best internet business

So you want to start a business? Let's see, you will need to rent, lease or buy a storefront and then purchase display racks. You will need to heat and cool the display area for customer comfort. There will be insurance to cover liability and loss and you'll need to ensure plenty of parking so customers can get to the store easily. Oh, don't forget any potential landscaping and snow removal you might need to take care of seasonally.

On the other hand I suppose you forget most of those issues and make your business platform an electronic one.

With an online store you don't have to worry about parking spaces or checkout lines. You don't have to worry about snow removal or expensive climate control. Maybe the best part is that your store can be open even when you sleep. You never have to close and shoplifting is 'virtually' non-existent.

As gas prices went beyond four dollars a gallon in the summer of 2008 it became clearer every day that an online store had become a consumer's best friend. It is possible that the savings in fuel can offset any additional expenses in shipping. In many cases items can be purchased for much less in an online environment simply because ecommerce generally has much less overhead expenses.

Yes, it is possible that hackers can break into your cyber store, but they can't take any tangible products. If you manage your security well you may not have a problem with hackers. If this is the most difficult challenge you face in cyber store ownership then you should have it pretty easy.

There remains a role for standard brick and mortar stores, but the role of online business is becoming not only more accepted it is becoming a desired part of the shopping experience.

When a customer takes his or her business online they can find locations where they can compare costs as well as similar products they may need. They can read about the product and find ways to use the product to their advantage.

If you work to optimize your site with potent knowledge-based content you will generally find that consumers reward your information with trust. That trust often translates into a purchase - even if that purchase is not made on their first visit.

When you begin to acknowledge that the startup costs for an online store are significantly less than a brick and mortar alternative and then couple that with the automation available to make your store available around the clock (including all holidays) it just makes sense to consider a new avenue of commerce.

It is true that there is a mature generation that hasn't completely embraced online purchases, but children are learning at a much younger age how to navigate the web and they understand the value of shopping online. Someday they could be your customers - their parents may be willing to buy from you now.

The dynamics of commerce are changing and the online environment provides so many pluses that traditional and nontraditional businesses alike are finding the online world a very good place to meet shoppers.

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. Make A Website in minutes with HighPowerSites.com. Sell Ebooks at BooksWealth.com.

In simple terms, E-business (doing business on the Internet) can enable small scale businesses in emerging markets gain greater bargaining power in the global economic exchange despite their limited capital, and mobility. The world economy is moving online. Today people are meeting online and eventually getting married, people who do not have the capital to establish physical stores are getting rich maintaining only online shops, small musicians who find it difficult getting producers are uploading their tracks on Napster to be downloaded by millions of people around the world, even politicians are using video-sharing tools like Youtube to reach potential voters, etc. Therefore, the action or inaction of African businesses to take advantage of e-business will determine how much they grow in the coming years.

E-readiness Ranking

Every year Economist come up with a table of e-readiness ranking from a selected number of countries. It is not surprising that African countries often rank lowest in most e-readiness reports. That is not very promising considering that most investors today will be interested not only on the investment climate and infrastructure in a country but also on e-readiness indices such as national connectivity, e-leadership, information security, human capital, and e-business climate.

Interpreting E-readiness Indices
There are many indices used to measure e-readiness. The most common ones are:

Connectivity: Addresses the ability to exchange information, goods and services with the rest of the world.

E-leadership: Addresses the commitment of a national government to partner with industry leaders to create conditions favorable to electronic transactions.

Information security: Addresses issues concerning the protection of personal data, intellectual property, and effective privacy laws.

Human Capital: Emphasis on developing competent manpower including IT managers who can manage complex technology tasks, policy analysts who can make informed inputs on government policies and regulations that are capable of stifling technology growth; local content creators who can either customize or adapt global technologies to the specific business needs in the country, software and hardware engineers.

Beyond the indices, e-business also requires a larger population of end-users or consumers who dont have to understand how the technology works, but can use the technology.

How Small Businesses In Africa Can Benefit From E-business:

Individual Action:

Even in challenging environments such as Africa, small businesses can still benefit from e-business. Simple information websites with product and contact information, as a first step can open new doors for small businesses locally and internationally. Hospitality industries stand to gain more exposure and market through e-business. Tourists and people in the Diaspora are excellent target customers for hotel and tourism information for online reservations.

