting blog.

Consumers are also less trusting of adverts than they are of information. If they can read your blog and see that you are not full of rubbish then they are more likely to give you their business.

Choosing a topic

Blogging is difficult if you do not have a specific topic to talk about. It is a good idea to decide what you want to be known for and start a blog on that topic. For example, an accountant could give financial advice and tips.

Research

Once you have chosen a topic, do not assume that you will be the only blog on the subject. There are probably hundreds already out there, as such you need to do a lot of research and stay up to date with ideas and information.

You might want to subscribe to some blogs on the subject. Careful about his, though, you do not want to end up with a blog that is similar to someone else. Rather maintain your own style and do research in books or websites.

Keywords

It is an excellent idea to make a list of keywords for your blog. These are key words or phrases that people are likely to type into a search engine.

To find these keywords you could type a search into Google and scroll to the bottom of the page. They will sometimes have similar phrases listed at the bottom. Make a list of all of these.

Now you use your keywords as headings for your blogs and you write on that subject.

Grammar and spelling

This is one of the most important parts to your blog. You must have good grammar and spelling for three main reasons.

1. Bad spelling will lead to less search results by the search engines.
2. Bad spelling and grammar will lead to people not taking you seriously and it could damage your reputation.
3. People are less likely to visit your blog again if you cannot write well.

As such use spell check when you write.

Writing tips

Start with a short sentence that gets right to the point. This will draw the reader in and make them want to keep reading.

Do not repeat yourself. If you have made a point then move on to the next point.

Do not write blogs that are more than 400 words long. The internet is about bite sized chunks of text. You also do not want to run out of topics after two long articles.

If your article is long put sub headings in to break it into manageable chunks. Make these meaningful and categorise similar subjects together.

Give people tips and hints. This will make you sound like an expert, especially if they are useful.

Make your headings meaningful. This will mean that people who skim read will get a good understanding of what is in your article.

Marketing your blog

Have a note at the bottom of your email which says, if you want information on (insert your topic here) then visit my blog on (insert address here)

Another way to promote your blog is through all your adverts.

Make sure you publish the link in all of your communications such as invoices, quotes, directories and even websites.

Put links to book marking and social media sites on your blog. These could include twitter, facebook and linkdin. If your blogging site does not automatically come with this then you might be able to download a plug in that allows you add this functionality.

Your about page is important. Make sure you use this effectively to market yourself as an expert.

Always add contact details to your blog. You want people to be able to contact you.

Tips for keeping sane

Blogging is difficult and time consuming. It is advised that you write at least two blogs a week if you wish to get good search engine rankings.

In order to stay sane you should schedule time in your diary to site and write. Then write several blogs at once. This will also allow you to add them to your blog and schedule them to be released twice a week.

Don’t get stressed about people stealing your content. This is a fact of life on the internet. All you can do is hope that people credit you.

Never give away trade secrets. There are certain topics which should remain mysterious to the consumer. This ensures that people still need to do business with you and that your competitors are not stealing all your ideas.

Never write anything straight onto your blog. Use word processing software that can pick up mistakes. Unfortunately blogging software works with a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) editor which does not spot mistakes in spelling or grammar.

Creating a blog is time consuming, but worth while. It is highly recommended for anyone who consults or needs to be seen as the market leader in a field. 

Be patient, though, blogs can take a few months to register well on search engines even with your marketing and constant posting.

One of the best things about blogs is that they are free. Go to www.wordpress.com or www.blogger.com and sign up today. We recommend wordpress because it is so user friendly and because of its many plugins, however some swear by blogger.