The Physical Product Seller's Guide To Selling Online

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Would You Like To Setup An Easy And Inexpensive Ecommerce Web Site?

Setting up and ecommerce web site can cost anywhere from $10 to $10,000 or more, depending on your web hosting needs, shopping cart choice, programming and web design needs.

As a work at home mom or dad, you'd rather pay closer to $10, while still getting a fully functional and easy to use site.

This lens focuses on the steps necessary to setting up an easy to use, but affordable web site to sell physical products online, including domain registration, web hosting, shopping cart, merchant account and payment processors.

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Lesson #1: Choosing And Registering Your Domain Name 

Make Sure You Buy And Protect The Right Domain Name

First, we are going to start with choosing and registering your domain name. One thing you need to consider when choosing a domain name is that it needs to be relatively short. We don't need a huge domain name that's twenty-four characters long and nobody is going to remember. You want a domain name that you can say go to michellewatersonline.com, and they can go to their computers and type it in. Keep it short and easy to remember.

You will also need to do some research. You can go to domaintools.com and research the domain name you want to find out if it is already registered. This of course is a free search site. You just go to it, type your domain name in, and it will tell you if it is registered or not.

Your domain name, in my opinion, should be based on your business name. Some people will say you need a keyword based domain name. I don't think that is true. You need to think about your customers when registering your domain name, not about the search engines. You can worry about the search engines later, after you have taken care of the people.

After you have checked availability of the domain name, you will want to check for similar sites. Type your domain name into Google and see if there are other sites with similar domain names. Myproductsite.net might be taken by someone who is selling similar products. That could lead to some confusion and could also lead to copyright or trademark issues, so you would want to choose something different.

One of my clients recently registered a domain name and then found out that a not-very-nice site had a very similar domain name; it was one letter off. So they decided they didn't want to go there and had to change their domain name. Domain names are pretty cheap. You can go to Godaddy.com and get one for about $9.00. But, you don't want to collect five different domain names in order to land on the one that you need.

I do recommend you get the .com version, especially if you're in the United States. If you're in another country that has their own country domain name; if that's what people in your country and who you are marketing to would be used to typing in, then go ahead and go with that. Generally speaking, a .com version of your domain name is the best one to pick.

You need to pick a registrar. I recommend Godaddy just because they are very good at domain registrations. I've used them for at least 5 years and I've never had any problems with them with domain registration. They are also pretty cheap.

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Choose A Name That Describes Your Website 

The quickest way to gett eyeballs on your business these days is by establishing an online presence. One of the most important decisions that will affect all your promotions is choosing a domain name that will attract the right customers.

Somehow, there hasn't been enough emphasis placed on choosing a domain name that attracts your target market, so I'm going to share with you some tips that you can put to immediate use for your first (or next!) online store.

Your domain name should let your visitors know what your website is all about even before they set foot on the home page. In other words, give away as much information in your domain name as possible, leaving no room for your visitors to guess what your website is selling.

For example, if your name happens to be Janet Smith and you are selling baby carriers online, get a domain name like, www.janetsbabycarriers.com instead of www.janetsmith.com or www.threefunfrogs.com. Seems pretty obvious, but you'll be amazed at how many business owners use their personal names as domain names, or domain names that only make sense to them, instead of choosing one that specifically describes their business.

Also, try to keep your domain name within a range of 13-15 characters, as shorter domain names tend to stick in people's minds. It also makes it easier for them to type out your web address in their browsers without too much head scratching.

Michelle's Ecommerce Blog 

News And Opinions

I'll keep you up to date on news and issues in the world of ecommerce and with my shopping cart software and web hosting.

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Select A Keyword-Rich Domain Name 

It's becoming increasingly important for business owners to have their websites indexed and ranked well in search engines like Google.com, MSN.com and Yahoo.com. And it helps this cause tremendously if you have a keyword-rich domain name. The reason for this is simple: Your potential customers search using specific keyword phrases to find what they're looking for.

If you'd done the research and used these customer-specific keyword phrases in your domain name, more than likely your website will be listed on the very first page of the search engines, outranking your competitors because you had exercised due diligence where keyword-rich domain names were concerned.

Of course, there are other SEO tactics to implement for better rankings, but getting a keyword-rich domain name is the first step towards ensuring your website will be search engine friendly. Avoid using any weird characters like apostrophes and even hyphens in your domain name as this will eventually affect rankings.

Important Links 

Link List

Find links to the rest of this course and find out more about setting up your own ecommerce web site.
Lesson #2: Choosing A Web Host
Learn more about how to choose an affordable and feature-rich web hosting solution for your product selling online business.
Domain Registration
Register your domain name at Watersweb for great customer service, and domains registered in YOUR name.
Hosted Ecommerce Solution
The Shop Kit Plus is an affordable, hosted and easy to use ecommerce solution.
Product Seller's Talk Radio
Learn how to use your ecommerce web site to attract potential customers and convert them to sales.
Presenting Your Products
Presenting Your Products teaches Work At Home Moms how to effectively and affordably photograph, ship and label their products.
Lesson #4: How To Accept Payment Online
Learn what your options are for accepting online payments.

Must A Domain Name End With .com? 

In a word, "No." You could very well use .net, .biz, .org or .info as an extension and no one would complain, except that you'll likely regret that decision in the long run. Here's why. Websites ending with any other extension besides a .com usually requires extra marketing efforts to establish credibility because everybody assumes a .com extension to be the standard in domain name branding.

Another reason is when emailing, customers automatically assume every company ends with a .com extension and this can be devastating to your business if your customers' emails keep ending up in your competitors' database.

Unless you're intentionally branding your business as, let's say, a nonprofit organization, in which case the .org extension is highly recommended, then sticking to the instantly recognizable .com extension is the best way to go.

So, don't rush headlong into purchasing a domain name without first taking the time to research keyword phrases that would be a perfect match for your product. You can perform this much needed research at websites such as www.wordtracker.com, www.keywordtumbler.com and www.goodkeywords.com. It requires some effort, but acquiring the keyword phrases that are used by prospects and incorporating them into your domain name will pay off handsomely for years to come.

Product Seller's Talk Radio 

Click the links below to listen to an episode of Product Seller's Talk Radio.

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Tell Me About Your Physical Product Selling Site! 

Lensmaster

wrote...

Great lens! I voted 5 stars - I invite you to check out mine too, and rate it for me! Live Streaming Video

ReplyPosted August 05, 2007

Lensmaster

shiela wrote...

Hello Michelle! This lens is very informative and detailed.. great job!
If you have time, check out my poor credit card lens.

ReplyPosted July 06, 2007

Lensmaster

writertiff wrote...

Hi Michelle! Your lens is great - I'm proud to have helped you get started here. This topic should be a help to many brick and mortar entrepreneurs! Take care, Tiff :)

ReplyPosted June 26, 2007

by MichelleWaters

Michelle Waters teaches physical product seller how to market their sites online. SHe is owner of Watersweb Solutions LLC, host of Product Seller's Ta... (more)

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