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Grow (Your Business) Online
This page and the attached links are dedicated to helping small business owners assess their current web presence and expand the internet side of their busiensses.
eBusiness Connection Case Study
As a companion to this webpage, we have provided links to our eBC case study from appropriate sections of Grow Online. This case study will give you an example of how these concepts can be implemented by looking at what eBC has done in order to grow online.
Important Questions
If you have a website for your small business and you would like to take it to the next level, take a look at the following questions. If you don't know the answer to one of them, or you want to improve that particular aspect of your website, click on the question to find out more information.
Assessment
Do you know if your website is working?
Do you know your audience?
Do you know if your website is easy to use?
Analytics
Do you know where your clients are coming from?
Do you know where your server logs are?
Do you know the difference between a Hit, Visit, and Clickthrough?
Marketing
Do you do any internet marketing?
Do you monitor your Search Engine Optimization?
Do you need new venus with which to sell your products?
Do you need better methods to communicate with your customers?
Tools & Technologies
Do you need cost effective technologies to develop online?
Do you need to add an ecommerce (ie. Shopping Cart) tool?
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- It is not uncommon for business owners to design a website from their own perspective not their clients.
- Knowing your audience is key to any marketing campaign your business launches, including webpages.
- There are several methods that you can use to evaluate the usefulness of your website.
Website Accessibility
For most of us, the Internet is proving itself to be a valuable tool in our ‘I need it now’, information-based world; we are fast becoming tied to it for learning, entertainment and communication. But, for those with accessibility issues – seniors, persons with disabilities, people using new technologies or older model computers with slow Internet connections – the Internet is not the Great Equalizer, but often a giant obstacle to getting the information they need. Learn here, how you can make your website more accessible to all users.
[ Learn More about Website Accessibility ]
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- Before you can decide where you want to go you need to find out where you are. Reviewing and analyzing your website statistics is a must for any business that wants to determine it's Key Performance Indicators.
- Web analytics can be used to monitor the popularity of your site.
- Knowing how many visitors are coming to your site, what pages they go to, and weather or not they purchase is important information that can be quite easy to come by if you use the right tools.
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What is Internet marketing and what are some popular Internet marketing techniques? We offer suggestions for creating a successful Internet marketing strategy and outline techniques you can use to measure your success online. We also offer additional resources where you can learn more about Internet marketing to help you get started with your own Internet marketing plan.
SEO
- Most traffic coming to a website is generated from the major search engines Google, Yahoo and MSN. It is important that businesses are proactive in their Search Engine Optimization techniques in order to compete online.
- SEO is something that you can pay a lot of money for a professional firm to do for you, or you can do it yourself.
Internet Auctions
An Internet auction is a great way to expand your business. Learn how Internet auctions work and outline the distinct advantages small business owners can gain from using online auctions to sell their products or services. Learn about key issues to consider before getting started, and will provide additional online resources to help your strategy.
[ Learn about selling on Internet Auctions ]
- Selling on eBay
By far the most popular online auction site, eBay has tools available for small businesses.
Interactive Tools
eBC has listed a variety of interactive tools which are available to help your ebusiness strategy by using technologies to help further your web presence.
- Blogging
The term Blog is a short form for Weblog. A blog is a website where content is posted on a regular basis in reverse chronological order. The process of authoring a blog, maintaining it or adding content to it is refered to as blogging. It consists of text, hypertext, images and link to other video, audio or other web content.
- RSS
If you are looking for more internet traffic to your website, RSS is the answer. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a quick and easy way to distribute news. To start broadcasting news/updates via RSS all you need is the content you wish to disseminate and a RSS based text file.
- Podcasting
A podcast is a web feed of audio or video files placed on the internet for anyone to subscribe to. A podcast delivers new and updated content and this is what distinguishes it from a single download via a broadcast. Currently most Podcasts contain audio content.
- Webinar
A Webinar is a web based presentation, lecture, or workshop transmitted via the internet. It is the next generation of information delivery. The salient characteristic of the webinar is its interactive elements.
- Web 2.0
Like so many other concepts, web 2.0 cannot be clearly defined by definite boundaries but much rather a gravitational core. It is basically a set of principles and practices that bind together a cluster of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles at varying degrees.
Email Marketing
- Anyone who has ever studied marketing is aware of the “4 Ps” – Product, Place, Promotion and Price. But did you know that email marketing also has its own 4 Ps – Permission, Privacy, Profiling and Personalization? Here, Stefan Eyram of Connectus Permission Marketing Solutions outlines the 4Ps of email marketing.
[ Learn more about Email Marketing ]
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Open Source Software
- Small businesses can benefit from open source software that is a low cost alternative to propriatary software.
- The GNU General Public Licence (GPL) is most commonly used for open source software but there are others that you should be aware of.
eCommerce Tools
- Once a business has established itself online, it may want to consider adding ecommerce tools to it's website. This enables more control over the online storefront for the business.
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