Group Action:

Business associations, Chambers Of Commerce, Cooperative societies, and NGOs in Africa can bridge the economy of scale on the technology required for e-business by setting up online malls showcasing a pool of their members sites, products and services. Through the online mall people in the Diaspora may order local goods for friends or family. These associations can also help to guarantee the quality of products advertised on the site, as well as the credibility of its members to ensure fraudulent people do not seize the opportunity. Only certified members and certified products will make it on the site. Ghana Mall, for instance, sells goods made by Ghanaian artisans internationally. It also rakes in some $500 million a year in goods and cash that are sent to the country from abroad. Funds to develop such malls can be sort as grants from multilateral agencies as the World Bank Groups Small and Medium Enterprise Department.

Payment:

No doubt, credit card acceptance is the heart of e-commerce, but technological hindrances and doing business in local currency can drive up transaction costs. There are rules and protocols to gain access to international card association systems, which currently do not favor African countries. The amounts of online transactions originating from most African countries hardly meet the rules required by the international card associations. So there must be a way around it. Therefore, banks in Africa need to establish special Merchant Accounts for small businesses to enable them accept secured payments in foreign currencies processed in the same way as credit cards. Online payments will still have to go through SWIFT, encryptions, or other secured sites, as PayPal to ensure adequate security.

Shipping:

Most national and international courier services are currently equipped to handle shipping to any location in the world. Business organizations can enter into partnership agreements with these postal and shipping agencies to either enjoy special shipping rates or develop more efficient shipping methods that can guarantee delivery. In addition, the Customs department should make available list of prohibited items, duties and fees to the business organizations. One workable model is to post their personnel at the post offices to facilitate the inspection of goods.

Governments Role

As a private-sector crusader, I dislike prescribing any solution that will depend on governments. But E-commerce requires vendor credibility. Apart from technology, the greatest impediment African businesses face in embracing e-business is fraud. This is where the governments should play important role. Law-makers should strengthen existing laws to stem out corruption in their countries. People who thrive on advance fee fraud should be put out of business. It is possible! Anything that works through technology can be stopped through technology. Its simply a digital war amongst programmers (its like the virus and anti-virus battle among programmers). Moreover, the world wants to see trials, prosecutions and convictions to believe that African countries are serious in their war against corruption.

How This Will Work

For this to work it must exist as one bundle. A customer does not want to be bothered by the backend technology and how it works. They want an easy-to-use, time-saving, front-end screen. As for now, cross-continental partnerships will play a major role in helping businesses in Africa cross the e-commerce threshold, as African businesses will still need international partnerships to help complete orders. PeopLink offers such a partnership. They have developed free, downloadable tools to help small businesses build virtual product catalogs, which they then upload to a searchable catalog on their database, thereby offering small businesses the opportunity to benefit from collective marketing power.

One Stop Tech Support Centers:

Technology investors should also consider going into one-stop tech support centers. For instance, in Ghana BusyInternet is such a one-stop IT center with a cyber caf, call booths, video conferencing services, document services, web hosting, space rental and other tech support for e-businesses.

Exploring E-business will help small businesses in Africa increase their market share in the global marketplace? There should be a concerted effort to make this happen. The World Bank developed a collection of free tools called SMEToolkit to help small business develop such potentials.

Mr. Godwin C. Nwaogwugwu is a former World Bank Analyst/Consultant. He is a senior key resource person on Information Sytems, E-business Development, Youth Programs, and Africa Initiatives for many international agencies, and governments. He is the author of three best-selling publications, and currently the Group Chairman of ExposureWorld Communications Services (http://www.exposureworld.net).

You can read more articles by this writer at: http://www.imoonline.org, or http://www.exposureworld.net

Traveling was an adventure when I was younger. We would travel for as long as possible and then we'd simply look for the first available motel when we didn't want to go any further. Sometimes that meant visiting multiple motels before finding one that was either available or affordable. Often it meant continuing our journey a bit further before we could rest.

At the time I don't remember thinking this was strange, but the 21st century has changed the way we manage motel reservations.

Today if you plan a trip you can use a map generator like Google or MapQuest to map out a daily travel schedule placing you in the most desired locations in route to your ultimate destination. Then you can access multiple motel reservation sites to help you find a motel with the amenities you require and at a price you can live with.

Sometimes these motels offer special savings if you belong to an organization like AAA or if you are involved in the military. Some motels offer a significant discount if you will be staying due to a family medical issue where a family member is in a local hospital.

Consumers have found it almost commonplace to cross check multiple online sources to determine the best deal and at one of their favorite motels. Consumers also like the photo tour of the facility. Children gasp over the pool and every picture is gazed at in hopes that the reality will be similar to the cyber-visual.

Some consumers even book while in route using a laptop or a cell phone.

As you can see the accommodation adventures of childhood have been removed as an adult. However, I suppose it is possible that the adventure has simply been moved to an online environment where answers are given prior to arrival.

