A Beginner's Guide to Internet Business

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A Beginner's Guide to Internet Business

When setting out to write this guide, I decided that I wouldn't get too specific about any one type of Internet business. Instead, I thought I would try and answer a few questions that beginners might have about how to get over the massive hump of starting an Internet business. Therefore, let's begin with arguably the toughest first decision for any business: choosing the name.

Choosing a Name for your Internet Business

Choosing a name for your Internet business or website can be a truly daunting task. Sometimes it seems like I've spent more hours pondering the name for a business than actually writing the business plan. Some people will argue that you're wasting your time coming up with the perfect name and that you should instead focus that time on developing your business plan, but to those people I say that a catchy and properly descriptive name can make a lot of difference. What I suggest you do to make the choice easier is to have a good understanding of what your business will be like.

There are two different kinds of business names. There's the brandable, unique name and then there's the generic, "what my business does is in its name," name. First, let's explore going after a generic name. You first need to ask yourself the simple question: what separates your business from the competition? Answer this question first and then write a page to two-page summary of your business. Try to decipher what it is about the way you're setting up the business that defines it as a unique market niche. This way you'll get an accurate generic name.

As for the brandable name: I was talking three or four years back (maybe more) with an executive at Amazon --well before they were huge --about how they came up with the name Amazon and why they didn't pick a name that indicated what their business had to offer. He told me that they were looking for an off-the-wall yet at the same time familiar brandable name. He went on to explain that it wasn't so much the name that made the business, but the business that made the name. All you needed in his view when picking a name was to come up with something that's short and rememberable. Certainly, "Amazon" is both of those things.

The brandable name is very attractive, but there are a lot of people out there who prefer a name that conveys some sort of understanding of what the business does. Once you have the nature of your business clearly in mind, as I indicate above, a name of this kind should be easier to find, but you had better be sure you've done your homework looking through copyrights and trademarks because, at least in technology, most non-brandable names are spoken for. The best way to come up with a non-brandable name is, again, to begin by writing a one to two page summary of your business that defines what separates you from your competition. Then compile the largest possible list of keywords and adjectives that reflect the spirit of your business. As discrete words, they may all be taken, so try jumbling them together. Once you do that, you'll probably find something clever, yet clear in its meaning.

The Planning Stages of Your Internet Business

A lot of the initial planning of your business should come before you've selected a name and during the process of selecting the name (while writing the brief description, for example), but formal planning can definitely come after. There are different schools of thought about writing your business plan. The traditional view is that you'll need a very precise and well-written document because you'll be seeking outside investment from the beginning. But with the majority of Internet businesses not costing all that much money to start up, more people are leaning toward using their own personal funds for financing the first few years of their business; hence it suffices for them to create a business plan that's less formal.

I'm going to cover the latter, because even though I've done both, I believe that writing a less formal business plan is suitable for most people reading this article. In sketching out the areas of your business, you want to cover every aspect of it: a description of the business, how marketing will be handled, how financing will be done, who your competition is, what your competition does well, what your competition does poorly, how you can do better than your competition, how customer service will be run, how you will make money. In making a list of such aspects and how you can best approach them, you will see more clearly how they interact. Writing an informal business plan is basically like brainstorming, so go into it with an open mind and simply jot down all of the thoughts that you have for your business. You'll thank yourself later when you can refer back to your document for ideas: "That's right, my competition really does well in their customer service, I need to match or out-do them there." It's very helpful to set everything down on paper.

Designing Your Internet Business's Website

After you've picked the perfect name, and written the perfect business plan, then it's time to design the perfect website. If you're like me, then you're basically a terrible web designer and hire other people to do that work for you. It's good to have a sense of what you want your website to look like, which I always do have, but it's best to leave web designing to the professionals if you can afford to do so. Granted, a good web design can cost anywhere from $500 to $5,000, but your web design is what gives visitors to you website their crucial first impression

Think of all of the times you have visited a website and been appalled by its design: "This is really ugly," you thought to yourself. "These people must lack professionalism." It's not always the case that an ugly-looking website indicates lack of professionalism or lack of caring, you and I know that, but if even 1% of your visitors think this way, then that's a large potential loss of sales. (I honestly think that far more than 1% shy away from making a purchase or revisiting a website that has an unappealing web design.)

Selecting a web design firm or individual to do your design is difficult. There are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of so-called web designers out there, so be wary in your selection. Don't always go after the cheap price, which can often be an indicator of poor service and quality. One suggestion I have for selecting a web designer is to find a website that you really like the design of and try to contact the person who runs it. Ask them who their web designer was, whether they would do business with them again, and what the price was. If the person is pleased with their web designer, they'll surely let you know.

Implementation: Name, Plan, Web Design

The final step is to implement the name of your business, its business plan, and its web design. Get your website up and running and you can begin marketing, which is my favorite part of business. I'm not going to go into marketing here, because that's so very specific to your kind of Internet business that there's not much that can be said about it generally. I will say, though, that you should not be afraid to spend money on marketing if that means buying banner advertising space or pay-per-click advertising space. However, be sure that your website is running at 100% before you start investing money in advertising. There's nothing worse than seeing a website that's half done shelling out money for advertising. It's just such a waste. Best of luck implementing the "big three," and please ask any questions you have here on the forums.

© Copyright 2005, Spencer Fry.
No replication or republication in any printed or electronic format is permitted without permission from the author.