JOOMGuru

My business runs on PayPal

Author: Les Kinch

Did you know that PayPal is more active online than any other bank in the world?

A Truly Global Partner

It operates in over 190 countries and allows you to maintain up to 19 different currencies in your account without charge? You can be paid in less than 24 hours [and draw on that immediately] and you can send and receive invoices and payments instantly.

PayPal can also operate under extreme pressure as shown in the last comic relief charity event where PayPal handled over £2million of donations through their Express Checkout during the peak period of donations, The Charity could never have coped without their full involvement.

Domain easy route [2]

Author: Les Kinch

Following on from buying your domain name in the first article [1]The Domain question is? you now need to whip up a website to meet your customers expectations.

A Website is easy isn't it - just a few pages of stuff about me?

No, it never is and the quicker you realise this the better. It is essential that you recognise immediately that it is not only up to you to build a motorway from your site to the customers PC screen but, you also have to go and collect them in a fast limousine and deliver them to your site and then hold their hand while they get around and hopefully eventually buy from your online business.

Google its not a trade directory

Author: Les Kinch

That's the point isn't it?

Lets get something straight okay?

Search Engines are not your friend.
Search Engines are not there to promote your business.
Search Engines are not there to advertise your company
Search Engines are not there to help people find your website

Okay, now we have these facts on the table, what are search engines for?

A Search engine is designed to find products, services or items of personal, academic or commercial interest, they are not there to find www.widget.com because if they were they would be called Directory Engines.

When you go searching for something on Google do you go searching for widget.com, or do you go searching for an item or service? Obviously its the latter.

Domains - what are they [1]

Author: Les Kinch

the name you buy when you first decide the internet is where you want to market yourself.

Do I need a Domain?

Without a domain you rely on other peoples sites to advertise you and your products. This is not a good way to prove you are serious about your business. Neither is hopping onto a FREE website and becoming a sub-domain because they benefit longterm but, most importantly you don't. It only helps them grow their business it doesn't help you build yours. [tip] Don't work off a domain that is part of someone elses business.

Having your own domain is the only way to build an online business so let's consider you have made this decision early on and are now drilling down to your actual needs.

Driving Buyers to your site [3]

Author: Les Kinch

People see massive 'hits' and think oh! goodie I'm there - wrong! Traffic does not mean buyers - learn the difference

I have a Stats package - what do I do with it?

All websites when hosted come with a 'stats' package that tells you basic information about who is visiting your site and where they go and how long they stay. Do you understand it?

First of all the stats have this big page header which says You have had 1,590 hits today, that's 120 hits per hour and you are thinking great - won't be long before someone orders from me...... or, Wow!! aren't I popular lets get some more stuff up there.

Sadly, these hits are often just bots hitting your site, searches and automatic crawlers looking for information and your site is just one of millions it trawls through mindlessly every day. Every time it reaches your site and you have 30 items on your front page it 'hits' all 30 at the same time and this registers on your hit counter. It is, to all intents and purposes, meaningless.[tip] ignore this page for the time being, by the time it makes any sense, you won't need it

Using PayPal for Direct Debits

Author: Les Kinch

Getting regular subscriptions from people is difficult if you are a small business with limited banking facilities. We use a system that is cheap, quick to set up and more versatile than any other.

PayPal can make your business fly

We have been using PayPal for many years with great effect and no downside. It is not the PayPal you are familiar with because we use the business facilities that they provide and the end result is that we get a complete service with efficiency levels close to 100%.

What do we do? Well, everyone can get their own PayPal account and many of you use this for online payments such as eBay but, did you know that your business can literally run itself on a PayPal Pro Manager account?