In the last chapter of “My Journey,” I decided I need a website for success in internet marketing. In this week’s article, I want to draw up a rough website specification document.
As a beginning internet marketer, you do not have to code your own website . You can easily find a web designer through sites like Rentacoder.com that can create a site for you. But, whether you plan to write the website yourself or outsource the job, you still need to have specifications for the design that you use or that you give to your programmer. There are many excellent books written about web design , so I will give you my ideas for a general outline for developing an ecommerce website specifications.
Designing The Main Page and Establishing Your Brand
Your front page will make your first impression, so you want to uniquely brand your website with a memorable logo. When you think of a brand, think about symbols. What symbol could you use to represent your major product or service? Try scribbling out a few designs on paper. If you prefer to use software for this task, AAAlogo.com offers a very affordable software program that can help you design a great logo.
Next, you need to gather 10 to 15 images about your subject matter. These images will be used in your header, footer and on other pages of the site. I often use iStockPhoto or Flickr to name a few. Choose images that invoke emotion or create an overall mood. For example, if your website sells tooth polish you’ll want to select pictures that portray sparkling smiles and the renewed confidence people have when they have white teeth. Having a group of pictures to choose from when you are writing the website help you progress more quickly instead of having to stop to find one picture at a time.
Since you must capture the name and email address of your visitors you will have to consider offering a newsletter or a free gift to entice visitors to opt-in to your subscriber list. Capture leads so you can contact your visitors in the future via email marketing campaigns. You should begin to consider which email marketing/autoresponder company you want to use to keep your lists. Aweber, GetResponse and iContact are the three popular choices offering professional email marketing services to internet marketers.
The final consideration for the Main page could be whether or not you will include sponsored advertising. While this may be somewhat annoying on your site, it may help boost your earnings. Down the road, when you are making steady income you can choose to eliminate sponsored ads if you wish, but it is probably a necessity when you are first starting out.
Creating The Navigation Menus to Direct Your Visitors
There are four standard pages that are usually created for website navigation: Home, About, Products, and Support.
- Home - actually the Main page.
- About – states the mission of the company or the purpose of the website, and what the visitors can hope to get out of the site. May introduce information about the founding of the company.
- Products – introduces your product line.
(Subcategory pages can be created for groups of products under the Product umbrella.) - Support – company policies, gift certificates, and contact forms.
Establishing The Business Policies of Your Website and Company
You can find these documents below on most any website but you should never copy them unless you have asked permission from the site owner. There are several websites that offer free standardized versions of these kinds of documents that you can use freely on your website. It may be necessary to consult a lawyer in your state or territory so that you get the correct language written for your state.
- Terms of Service
- Privacy Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- Affiliate Disclaimer
- Returns Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- Contests and Drawings
You must give these documents to your web designer so that they can be added to your site, so ideally you would have these documents created, proofed, and ready to go early in the design process.
Designing The Product Catalog
Depending on your business, you may have just a few products in your catalog or you may have thousands. You will need to gather all the details about each product into a speadsheet. This would including details like the manufacturer’s skew numbers, manufacturer’s retail price, weight, dimensions, description, your regular price, your sales price, and the number of items in stock.
You will also need to gather digital images of each of the products. When thinking about the desgn of the catalog remember to look for ways to make changing the catalog easy. When you have thousands of items that may change weekly, you may need an automated way of handling those changes.
Establishing A Check Out Process
Finally, you must have a way for the visitor to make selections for purchase, update the selections, and check out of your online store. You’ll have to learn about the different options available to you for online shopping carts and merchant accounts. There is a lot to learn about order processing including things to watch out for to prevent fraud.
If you feel this outline is staggering – That’s OK. There are professionals that can help you accomplish each step along the way. For now, all you need to do is get a notebook or use your computer to start making notes about the appearance of the site and how you want it to flow.
In my next articles, I’ll delve more into legal documents, designing catalogs and choosing a shopping cart solution!
