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Selling With Your Own Web Site

By Stephen Bucaro

Many people have their own product, a book, a CD, a craft, or other product that they would like to sell with their own Web site, but they can't find simple instructions on how to get started. In this article, I'm going to explain how to sell your product with your own Web site. It boils down to four steps.

1. Find a Web server

You need to put your Web site on a computer that is running a Web server program and is connected to the Internet. There are three choices:

1. Your own server. This requires you to be, or to hire, a system administrator responsible for system maintenance, software updates, backups, and security. This also requires a high-speed communications link to the Internet. This is practical only for large organizations.

2. Your ISP (Internet Service Provider). Along with a broadband or dial-up connection to the Internet, many ISPs also provide you with a small amount of personal Web space. There are several problems with using this Web space, even for a small business Web site. The storage space and monthly transfer allowance is too small, and if you decide to change ISP, you lose your email address and you need to move your Web site.

3. A Web host provider. There are many companies that sell Web site space on their servers. These companies offer three grades of service:
   • Free hosting. The hosting service makes money from banner ads that they display on your Web site. Sometimes the storage space is too small and the monthly transfer allowance is usually limited.

   • Shared hosting. Your Web site shares a server with many other Web sites. Some hosting providers put too many Web sites on each server, or someone else's Web site monopolizes the servers processor or bandwidth. This slows down your Web site.

   • Dedicated hosting. The hosting provider sets up a separate server for your Web site alone. Whereas shared hosting can be acquired for as little as $5 per month, dedicated hosting cost hundreds of dollars per month.

Recommendation:

Most small businesses can't afford a dedicated server. You can use your ISP's webspace or a free host for learning purposes, but usually only shared or dedicated hosting lets you use your own domain name. You will want to register and promote your own domain name, not put a lot of effort into promoting a domain name provided by a free host.

There are many Web host directories that let users rate web host providers. Visit several of these directories and choose a web host provider with a good rating. The most important specification to look for in a Web host provider is "up time". They should have a 99.9% up time guarantee.

2.Design and Build your Web site

A Web site is nothing more than a collection of webpages. Webpages are very similar to documents that you would create in a word processor. A word processor, like Microsoft Word for example, uses invisible "tags" to layout the page. Whereas Word uses "Rich Text File (RTF) tags, a webpage uses Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) tags. But the concept is the same.

You never actually see or deal with the tags in a word processor document. Many people use a web page design application that lets them avoid dealing with html tags on a webpage. But most serious webpage design requires you to deal with html code directly. There are three reasons why you would need to deal with the html code directly.

1. Your web page design application refuses to format the webpage exactly the way you want it.

2. There is an error on your webpage.

3. Most word processor documents are static. A webpage usually contains powerful little programs called "scripts" that work with the html tags on the page.

Recommendation: Before venturing into creating your own Web site, spend a few weeks experimenting with html tags to create webpages by hand. You don't need a Web server to test your webpages. You can load them directly into your Web browser. In your learning, focus on linking pages together that reside in different folders. This is where most beginners have a problem.

The first step in building your Web site is to create or choose a template. As I mentioned earlier, a Web site is nothing more than a collection of webpages. But all webpages for a Web site should have the same basic layout, color scheme, and navigation elements.

There are thousands of free and pay templates available on the Web. Actually, every Web site is a template that you can explore by selecting View | Source in your Web browser's menu. The most import thing about selecting a template is that you are comfortable with it. If the template uses complex code, the chances of getting an error occurring are high, and you may not be able to fix it.

Recommendation: Select a template you like, but don't use it directly. From the html coding that you learned by following my previous recommendation, hand code a similar template. Now you will have a template you understand and are comfortable modifying and fixing if it becomes necessary.

Generally, you will create webpages on your local computer and upload them to your Web site, usually using FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Most web designers keep a local copy of their entire Web site on their local computer. Here they can test a webpage before uploading it to the live Web site. If your design uses active servers pages (ASP), you may want to install a Web server on your local computer for testing purposes.

3.Set up E-commerce E-commerce involves setting up shopping cart software and a means of accepting credit card payments. There are three possible ways to set up e-commerce:

1. Set up shopping cart software and a secure order form on your Web site. Then process the orders using your regular off-line bank processing service. This is good for people whose Web site is an extension of their off-line business. But setting this up from scratch for a Web only business may be too costly.

2. There are many companies on the Web that will set you up with a merchant account. This service may or may not include a shopping cart. In either case, before the user enters their credit card information, they are transferred to the secure server of the merchant account. Setup costs for a merchant account can run into hundreds of dollars. In addition, there are transaction fees and monthly fees.

3. Many small businesses use online payment services. Most online payment services can provide you with a shopping cart, but in many cases, all you need is to place some html code provided by the online payment service on your Web site.

When your customer clicks on a "Buy" button on your Web site, they are transferred to the web site of the online payment service where they enter their credit card information. You receive an email notification when a transaction is completed.

Online payment services don't charge for setup or monthly fees, but the transaction fees are similar to a merchant account. Fees run about $0.35 and 2.5% per transaction. After a delay to prevent charge backs losses, you can login to the online payment services Web site and transfer the payment into your bank account.

The oldest and largest online payment service is PayPal which processes over 600,000 transactions per day.

Part II of  Selling With Your Own Web Site by Stephen Bucaro

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