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> Get Articles > Internet Marketing > Prepare Your Business For The Web Prepare Your Business For The Web Download as PDFChris Falck supportautoreply2u.co.uk AUTOREPLY2U http://autoreply2u.co.uk ============================================================ PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR THE WEB - Learn how to prepare your business for the web, and your workforce ============================================================ Prepare to put your business on the Net! Getting your workforce ready for the Net! Change, for some people, brings about feelings of insecurity and uncertainty. However, change can provide a wealth of opportunities. It is important to get the support of all your workforce; it is vital that they are behind your plans for the Internet. Throughout your business there are many individuals who can contribute to the various aspects of a prospective Web site. You will have a much smoother ride through the whole Web site development process if you get key individuals from all areas of your business together to define the elements of the site. Besides creating a better Website it also has the effect of improving team spirit and togetherness. It should be fairly obvious which of your people would hold the different responsibilities that having a Web presence carries. The tasks include: There will be a need to update the site on a regular basis. Who will do it? Agree review format and frequency. Analyse the effectiveness of the site and feedback. Who should be the Webmaster? Who will be responsible for the text? Who will have final sign-off? Who will be responsible for all commercial aspects? Don't forget to take into account: colour-blindness of visitors dyslexia of visitors ease of navigation around the site effectiveness of text and graphics. Choosing & registering Your Domain Name A business needs to think carefully about the image it is projecting, both through its company stationery, the logos, its uniform... and how the company is to be perceived on the Net. Choosing a domain name is not something that should be rushed. Like the naming of any company, it is something you will be living with for some time and not something that is easily changed. When choosing your domain name the choices facing you may not be as simple as at first they appear. At the first level you are likely to want one of these: www.mycompany.co.uk www.mycompany.com Unfortunately, you may find that someone else has taken your company name. What then? Get your team to brainstorm and come up with suggestions that could be suitable. Employ a little lateral thinking. It's not necessary to have your company name in there! E.g. A good name for a coffee producer would be www.coffeebeans.co.uk . Its simple, its memorable and easy to type. OK. So you've decided on your domain name. You can also use this to register your chosen name. However, I would recommend looking at our web hosting services before registering. Click here. What about Foreign Languages? But what about dealing in foreign languages? What's the point of trying to deal with the rest of Europe if none of your staff speak French or German, let alone Flemish or Greek? It's a problem. However, we can translate your Website and any communications for your European customers for you. That gets you round one problem, but then what about local laws governing what you can and cannot offer over the Net? And what do you do if your site is viewed in France where language laws dictate that your site must be able to be viewed in French if you intend to trade there? You should also have a French language version or you will be contravening French law. The fact is that, whatever you want to do with your site, you should stick to a few simple basics and first establish your ground rules for playing the Internet commerce game. Should your site be priced purely in sterling or in a more widely acceptable currency such as US dollars or Euros; or should you go for some of the more popular currencies as well - say Yen and Francs, for example? How will you cope with shifting exchange rates? How often will you update your prices? How will you explain that the final amount on your customers credit card bills may vary according to the prevailing exchange rate? How will you cope with packaging and delivery charges? Also consider how varying time zones mean that you must be careful with expressions such as '24-hour delivery'. Are you going to provide multiple language support, or stick to English as 'the language of the Internet'? If you are planning to trade cross-border, then we have the tools and experience to help you in this area. As you can see, things are not always as straightforward as they seem and you should think things through in great detail before trading across border, so even though your company is UK-based you still have to think of the implications of your Web presence around the world. Payment Systems OK, How do you charge for your products or services? There are a number of options to choose from and it is to say the least confusing when trying to consider where to start. 