C;>7<J>9:ID Z8DBB:G8: FEBRUARY/MARCH 2007 • $9.95 : 1. Getting Started Securing a domain name .Com, .net or other? I½H>CH>9 2. Web Sites For Service Businesses Why you need a Web site L=6 Ideas to help you get started 3. Selling Products Online Basic steps to doing business on the Internet Using eBay, Amazon and Overstock 4. Online Shopping Carts What the options are Tips from the experts 5. Staying Secure Spotting fraudulent credit cards How to Protection from data theft 6. Hiring A Web Developer the Using predesigned templates Harness Tips on selecting a Web site developer 7. Selecting A Web Host Why a host is important Differences among service options Internet 8. E-mail Marketing to Revolutionize Improve communication with customers No special skills are required 9. Search Engines The importance of being found Paid search vs. organic results Your Business www.NFIB.com SUPPLEMENTC1 TO MyBUSINESS MAGAZINE nfib-authorizenet-outlines.pdf 1/4/2007 4:33:08 PM C M Y CM MY CY CMY K C2 NFIB Guide to eCommerce | February/March 2007 2 Our First Small Business Guide A Letter from NFIB President Todd Stottlemyer 3 Contents Domain Name Basics Establishing a name for your Web site is an easy process 5 NFIB Guide to eCommerce is published Web Sites For Service Businesses as a benefit for NFIB’s members. An online presence can help you compete with major franchises TODD STOTTLEMYER President 7 JEFF KOCH Vice President of Member Benefits Selling Products Online What does a business need to launch an ecommerce business? Susan RidGE Vice President of Communications DAVid SilVerman 10 Vice President of Sales and Marketing Shopping Cart Options BOB DAVIS 10 steps to making the right choice Director of Marketing RITA TALLENT 14 Senior Marketing Editor/Writer 800-NFIB-NOW, nfib.com Credit Card Fraud Is a Manageable Risk Two types of fraud for online merchants Practical eCommerce serves small-to- 16 midsize businesses with sensible articles and advice to help improve their online Is It Time To Hire A Web site Developer? operations. It does this through its bi- monthly printed magazine, its Web site Four steps to pick the right candidate (practicalecommerce.com) and through its free, twice-weekly enewsletter, EcommerceNotes. 18 KERRY MURDOCK Hosting Company Considerations Publisher Many things to consider in addition to price MITCH BETTIS Contributing Editor 21 BRIAN GETTING Online Director E-mail Marketing Easy and Effective TODD JENNINGS Requires no programming skills Advertising Director JÜRGEN MANTZKE 23 Art Director STAFF WRITERS Why Search Engines Are Important Rachel Coleman, John Dozier, Jeff Noble, Ryan Welton What if you opened a business and nobody could find you? 970-257-0606, practicalecommerce.com Special thanks to Hammock Publishing, who assisted with design, production and coordination matters. www.NFIB.com 1 Out of town, or out of country, customers can also shop, compare and then make the purchase online. E-mail marketing is changing the way Our First many small and independent business owners communicate with their custom- ers. An entire industry has developed to help you produce, without any techni- Small-Business cal knowledge, e-mails that add to your customer base and to your bottom line. These e-mails can contain, for example, Guide product images, seasonal specials, new arrivals and company developments. You By NFIB President Todd Stottlemyer can send these e-mails to your customers who request them at a fraction of the cost of traditional mail. This guide would be incomplete with- NFIB members wear guides — written just for NFIB mem- out a discussion of Internet security. We’ll many hats. As business owners, you bers — will be full of practical advice, describe the credit card fraud risks that exist deal with issues as varied as market- step-by-step instructions and free of with most any ecommerce venture, and ing, insurance, purchasing, accounting technical jargon. In short, they’ll help we’ll offer suggestions to mitigate them. and human resources. Increasingly, I you sort out the complex issues that you And there’s so much more. If you suspect, you also deal with technology deal with every day. haven’t purchased a domain name (e.g. issues and how your business fits into a For each of the guides, we’ll collabo- SampleCompany.com) for your business, progressively online world. rate with relevant professionals who will I encourage you to do so. It’s easy, inex- The NFIB Guide to eCommerce will share their expertise with our members. pensive and we’ll offer suggestions in this help you sort this out. It’s the first of our For the NFIB Guide to eCommerce, guide to help you do it. Search engines such new Small-Business Guides, in which we’ve asked Practical