does anyone know how one could go about setting up a small business(any type) using the internet?

Question

what would be the inital steps in terms of getting your idea or business on the internet so as to promote it. also how would one put in place the payment options available on internet web sites? im a researcher doing a thesis need info, many thanks.....

Answer 1

Here are the steps you need to take when creating your online business:

STEP 1: Set Your Goals - Why do you want a web site? What is the size of the online market? What are the goals for your website?

STEP 2: Develop Your Web Site Strategy - Who is your website target audience? What typically appeals to your target audience? How are the other websites (your competition) reaching out to this target audience? How will you measure your performance?

STEP 3: Set-Up Implementation Plans - What name will you give to your site? How do you envision the design of your web site? How will you create your website? How will you create your content? How will you maintain your website?

STEP 4: Start the Ball Rolling - Do you have a logo? For e-retailers, do you have the critical components needed to run an e-commerce site? How are you going to host your site?

STEP 5: Create and Launch Your Web Site - Have you uploaded your site with your chosen web host provider? Are the scripts and application you need for your website functioning well? Have you tested your website?

STEP 6: Promote Your Web Site and Measure Its Results - Do you have a plan in place to market your website? Do you regularly review your traffic logs and web site performance tracker? How are you going to get sites to link to you? Do you know the search engine keywords that you rank well? If your site is not visible in the search engine results pages for its keywords, what strategies do you intend to do?

STEP 7: Maintain Your Website and Grow Your Web Business - Continue to find ways to grow your web business. How do you intend to continue your education on web development?

Answer 2

First you'd set up your business in the usual way; then if you don't know how to design or how to write a website you'd either use a web design and hosting service, ot you'd use an online service such as 1&1.co.uk
The problem is that a website doesn't promote your business or product. When you first publish, no one know its there until it gets picked up by the search engines.
So you promote your business by advertising as usual, and you include the web address on all your adverts. You also add it to all your stationary.
The website needs to act as an advert once it becomes more well known, as a point of call for people who have queries, and as a shop.
Designing, writing the code, and promoting your website are 3 seperate areas that wach demand their own skills. Its actually a lot of work on top of starting up a new business! So you wither risk doing it yourself, or you risk the financial outlay to have someone else take care of it.

Answer 3

If you are doing from the UK, the DTI has some really good advice for running a business on the web, www.dti.gov.uk or Business Link www.businesslink.gov.uk. The first thing to consider if you have an original idea is to patent it (http://www.patent.gov.uk/)
and to be aware that you will need patents for every country that you intend to do business with your product or service that you are going to offer. If you are going to do business in other countries you need to research find specialist advice relating to regulation of taxes, shipping etc. If you are going to design a site that is 'local' to each country, this is a complex web development for experienced web developers only.
You need to have some idea of who your potential customers are and how you are going to attract them - are you going to use web marketing - such as banner ads, raising awareness by good search engine optimisation.
You need to be able to design a clear, attractive, easy to use, accessible site designed to the latest standards - the goal is to firstly attract customers, then to retain them. For e-commerce - if you are going to be selling on your website - you can either use specialist shopfront packages or use a web agency or you can build yourself but would only recommend if you are experienced with developing web applications because e-commerce is very complex.
You can also use 'shops' or similar on sites like eBAY.
For payments - you need to consider what is the best way of doing this - are you going to use an e-commerce package that has agreements with payment suppliers such as World Pay, Pay Pal, Verisign or are you going to do this yourself and if so - what forms of payment are you going to accept whether electronic or non-electronic. As per the previous answer you need to consider setting up merchant accounts eg with MasterCard or Visa if you are going to collect credit card payments directly yourself.
If you are selling, you need to consider currencies, shipping and taxes - again these can be built into special e-commerce packages or you may want to outsource these.
Just some starters for ten

Answer 4

Yahoo site builder has a easy to use site for setting up a merchant account.

Answer 5

have a look at the oscommerce website, its what most online shops use to power their shopfronts and it may give you some ideas