Required Components for Successful Online Presence

This outline highlights required components for a successful Internet presence, including various options and minimum requirements at different stages of your online presence.

Stage 1: Secure Domain Name

• Search and register available names
• Do nothing with it; park it for future use
• Protect & Monitor
• Corporate strategy & tactics

Stage 2: Establish Internet Presence

• Business Use: an on-line brochure
• Hosting Options
• Forwarding visitors to an existing site
• Choosing a hosting plan for your needs
  
  
• Site content
• A recruitment tool
• A customer support tool
• Company info
• Customer info gathering tool
  
  
• Connect to the Internet
  
  
• Legal
• Inexpensive protection to common-law trademarks (TM-it)
• Federal trademark Federal Trademark Application
• Incorporations & LLC's
  
  
  
• Promote your Web site
• Submitting your site to search engines!Click Here!
• Buying keywords on pay-per-click search engines
• E-mail marketing management
  
  
• Productivity Tools
  • Receive Fax as e-mail attachment

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• Personal / Family Use
• Develop your Web site
• Hosting Options
• Site Content
• Ability to post and view photos
• Family information etc.
• Resume and hobbies
  
  
• Establish Personal Email
  
  
• Connect to the Internet

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Stage 3: E-Commerce

For businesses that sell products and services online and accept secure payments online. In addition to Stage 2 online presence, you have the following options:

• Create Website
• Develop your Web site
  
  
• Hosting Options
• An ISP for shared space on its servers
• In-house servers.
• Co-locate servers with an ISP
• Use a dedicated server
• Integrated Web store, accounting, payroll, customer service management, expense reporting, billing, and more. Oracle Small Business Suite. Simple. Secure. Affordable.
• An integrated online store!
• Need a merchant account
• No programming knowledge required, with ability to customized “look and feel” of store
• Ease of setting up affiliate programs and cross selling plans
  
  
• Establish an electronic shopping cart to catalog and process customer orders. Consider the following options:
  • Add a Shopping cart to your web site
  • Developing it yourself
  • Hiring a skilled programmer
  • Buying your own copy of commercial software.
    
    
• Accept payments online
  • credit cards
• Establishing a merchant account
• Establishing a payment processing system
• Checks by Phone, Fax, or Website
  
  
• Insure and monitor network security
  
  

• Have the ability to send secure e-mail
  • The use of an envelope as an e-mail icon gives the misleading impression of privacy as with traditional snail mail.  The fact is that e-mail transmission is more like a traditional postcard.

  
  

• Utilities
  • Allow visitors to search your site

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Stage 4: E-Commerce with Customer Relationship Management

Going beyond simple e-commerce, businesses in this stage need to develop and maintain a lasting relationship with their customers.  In addition to the requirements in Stage 3, they need the following:

• On-line Member Login management system
• Customization based on visitor’s profile/preferences
• Interactive shopping

Stage 5: Sell Domain Name or Business

Sell domain names that are not consistent with your portfolio objectives. Primary candidates are those that are the result of mergers or acquisitions.

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