Project 1: Getting Connected for the First Time

If you’ve only surfed the Internet from a public library, or if you’ve just bought your first PC, and are wondering what to do next, this project is a good place to get started. It will take you through the process of signing up with a standard dialup Internet connection. Cable modems, DSL and other options are all explored in Project 12, later in the book.
Every other project in this book assumes that you have access to the Internet, so if you don’t have a connection, you should complete this project before you get started. You could actually do some of the projects in this book without your own computer and Internet connection, but most of them will be much harder, and many of them will be completely impossible.

1. Investigate the options
2. Sign up
3. Set up your e-mail account
4. Start surfing

Project 2: Managing Customer e-Mail

E-mail is everywhere. Chances are you’ll find an e-mail address on nearly every business card you see. So what happens when you add your e-mail address to your own cards and stationery?
Good e-mail management can make your organization look more professional, and more interested in your customer needs than many others out there. Many businesses – small and large – fail to manage their e-mail properly, and it costs them their good reputation, orders, and even customers.
In this project, you’ll lay the foundations for good practices with your customer e-mail for years to come. It’s less about technology and more just about what is considered to be good manners in the electronic world.

1. A word about "spam"
2. "Netiquette"
3. Establishing an e-mail routine
4. Acknowledge immediately, answer soon
5. Create and use templates
6. Accepting e-mailed orders
7. Mechanics
8. Practice, practice, practice

Project 3: Learning to Use Search Engines

It’s like the old joke – "Yes, I do know everything – I just can’t always remember it all." There’s detailed information available online on just about any topic you can imagine, but the trick is to locate that information efficiently and quickly when you need it. This is where search engines are invaluable.
It’s really hard to overstate the impact that search engines can make in the way you do research. Many people who once would have turned to a bookshelf full of occasionally-used reference volumes now look first to the Internet – for nearly anything.

1. How search engines work
2. Getting started
3. Asking the right questions
4. Sorting through the results
5. Advanced tools

Project 4: Shopping Online

As a small business, you are also a consumer. One of the strengths of e-commerce is its ability to efficiently serve niche markets. So, the next time you’re looking for a part for your equipment, or a component for your products, or just common office supplies, try looking online.

1. Locating suppliers
2. Online credit-card security
3. "Shipping and handling"
4. Privacy

Project 5: Getting Support Via the Internet

When you need help with a software package, a piece of office equipment or an overdue package, you used to have only one option: hold music. And if you had a problem after business hours, you were simply out of luck. Today, however, you can turn to the Internet to increase your chances of finding the exact answer you need, and to make optimum use of your time.

1. Check your FAQs
2. Self-service knowledge bases
3. E-mail for support

Project 6: Studying the Competition

Every organization that participates in the marketplace leaves information about itself on the Internet. Without having to resort to one of those fraudulent "Internet SPY!!" products that spammers are so fond of hawking, you can gain critical insights into how your competition does business, what their customers think of them, and what they may be planning to do next.
One of the principles of intelligence is that you can often uncover the most closely-held secrets by simply putting together the pieces of the puzzle visible in public. Knowledge of your competitors can be gained through exercising this principle, and applying some analytical thought to the bits of information you uncover.

1. Identify your research targets
2. Study their Web site
3. Check local media
4. Check local job listings
5. Public notices
6. Newsgroup archives
7. Pulling it all together

Project 7: Basic e-Commerce

Web-enabled e-commerce is the ultimate goal for many organizations. For a small business, getting started can be surprisingly easy. With some of the services available to online entrepreneurs, you can have a storefront up and running in no time flat.

1. Auction sites
2. Pre-built online shops
3. Shipping and handling fees
4. Taxes
5. Maintaining your reputation

Project 8: Building a Basic Web Site

One of the biggest steps you can take in opening the door to the use of the Internet in your small business is to establish your own Web site. Unfortunately, it’s also where many small businesses make their biggest online mistakes. Review the Rookie Mistakes, below, before you proceed – with any luck, you can avoid making some of these errors.