The Internet remains one of the greatest agents of change in how the world does business. The guesswork in so many life arenas has been removed.

For instance if you want to know more about a medical diagnosis you simply place the term in the search engine of your computer and find the answer. If you want to know more about installing cabinets in your home you use the search function and get step-by-step instructions.

As a business owner this is the environment in which you are immersing yourself. You are appealing to those who are accustomed to the immediacy of information. Consumers don't just want to know if you sell a product they also want to know how the product works, the history of the product, special uses for the product and if this product compliments other items they may already have.

Can they find this information on your website?

Unlike my travel time as a child today's consumer does not like surprises. They don't want to settle for your product simply because that's what they stumbled across.

Like the motel sites you can visit online buyers want to know more about the amenities, discounts and photo tours available for the product you sell.

As a business owner you are not only appealing to an individuals desire for a product you are also appealing to their trust. They won't generally give the first without the second.

Make A Professional Website in minutes with HighPowerSites.com or Do It Yourself Website with BuildAGreatSite.com. Start An Ebook Reseller Business at BooksWealth.com.

1. Internet Marketing: Is It worth Your While?

As of March 2007, 16.9% of the world's 6.5 billion population was using the internet which roughly translates into 1.2 billion people! Asia boasts more than 50% of the world's population and of that Asian populous only 10.7% is currently online as compared to almost 70% of the North American population!

Pros: The internet is one vast marketing arena that grows bigger and bigger every year. Put another way, in the year of 2006, online advertising racked up revenue in excess of $16.7 billion dollars and is expected to reach $45 billion in the next five years.

Cons: That many people online means that the competition is bound to be fierce; but the opposite holds true as well. That many people online means there should be enough market share to go around.

Bottom Line: An internet business is a great way to generate a second income or a primary money generating system that once set up is completely automated. However if you are starting out now be aware that you have millions of already established internet marketing businesses to compete with.

2. Do Your Research First

Before deciding on what your internet business is going to be make sure that there is a large enough target audience to make it worth your while. There's no point marketing something that nobody is interested in.

Pros: Countless opportunities abound online and also there're several websites such as digitalpoint.com which offer excellent free marketing research tools.

Cons: Excellent as a lot of these free tools are, they cannot compete with some fee-based tools as far as in-depth analytics go.

Bottom Line: Plenty of novice internet marketers doom themselves right from the get-go because they don't bother doing any prior research which is tantamount to firing first before readying yourself, aiming then finally firing!

3. Getting Your Web Presence

The internet has come of age. A few years back getting a credible web presence usually translated into having to shell out exorbitant hosting fees. That has since changed!

These days you can get luxury-level, premium loaded web hosting for less than $4/month. Even better yet you can conduct an online business without ever having to pay web hosting fees. All you have to do is use a blog!

Pros: Starting an online business today need not cost you a single cent upfront!

Cons: Just starting out means that you've got your work cut out to distinguish your internet business from the rest of the crowd; a very big crowd!

Bottom Line: You really no longer have an excuse for not getting a web presence. The old oh-I-cannot-afford-hosting-fees excuse no longer cuts it! As previously mentioned it is now possible to conduct internet marketing without putting down a single cent. And as for not knowing HTML (web coding language)! That excuse too is dead and buried.; knowing html or other web coding language is a thing of the past, these days you can make do quite nicely without.

4. What Is The Fastest/Easiest Way To Make Money Online?

Hands down the cheapest, easiest and quickest way to make money online is through affiliate marketing.

And what is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is simply a partnership between an affiliate (you) and a merchant (the merchant being the owner of the product). Affiliate marketing may also be referred to as affiliate programs, referral programs and associate programs.

Here's how affiliate marketing works--You (the affiliate) promote or advertise a product on your site that belongs to somebody else (the merchant).

Basically, the merchant supplies you with a variety of text links, banners or graphics embedded with your own affiliate code. You then strategically insert any number of those coded links or graphics onto your website (or blog) with the purpose of referring your visitors to the merchant's site.

When one of your site's visitors clicks on any one of those code-imbedded links they are transferred to the merchant's site. If that visitor then purchases something from that merchant you get paid. It's as simple as that.

Pros: You don't have to spend a cent to be an affiliate marketer. The best affiliate programs furnish you with all the necessary tools to conduct a successful promotional campaign of their products. Best of all, there are more than enough well-established and trustworthy affiliate program directories from which you can choose almost any product to promote!

Cons: You need to make sure that the products that you promote actually achieve what the claim to do (which in some cases entails trying them out beforehand). Also you are going to be faced with the issue of being just another affiliate marketer promoting the same products as thousands of other internet marketers.

