smallbusiness.co.uk: Helping your business think big

in association with Abbey

You really have two choices: either build your own website or set one up as an eBay Shop or a Yahoo Store.

Creating a website
To create your own website you’ll need a web address, a hosting service and a website. The DIY option is a little more complicated than paying an expert but you’ll have something that reflects what your company is about and in the process acquire valuable skills.

You could also find this the most cost effective route to getting your business online – the costs of building your own website can be as little as £500, although probably more if you want one that can be used for trading online.

Website design is offered both by small businesses and large agencies. Look in a local directory or search the web for someone in your region and make sure they know how to set up a website that supports trading.

Website address
There are many companies that sell web addresses, which is also known as your URL or domain name. They will normally cost anything from £3.00 to £25.00. Using your favourite search engine (such as Google, Yahoo or MSN) look for ‘buy web address’ to get a choice of companies listing and selling web addresses.

Setting up with eBay Shop or Yahoo Store
Both these companies provide easy to set up tools to get you up and running in no time. They also take care of your hosting. They can be a useful stepping stone to trading online.

Website hosting
For people to be able to visit your site at any time of day or night it has to be hosted (stored) on a computer permanently connected to the internet, called a web server.

To start with, most small businesses choose to pay a third party to host their site. Hosting is offered by a large number of companies and what they offer will vary dramatically in terms of technical support, features and space allowed. Don’t forget to ask if they’ll support online trading.

Online payment solutions
Ideally, you want to allow customers to pay online. As we’ve mentioned, this will offer your customers more convenience and allow you to reduce costs and improve cash flow.

There are many online payment solutions to choose from. The best one for your business will depend on online turnover, the average value of transactions as well as borrowing and overdraft rates.

Tip: Compare online payment solutions using the FREE Department of Trade and Industrytool at: www.electronic–payments.co.uk/costs_index.jsp

As a starting point it’s a good idea for small businesses to choose a low fixed cost and easy to use solution. Type in ‘online payments’ into your favourite search engine and see what results come back.

Online marketing
Once you’re able to offer your customers the ability to buy as well as browse, the final step is to make sure you’ve got enough visitors who want to buy.

The good news is that there are now many proven techniques and easy solutions for getting more customers to buy online from you more often.

Obviously the difficult part is rising above the crowd and differentiating yourself from your competition. This is where a well thought out internet marketing plan can help. Here are the main components of any good online marketing plan:

• Registering your site with search engines and directories
• Optimizing your site for search engines through using the right metatags (hidden information describing your site)
• Sponsoring search engine keywords
• Building a database of customer email addresses
• Sending email newsletters
• Buy online advertising space.

Tip: For more information and advice on trading online visit www.abbey.com/business and click on business advice:

Going online
Internet service providers
Designing your website
Marketing on the internet
Security and the internet.

Fact: 77 per cent of firms have a computer which is used for business and nine out of ten companies have access to the internet. One of the main benefits of the internet is that it offers small firms the opportunity to reach a much wider audience than before – and greater convenience when dealing with suppliers.
Mintel Small Business Banking – UK – Sept 04

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