1. Register your domain name
2. Choose your content
3. Think about Web design
4. Decide who will create the site
5. Finalize design choices
6. Build the site
7. Make hosting decisions
8. Go live!
9. Mid-course adjustments
10. Change is constant

Project 9: Helping Them Find Your Site

"If you build it, they will come" does not necessarily apply on the Web. It’s necessary to inform prospects and customers that you have a site, and to make it possible for casual browsers to find it. Fortunately, there are a lot of opportunities to promote Web sites.
Some means of driving traffic to your site are very low-cost, both in time and resources; others, if the return justifies them, can involve spending some money. This project will focus on the low-cost approaches – later projects will guide you through some of the more advanced (and spendy) ways to get the word out.

1. Get the word out
2. Understanding search engines
3. Basic searches
4. Searching by keyword
5. Pay for placement
6. Keyword Advertising
7. Links

Project 10: Recruiting Online

Many small businesses use the Web to attract candidates for open positions. More job seekers than ever are turning first to the Internet to look for their next position. If they even look at traditional newspaper listings, it’s just as likely to be on the newspaper’s Web site. By implementing this project, you can start to attract the most qualified (and net-savvy!) candidates you’ve ever seen.

1. Posting on your own site
2. Using national recruiting Web sites
3. Using local online recruiting opportunities
4. Following up with candidates

Project 11: Analyzing Web Traffic

One of the most interesting ways in which the Web differs from other marketing avenues is in how well you can trace your prospects’ route through your content. With good traffic analysis, you can see not only which efforts are working best to drive visitors into your Web site, but you can also see how well the Web site is serving their needs.
You can also find bottlenecks that may be causing them to give up and leave. Better that you find these by looking at a few Web logs than by wondering later why your site turned out to be such a flop! By examining how your visitors navigate your site, you can help to anticipate their needs – or help them find features that they’ve overlooked.

1. Select and set up analysis tools
2. Understand the results
3. Act on the information

Project 12: Getting a Faster Internet Connection

Dialup Internet access is usually sufficient for home use and is often enough when you’re just getting started in business use. If you have multiple users at your place of business or if you just need to be able to use the Internet more quickly yourself, you will find yourself being tempted by the promises of greater Internet speed in various advertisements that you see.
In this project, you’ll cut through the hype and decide whether a faster connection is worthwhile for your business and if so, what the benefits and drawbacks are to each of the major options available on the market today.

1. Understand the options
2. Get connected
3. Security
4. Sharing the connection
5. Employee usage

Project 13: Employee e-mail Accounts

In a business where a number of employees have their own Internet-connected computers, it makes sense to set up each of them with their own e-mail addresses. This enables them to converse directly with customers and partners, rather than having everything go through one shared account.
When you consider that "markets are conversations," as has been observed, it makes a lot of sense to enable those conversations to take place as naturally as possible. By facilitating direct communication between your people and your customers and suppliers, you effectively extend the walls of your enterprise to encompass these people outside of your defined organization. Powerful stuff!

1. Do you need an e-mail server?
2. Select and install e-mail server system
3. Set up users
4. E-mail best practices
5. Abuse prevention

Project 14: Gathering Customer Feedback

Part of the power of the Web is that it’s always on – you can receive critical information from your customers even when everyone in your company is happily snoring. Setting up these important capabilities will add interactivity to your Web site, turning it into much more than just a static marketing piece.

1. Understanding Web forms
2. Building the feedback page(s)
3. Procedures for feedback
4. Extending the concept

Project 15: Setting Up an E-mail Newsletter

While spam is an unwelcome intruder in e-mail inboxes everywhere, an informative, useful newsletter will nearly always get a friendly reception. Periodic newsletters also drive Web traffic and business, acting as a gentle reminder that your company stands ready to solve your customers’ problems. They’re also another opportunity to ask for feedback from your customers – always a good idea!