Bottom Line: Affiliate marketing is the cheapest way to start out. However bear in mind that the internet marketers who make the big bucks do so through selling their own products. So in essence you should promote other people's stuff up until you've become internet marketing savvy enough to sell your own product, be it digital goods (downloadable stuff) or whatever.

5. Internet Traffic: The Pot Of Gold At The End Of Every Internet Marketing Rainbow

In the online world once you've got lots of internet traffic you're made, without it, you're dead! Internet traffic is the true engine that drives any successful internet business. Those websites or blogs that are raking it in do so for one reason and one reason alone; they get tons of online traffic!

So how do you get traffic? There're a variety of ways to get traffic, some of them free and others not so.

A. Use Web 2.0 techniques: Web 2.0 is the newest phase or 2nd generation of web based services which include social networking sites such as myspace.com and youtube.com to name but a few. A well organized and interesting blog is a good platform with which to gain web 2.0 based internet traffic.

B. Write Articles: Cheap and highly effective method to attract quick relevant traffic to your website or blog. It does require a certain amount of effort on your part (in other words conveying useful information) to make sure that your article attracts a ton of visitors to your site. The best bit about article writing is that you have literally thousands of article directories where you can submit your articles to.

C. Posting In Forums: Most people trawl forums to find answers that resolve their problems. You can capitalize on this by checking out forums relevant to your market and posting replies to current or recent questions to which you know the answers. If you post a genuinely useful and helpful reply you could end up with several grateful customers.

How?

Well, it's very probable those people whose problem you just solved will click on your signature link to see what further useful information they can get from your site. Most forums enable you to promote your site by allowing you to paste a link pointing to your site at the end of your posting (different forums have different guidelines so it's good to read them up).

D. Pay-Per-Click Advertising of which perhaps the most famous (or infamous depending on your perspective) is Google Adwords. Paying to get internet traffic through advertising is what is commonly known as PPC or pay-per-click. At its most basic, pay per-click marketing involves you composing an ad and bidding for a relevant searched-for keyword. Your ad will then be listed on the relevant search engine index pages for that same keyword you bid.

E. Internet Traffic From The Search Engines: This is the best traffic to draw to your website because it is the most qualified and targeted type of online traffic. What do I mean when I say the most qualified type of internet traffic?

I am talking about people who actively typed in a search term/phrase (keyword) into any search engine online. Such a person is more likely to purchase, subscribe or do whatever you most desire your visitors to do when they get to your site.

Getting this kind of traffic requires search engine optimization (seo) of your website or blog.

Pros: There're multiple avenues to draw internet traffic to your website/blog these days, all of which involve a certain amount of effort, some more so than others. A well written article costs you no more than the whirring of your brain and the tip tap of your fingers on the keyboard, yet the traffic generated from that one article could quite easily tanslate into big sales.

Cons: Online traffic is what everybody with a web presence desires, only problem is that it happens to be rather challenging to get a significant amount of it unless your website has been around for quite a while.

Bottom Line: Internet traffic is the lifeblood of any online business and if you intend to be an internet marketer then you cannot do without it.

6. Play Not Follow The Leader!

Masura Ibuka, a co-founder of Sony once said "You never succeed in technology, business or anything else by following others!" That quote is equally applicable today in the internet marketing arena as it was when he said it. If you insist on playing follow-the-leader, then by proxy you'll always be playing catch-up which is not the best marketing strategy.

Pros: Being the leader in whatever marketing endeavor you pursue automatically makes your brand instantly recognizable to the public which translates into more profit because people will always think of you first for that particular niche market. After all don't forget your ultimate internet marketing goal should be selling your own products.

Cons: Being in the forefront by its very nature means that you're going to have to put in a little more time and effort at the beginning to attain that lead than if you were just joining the ranks of followers.

7. Avoid The Minefield Of Online Scams.

I'm sure you don't need to be told that the internet is awash with scams. A good rule of thumb to abide by is: If it seems too good to be true then it is precisely that! Most people get scammed because they are looking for the easiest path to riches and hence ignore that little squeaky voice in their head that is telling them "there's no such thing as an overnight success!"

Pros: A lot of internet marketers who had been operating smoothly behind a facade of respectability have since been exposed together with their scams. Still the onus is on you to keep your wits and common sense and not get duped!

Cons: It is easy to be swept off your senses by good copywriting and visions of all that money you're apparently going to make overnight!

If you ever do start getting that giddy feeling ascribed to gonna-be-rich-overnight syndrome, remember what world-famous hairstylist Vidal Sassoon had to say about success: "The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary!"

Internet Marketing Online

Ba Kiwanuka is the webmaster of http://www.internetbusinessmart.com