'e-cash' systems mainly fall into one of two categories: 'open' or 'closed'. Pre-payment cards for telephones are a good example of a closed scheme since they cannot be used for anything else other than to make a phone call. Open e-cash systems are like ordinary money, being exchangeable anywhere for any goods. The Mondex ( http://www.mondex.com ) payment card is a good example of this, albeit that it never really took off in the public's imagination as a viable alternative for cash or credit cards. As far as the Internet is concerned its security that's the burning issue... You need something that facilitates online transactions. Simply put an Internet payment system must satisfy the following four conditions: Only the parties to the transaction can read the details. No one can have access to, or be able to tamper with, the transactions en route. Both parties of the transaction should be able to positively identify one another. Evidence that a transaction has actually taken place can be provided. Confidentiality For a message to be classified as being confidential, no one apart from the intended recipient can read the message. To ensure that a message remains confidential, a method of encrypting the data must be used. There are plenty of encryption routines, some of which involve the same key for both encrypting and decrypting the message, whilst others work using the public key process whereby the message can only be decrypted by the recipient using a private key. Integrity Integrity is maintained, provided that no one can tamper with a message en route, to its destination. Generating a digest (checksum) can provide the Integrity of a message. What normally happens is that an algorithm is applied to the text, which generates what is known as a hash number that describes the message. If the original message is tampered with in any way, the checksum will be different, and so the recipient can check that all is as it should be. For this to work the checksum needs to be sent separately, as an encrypted message, from the original message data. Authentication If both the receiving and sending parties can prove each other's identity then authentication has been achieved. Because both parties to have faith in each other's identity they can make use of a trusted third party that issues a digital certificate. This certificate confirms a link between a person or company and a public key. This way, when someone receives a public key, they can tell exactly whom it is from. These trusted third parties are known as Certification Authorities and there are several, such as Thwate in the UK Non-repudiation If there is evidence that a transaction actually took place, then neither party is able to repudiate the transaction at a later date. Non-repudiation is the trickiest of the 4 secure conditions to meet and relies itself on four more requirements to be met. A protocol such as Netscape's 'Secure Socket Level'(SSL) must be used to provide authentication between the server and client and requires digital IDs to be sent backwards and forwards before a secure connection is finally made. Both parties must synchronise their exchanges. Evidence tokens are exchanged reflecting the results of the transaction. The status of the transaction must be clear at all times. SET Another common security standard is the Secure Electronic Transaction protocol which has the backing of MasterCard International and Visa International. It differs from SSL in its use of time stamping and digitally signing to offer non- repudiation. SET is likely to become the backbone of credit card dealings on the Net. The Simple Solution If your site is going to be used primarily for business-to- business purposes, then an appreciation of the basics of payment systems will be necessary. For business-to-consumers websites, the majority of e-shoppers will expect to pay for goods via credit card and this is probably the easiest payment system to set up for a small business. To set up an online shop or some other kind of e-commerce site, it is imperative that you have to have the logistics in place to process the orders. Or you will be letting down your customers which, in today's customer-focused business ethic, is the last thing you want to do. Probably the type of business best suited for e-commerce is one that could sell its products using a catalogue. They make up a diverse range. In many cases they already have a business model that is similar to that of an online store; in other words, they already have a distribution channel set up and they have a system that can handle incoming orders. In its simplest form, you could have an e-commerce system that relies on orders being received via e-mail or by snail-mail. You will have displayed an order form into which your customers will type their requirements. It's easy, it's effective ... and it's losing you sales!!!. It knocks your image, and if you expect your customers to navigate around your site, returning to the order form every time they come across a particular product they want, then think again - would you? That said, it is simple, and if you do not have a wide range of products it is a highly workable solution. However, before long, you will want to set up a fully functional online store. If you are ready to set up an online store please look at our e- commerce-hosting package. This may be posing the other burning question about the Internet: Is It Safe To Use Credit Cards On The Internet? A popular myth about the Internet, which will almost certainly be raised by some of your customers, is that credit card transactions are risky because your card number can be