Your Website

Get the Right Company Name
By January 17, 2014 0 Comments Read More →

Get the Right Company Name

Choosing the right company name, in the form of a web address (or root domain, as it’s often called) is essential for your online business. Your choice of web address should determine the legal company name that you register with your government, and not the other way around. Just as important as choosing the right […]

Set Up Your Website (1)
By December 12, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Set Up Your Website (1)

Website Basics When starting your first online store, it’s usually best to start simple and keep your costs low. It makes little sense to hire an expensive web designer – or to sign up for an eCommerce service with high monthly costs – until you’ve proven that you can sell your first products and keep […]

Choose How to Get Paid
By November 6, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Choose How to Get Paid

After you’ve decided on a shopping cart, you’ll need to choose a payment gateway (sometimes called a payment provider) that securely authorizes and charges customers’ payment cards, temporarily holds the funds in a merchant account that’s part of the service, and sends you the payments less transaction fees. Examples of payment gateways include PayPal, Authorize.net, Chase Paymentech, and Sage […]

Learn By Helping Others
By February 22, 2014 0 Comments Read More →

Learn By Helping Others

My first big break in the world of online business occurred long before I got my first product idea. It happened the day that I hired a home repairman from an ad on Craigslist. The repairman arrived at our home in very old vehicle, and it was clear from his car and his clothing that he […]

Posted in: Your Website
Register Online First
By January 8, 2014 0 Comments Read More →

Register Online First

If you’re going to own a web store, you’ll need a web address (often called a “root domain“) that will appear online in visitors’ search results, or when they type the name into their browser address bar. As discussed in my article about getting the right company name, your choice of web address is critical […]

Set Up Your Website (2)
By December 3, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Set Up Your Website (2)

Choose How to Set Up Your Website As outlined in the previous article about Website basics, your choices to set up a website often come down to using professional web development software or a content management system (CMS). The main alternatives include: 1. Use Professional Web Development Software Over the years I’ve met brilliant designers […]

Posted in: Your Website
Website Legal Stuff
By November 24, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Website Legal Stuff

Once you’ve decided how to set up your website, it’s a good idea to follow a few basic legal rules to help keep your business trouble-free. Most of these rules are based on common sense and good ethics – and there can be big financial reasons to follow these guidelines, too. The list below is by […]

Get the Right Shopping Cart
By November 15, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Get the Right Shopping Cart

Your shopping cart is software that allows visitors to select the items they want to purchase, calculates shipping and tax, and communicates the costs to your payment gateway so that customers are charged the correct fees. The shopping cart also provides reports to help you manage your inventory, keep your financial books, and perform other important tasks. […]

Posted in: Your Money, Your Website
Make Your Website Visible
By October 10, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Make Your Website Visible

Now that you’re ready to start selling online, it’s time to make your website visible to search engines like Google, Bing and the others. You can make your website visible through a combination of basic setup steps that announce your presence to the search engines, and search engine optimization (SEO) practices to follow each time […]

Look Bigger than You Are
By July 21, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Look Bigger than You Are

To be successful your online store needs to inspire confidence in each visitor. Since you’re probably starting as a one-person company, this really amounts to looking bigger than you are online. The challenge is for your website to show as much of a big-company image as possible, while keeping starting costs low. Fortunately you can […]