eCommerce maga- as Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask can help we’ll publish expert articles, tips and zine to address the Internet and ecom- customers find your Web site and can also advice around a specialized topic. These merce issues that we believe are most provide advertising options for your busi- pressing to each of you. ness. We’ll simplify search engines in this Some of you have Web sites already, and guide and in future guides. you’ll find articles in this guide and future I’m excited about the launch of these guides to help you improve your online Small-Business Guides, another example operations. Some of you have yet to migrate of our goal to provide products and ser- online, and you’ll find pertinent informa- vices that help your business grow and tion here that will help you get started. prosper. In fact, most any small and indepen- NFIB members wear many hats. This dent business can benefit from the Inter- NFIB Guide to eCommerce represents net. Service businesses, for example, can our latest effort to help you wear them. establish Web sites with contact informa- tion, hours of operation, rates, customer testimonials, quote requests, photos, vid- eos, appointment calendars and so forth. Restaurants and food-service busi- nesses can post menus, prices and ingre- dients. For retailers and wholesalers, the Internet has opened up a new sales chan- nel. Local customers can shop, compare products and otherwise contemplate a purchase. We’ve seen innovative “mul- tichannel” strategies, in fact, whereby a local retailer will use a Web site to comple- ment his physical location, and vice versa. 2 NFIB Guide to eCommerce | February/March 2007 Domain Name Establishing a name for your Web site is Basics an easy process By Jeff Noble, Practical eCommerce staff writer Who would have The format of an IP address is written trars below. All registrars are connected thought the domain name Mexico.com as four numbers separated by periods, to the same domain-name database. So, would cause such a fuss? where each number can be from zero there’s no need to check multiple regis- It did when a Mexican telephone to 255. This IP address is how a domain trars for a domain name. Hosting com- company reserved the name for its own name is recognized by a Web server.* panies* frequently assist with domain use. The Mexican Tourist Board filed But, long numbers, such as IP addresses, name registering, too. a lawsuit with the Internet Corpora- are hard for people to remember. Domain You’ll have a choice of various Top- tion for Assigned Names and Numbers names were therefore created to give Level Domains (TLD) to accompany your (ICANN), claiming that it should be an “alias” to IP addresses so people can Web name. The most popular TLD is the the sole property of the Mexican gov- remember and communicate them better. suffix “.com” but there are others includ- ernment. The tourist board lost. Such It’s easier, for example, to tell an associ- ing .net, .info and .biz. You could get only cases happen every day. ate about a Web site called NFIB.com, the .com, or you could buy multiple names. Domain names are the text you type versus, say, telling the associate about the Non-profit groups can get the TLD .org, into an Internet browser’s* address bar same site that’s at 22.170.12.250. and educational institutions can get .edu. to go to a specific site on the Internet. To reserve a domain name, you reg- For a commercial endeavor, it’s important Known as a URL, (uniform resource ister it (for a fee) at a domain registrar. to get a .com address. The .com address is locater) a Web address looks something We’ve listed the primary domain regis- by far the most used and most intuitive for like this: http://www.example.com. The your customers. According to The Wall domain name is “Example.com.” looking for a vendor? Street Journal, there are about 46 mil- Every domain name, or Web page GoDaddy.com is the world’s largest lion .com addresses compared to the next address, has a corresponding numeric domain-name registrar. Other large most popular suffixes — .net at 6.7 million code that looks something like this: registrars include NetworkSolutions. and .org at 4.1 million. 22.170.12.250. This numeric code is com and Register.com. Prices and Once you register your name, you can called an IP (Internet protocol) address. services vary amongst the registrars. begin the process of creating a Web site. However, if you’re not ready for that, you will also be presented with options to “park” it or even to “forward” it. Parked domain names are registered with the InterNIC (Internet Network Information Center) and therefore reserved, but are not active for Web site or ecommerce service.