stolen. Lets think about this sensibly for a moment... How do you use your credit or debit card in the 'real world'? How many people get to see your card number? How many times have you freely given your card details over the phone? I bet some of you have done it in a crowded room where anybody could be noting the details down!! I say this because I know I have! In a shop does your card spend any time out of your view when you are purchasing a product? The simple truth is that card numbers are easy to steal. It's takes a great deal of effort and technical knowledge to steal numbers on the Internet and a single card number just isn't worth the effort to steal. Modem browsers now encrypt the data they send, and most of the Web sites at which you can use your credit card run on secure servers that have their own built-in encryption. So when you visit one of these secure sites, enter your card number, and click the button to send it, your number will appear as meaningless gibberish to anyone managing to hack into the system. Always bear in mind that credit card companies regard online transactions as being the safest kind of credit card transaction. Doing the Biz Regardless of your size, the golden rule on the Internet is Keep It Simple Stupid(KISS). Don't offer too many choices to your visitors. Categorise your products into groups. Use graphics sensibly, but don't overdo it. Keep your order form simple to use. Only ask for the minimum of details necessary. Always offer your customers a choice of payment system. Many are still very wary of giving out their credit card details over the Net, despite the different security systems in place, so you could, for instance, allow your customers to print out the order form and post it to you complete with a cheque. Always offer a secure system for credit card payments, such as SSL. Ask your lSP what its procedures are for dealing with this. Normally the lSP will have to set up your site with a trusted certificate from a third party company or Certification Authority such as we mentioned earlier and this will probably cost you between about £400 and £1000. An alternative, cheaper way of doing this is to use an ISP who already has a Web server that is certified and who will allow you to put your site on its server for a much smaller cost than you would have to pay otherwise. The disadvantage here, however, is that the certificate will have the ISP's details rather than your own. Stick in the Muds! I hope you can't wait to get your store up online, but before you do, there is a great deal of money to be made on the Internet but, you could just as easily lose your shirt. Research has shown that two out of every three businesses on the Internet fail. Most of the virtual malls that have sprung up in there thousands have failed. Even the most well known sites like amazon.com, still makes a loss. In essence, most of the big-name researchers have concluded the Net is likely to remain mainly unprofitable for the next ten years. The combination of software bugs, limited selections, and slow download times have even led some to describe the Internet as the High Street from Hell! But those same researchers also conclude that e-commerce will get much better in ways that we can only guess at now. Do you think you can predict the advances in Internet technology over the next five years? I'm sure I can't. One thing I am certain of is that if a site is carefully designed and marketed correctly, then serious amounts of money can be made today! Trade Marks, Copyright & The Law In this country the copying of copyright work in any medium by electronic means is treated as copying under the Copyright Designs and Patent Act of 1998 unless the copyright owner has given his permission. Therefore, in theory copying any graphic image from somebody else's Website could technically put you in the position of having committed an offence. If your company Web site includes text and graphics that have been copied from elsewhere on the Web then your company could be in breach of the act as well. Written By Chris Falck Director Rose Data Systems Ltd ***************************************************************** Chris Falck is an IT Consultant, Internet Marketer, Designer, and Webmaster of AUTOREPLY2U - http://autoreply2u.co.uk and eCom-RDS - http://ecom-rds.co.uk . (Amongst Others). AUTOREPLY2U is the Ultimate Autoresponder & Follow-up Service and provides FREE & PRO accounts to its many users. Take the TEST-DRIVE by visiting the site or by emailing us at mailto:testdriveautoreply2u.co.uk Want a Feedback Form on your site but haven't got a script? Use ours - http://freeforms.autoreply2u.co.uk eCom-RDS offers Web Design, Hosting, Maintenance & Marketing services to SME's You may reprint this entire newsletter and resource box on your web site, provided it is reproduced in it's entirety along with this resource box. Copyright 2001. All Rights Retained by Author. ***************************************************************** How useful did you find this article? This article can be downloaded freely from http://www.get-articles.com and used on your website or in your ezine so long as the author is credited and their resource box left intact. You should not change any links in the article, and where the article is used on a website it's links should be clickable. 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