Melissa Norfolk is the Melbourne-based founder of a website development company and author of the Australian and New Zealand edition of Starting an Online Business for Dummies. She spoke to Simon Hendery while in New Zealand this month.
As internet usage continues to grow, it's easy to take a "build it and they will come" approach to starting an online business. What do people need to know before they take the plunge online?
It helps if they can use a computer and if they can comfortably search the internet because you need to do a great deal of research to find out if others are doing what you're planning to do.
Your book sets out the different approaches to building a business online - from using existing trading sites such as Trade Me through to setting up your own site. What's the best way to start?
If you're just wanting to sell products one of the best ways is to get on something like Trade Me or eBay and test the market, because it's cheap. But if you've come up with a unique idea - like Twitter or YouTube, or a big classified or news website - you need a good platform behind the site.
If you are developing a new site from scratch, what's the best approach?
Don't do it all yourself. Concentrate on what you're good at and hire people who know how to build those kinds of websites. Have an idea of what you want down on paper before you go and see someone. Get several quotes and ask to see examples of sites they've built.
Does the global recession make it a good or a bad time to be contemplating starting a business online?
I think it's a good thing. It's prompted a lot of people to think about doing it. If they've either lost their job or are worried about losing their job and they've had an idea for a while, now might be the time to start researching - getting on the internet at night and over the weekends - nutting out [whether their idea] is unique and how they can start selling online.
Are there any online business ideas that are not worth attempting?
It has to be niche. If you have an idea research it and make sure the market isn't already saturated. A year or two ago, a couple spent a fortune trying to set up an online vitamin business. They went out of business within about four months because it had already been done and they were tackling it in the wrong way. Instead of testing to see if they had a market they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and when they couldn't get the customers they couldn't stay afloat.
What are the main mistakes?
Either trying to do it themselves when they don't have the skills or not spending enough on marketing. There's a misconception that if you just have a website people will find it. But you should spend as much money, if not more, on marketing and getting the word out there as on the building of the site.
How should a start-up online business tackle marketing?
The two most common methods are search engine optimisation and pay-per-click marketing - I have chapters on both. Search engine optimisation is one of the cheapest ways to get to the top of search engine [results pages] quickly. If you can get a top 10 or 20 position on Google you're guaranteed a lot of traffic quickly, but you need to think about that before you build your site. Make sure your website
is search engine-friendly. Look at the latest website they've built and see if you can find it on Google. Rather than the business name, type in the key words you'd use to find that sort of business and see if it comes up.
You talk about the importance of offering "service with a virtual smile". Why is that important?
It's vital to answer emails promptly and actually respond to the query. We had an example where we emailed the hire car company about how to return our car to the airport and they just shot us back an automated response that didn't answer our question.
