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10. Launch your business
online
Few manufacturers want to work with start-up web sites, but we
do. We believe that an online store benefits the consumers in
several ways:
1) Without the physical binoculars and telescopes exhibition
room or store, the operating cost is much lower, and large
part of the savings go to the consumers.
2) Even the consumers in remote areas can now easily buy the
binoculars and telescopes.
3) The start-up web sites are usually small business, and
backed up by us, they are more willing to satisfy the
personalized demands of the consumers.
4) Factory to online stores to consumers Vs factory to
multiple levels of distribution to physical retail stores to
consumers-you got the idea.
Of course, setting up internet presence is not a must. But, if
you plan to go online, we want to share with you some
experiences:
1) Find a niche. Satisfy everyone, satisfy no one. Or
as Chinese Taoist Laozi says: less is more.
2) Determine your keywords. Think about what search
terms your targeted audience will use to find you. You may
want to use Wordtracker.
3) Think about what your strength and weakness are.
Think about how you can differentiate yourself from your
competitors by offering more value to your targeted
customers-you've got to be innovative.
4) Prepare the contents that are both related to the
binoculars and telescopes you sell and have search engine
friendliness and consistency. You may want to check Search
Engine Watch for tips.
5) You may have a web developer set up the web sites for
you or you may do it by yourself. Read the relevant topics
on Wilsonweb. Be sure
to install a back-end access log analysis program - Weblog
is one of the best. Please be aware of that it can be
time-consuming to develop a web site, whether you do it
yourself or have someone else do it.
6) Register your domain name with your most important
keywords included. Check InterNic.
Find a quality virtual hosting service which supports database
and secure server for online credit card payment processing -
you might want to use either one or both very soon.
7) Publish your site and get it listed into the search
engines and directory. Ignore hundreds of thousands of
search engines, pay attention to only Yahoo!,
Looksmart, Google,
Lycos, Altavista,
Excit, Webcrawler,
Goto and Open
Project Directory among which Yahoo!
and Looksmart are the
most important ones - MSN and
AOL use Looksmart's
database. You're recommended to use their paid express
submission service. If you have more capital, Goto
can bring valuable qualified visitors to your site. Refer to Search
Engine Forums for advice and help. A useful tool is Webpositiongold.
8) Web marketing stage:
a) Ask for links with the sites that are related to your
product line. Ignore any FFA (free for all links) service.
b) Get your binoculars and telescopes reviewed by the
specialists who publish their reviews on their web sites.
c) Join in the forums, BBS, mailing lists or user's groups
that are related to your product line.
d) Make the site serve as a base for your offline advertising
campaigns: have your site name exposed on name card,
letterhead, local press release, exhibition, or the review
articles on the renowned magazines like Sky and Telescopes.
9) Set up by yourself a program that tracks your inventory,
income and expenses.
10) Stick to your vision, work hard and never give up.
Stay alive longer enough, then who knows what will happen in
the future - Could Bezos know what his business would become
of when he started amazon.com in his parents' garage (so we've
heard of this in China)?
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