When selecting a team from the glut of website design companies out there remember that many of them lack experience and are in themselves start up ventures – signing up with one of them, even if they do seem to offer a cheaper service, can easily end up with in the “partially sighted leading the blind down a dead-end” scenario. Be sure to check out the credentials and amount of experience the entire team will be bringing to your fledgling online business.Also, it makes sense to work with a company that offers a full-house of services – design, development, marketing, conversion and IT management skills. The IT manager you use must be a R.O.I. specialist that is constantly promoting the success of the entire venture, overseeing and handling the phases and teams and ensuring that the objective of R.O.I is always kept in focus.Now let’s look at the 3 Phases that you will be working through to take your idea from seed to success.

Phase 1 – Website development and maintenance

Your first requirement, once you have your e-commerce business plan nailed, is a website.Website development involves five crucial stages. These are:1. Back-end development – The “brains” behind the website, the back-end functions’ job includes customer retention (keeping ‘em keen) and conversion (getting them to part with their hard-earned cash on your site).

2. Architectural navigation – This comprises of Information Architecture and Persuasive Architecture – in English we’re talking about providing the right info to the customers and then funnelling them towards a sale.

3. Front-end development – This is the creative part – what your prospective clients see online. Deciding on the look and feel of your website is an important part of the process as it needs to attract the right people in a way that makes them feel comfortable while browsing while also enticing them into making a purchase.

4. Persuasive copy writing – While the content needs to be well written, captivating and informative, this is a specialised kind of copy writing; in e-commerce you need to use highly persuasive web-based language that works at increasing conversion rates.

5. Hosting and Domains – It’s vital to use the services of a top-quality hosting company that can handle high traffic volumes and deliver a fast download speed. Websites that are slow or frequently ‘down’ can kill your business no matter how good your product. Similarly, you need a top-notch domain that is Search Engine friendly while at the same time makes a statement when being advertised to the public.

Phase 2 – Online marketing – Generating traffic Online marketing is totally different to any regular form of marketing and therefore the strategies and tools used are unique to the online environment. Why? First of all you need to bear in mind the enormous competition on the Internet. If you open a local toy store you may be up against 2 to 4 similar stores in the neighbourhood. Online, the competition can extend to hundreds of thousands – especially if your product is available world wide and not geographically limited. Nowadays there are 2.1 trillion pages on the web – standing out in this kind of crowd can seem near-impossible.And it’s not enough to look good – if the wrong people find you – people who are not after what you offer – you have wasted money on attracting the wrong kind of traffic and all you have is an eye catching site that doesn’t offer R.O.I.

So how do you generate enough targeted traffic? Online marketing isn’t cheap – you want to ensure that the team you hire work on the following 3 effective, proven methods of luring traffic.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Most of your traffic (around 90%) will reach you via Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Enormous amounts of research have been done into how to get a site to show up – and stay on – the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS). It’s not enough to get to page 5 or 10 either – most searchers don’t look beyond the first 2 pages of results. The set of methodologies used to achieve sustained rankings in the SERPS is jointly known as SEO. SEO involves changing the structure of your website so that the Search Engines appreciate the content on your site while at the same time it involves getting other websites to point towards your web pages; this shows the Search Engines that your website is a valuable resource on the internet.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Apart from the free Organic traffic sent your way by the Search Engines, you’ll notice small ads on the top and down the right hand side of the SERPS. These are sponsored adverts and Google uses them to make money – the advertiser pays Google every time someone clicks on their PPC ad. A well-designed and managed PPC campaign can be a good launching tool for a new site and can provide your online business with sizeable returns.

Affiliate Marketing This is the term used when one website markets another website’s products on their site and then takes a cut of every successful sale from the reciprocal site.This is a simple, digitally managed process that is relatively inexpensive and can yield excellent results.

Phase 3 – Managing the business

So you have a fantastic looking site that is being marketed by experts – isn’t it time to put your feet up and wait for the profits to start rolling in?Not really. This is a business – a growing, changing venture that needs to be well managed. If you are too busy or lack the skills it is essential to have a good IT manager working on your site.S/he needs to constantly analyse traffic, conversion rates, and CPAs to ensure that R.O.I is being achieved and to put different strategies into place to continually increase the R.O.I.In addition the manager overseas the phases and communication between the development and marketing teams to make sure everything runs smoothly and efficiently from the inside out.The Internet is a different sphere but rudimental business procedures also need to be followed such as customer care, accounts, financials, order fulfilment, branding and off-line marketing. In this instance it might be necessary to employ a business manager to work with the IT manager to ensure a healthy synergy between on and offline procedures. A word to the wise – you don’t need to start off big in order to achieve big success. Choose an online business development and marketing team carefully, work within your budget, ensure the basics are adhered to and let the business grow at a slow yet steady pace, always keeping a firm eye on R.O.I.