1. Getting permission
2. Creating a format
3. Generating content
4. Sending and follow-up

Project 16: Banner Advertisements

The "golden era" of banner advertising may be over – some contend it never arrived – but there are still opportunities to use this much-maligned advertising medium. Banner ads can be used merely to build brand awareness ("mindshare"), or to draw in very carefully targeted prospects who might not otherwise know about your company.

1. Identifying your targets
2. Common banner formats
3. Creating the banner
4. Placement
5. Follow-through and tracking

Project 17: Alternative Internet Advertising

Banner ads and pay-for-placement search engine entries are not the only opportunities to get the word out on the Internet. In many cases, you can even inform potential customers about your organization’s products or services by doing a public service online. As always, the trick is to not offend anyone’s advertising-hostile sensibilities.

1. Third-party e-mail newsletters
2. E-mail list servers
3. Search engine-related advertising

Project 18: Using Newsgroups

There are something in the range of 50,000 to 75,000 discussion groups active on the Internet right now. Each of these newsgroups is a vibrant community, each with its own unique quirks and rules of etiquette. One wrong word as a business can earn you an electronic black eye in these groups, but well understood and carefully used, they can be one of your most powerful means of communicating with your customers.

1. Understanding newsgroups
2. Gaining access to newsgroups
3. Finding relevant groups
4. Lurking
5. Flame wars
6. Making contributions
7. Tilt the playing field

Project 19: Creating a Customer Forum

The public newsgroups may be too raucous a place for your customers to gather and exchange information. Or, you may want to provide a private place for them to air their grievances and give input on your plans. Whatever the case may be, a customer forum can be a fascinating exercise – and one that is guaranteed to surprise you.

1. Technology and hosting options
2. Drawing an audience
3. Responding to negatives
4. Drawing on the resource

Project 20: Automated Lead Entry

Giving your prospects the opportunity to contact you directly from your Web site can be a great use of the technology. However, it’s all too easy for this to become burdensome, and an opportunity for human error to creep in. There’s no need to take that risk when you can get the computer to do the dull parts of the job.

1. Building a Web form
2. Linking to the back end

Project 21: Customer Self-Help

Imagine being able to answer most customer questions anytime, day or night. You can make your customers and prospects happier, as well as reducing the number of late-night panicked calls you have to handle, by enabling a few simple self-help tools on your Web site.

1. Just the FAQs
2. Enabling customers to search for answers
3. Taking questions online
4. Follow-through

Project 22: Online Catalogue

If you have a broad inventory of products to offer, particularly if that inventory changes frequently, maintaining current and accurate information on your Web site may seem like an administrative nightmare. However, it need be no more burdensome than managing your inventory in a database.
Even better, when you can accurately communicate the state of your inventory to your customers, they will be more confident that you can fulfill their requests – or at least have a solid idea of what to expect. Setting accurate expectations is a key ingredient to great customer relationships.

1. Identifying a data source
2. Establishing a format
3. Setting expectations
4. Publishing the catalogue
5. Refreshing the catalogue

Project 23: Advanced e-Commerce

The next logical step beyond an online catalogue is to put those items on sale. There are a wide variety of approaches to this bold step into the online world. Some don’t require very much risk and are not hard to implement. Others are a little harder, but offer you better control over the process.
The biggest hurdle is managing payment arrangements. This project assumes that you will want to take credit cards. If your products or services don’t lend themselves to this approach, this project is worth reading anyway, since it covers some of the basics of taking customer orders on the Web, as well.

1. Accepting payment online
2. Fraud
3. Setting up a secure page
4. Security is more critical than ever
5. The shopping cart application

Project 24: Using Hosted Business Software

Today, you can reap the benefits of sophisticated business software, without having to perform complex installations. It’s available anywhere you can get an Internet connection and best of all, someone else takes care of the maintenance. It can literally change the way you do business.
What’s more, the packages available through ASPs ("application service providers") include some of the most critical to manage your business effectively – and to take advantage of the rest of the opportunities offered by the Internet.

1. Understanding the technology
2. Investigate the offerings
3. Before you sign on the dotted line…