This is a bit of a trick title when you think about it - unless you are using a service like Gmail or Hotmail, then you are already paying for your email. Most hosting accounts including all the ones we offer at Lightning Host, allow email accounts to be hosted on the web hosting account. You pay for the web hosting, so you are also paying for your email.
New Zealand is quite a unique country in many ways, in relation to business it ranks in the top five countries in the world for small businesses per capita. This doesn’t surprise me as after living here for 10 years working in the industry I have helped many such business start off online with their first website.
Note: While this article is directed at business websites, most of this post is equally directed at anyone with a website.
Most websites these days have a specific reason for being; over at Pixelweb where we mostly build business websites, one of the first questinos we ask is, what is the purpose of this website? Is it to promote a service? Sell a product? Whatever the reason, you will want to be able to quantify the success of the website.
So the key here is to create a Google account, there is a free offering and one for business. While I would highly recommend the business verison which includes email using your domain name, the free version also comes with the important tools below.
These days, you don't even need a working knowledge of HTML to make a good looking website. With the various Content Management Systems (CMS) on the market today, much of the heavy lifting of designing your website and making it look good is handled for you. Couple that with a crash course in basic SEO, and you can have a good looking website that draws traffic.
A significant number of businesses stop right there, and that's a mistake. That gets you a functional website, and perhaps even a profitable one, but if you want to take your site to the next level, then you need to make use of an analytics package.
E-mail marketing is quite possibly the ideal marketing tool for small businesses. There are a number of reasons why this is so, but the main one is simply this: It gives you global reach, no matter how small you are.
It puts you on something close to an even footing with businesses that are significantly larger than you are. Having said that, there's a right way, and a wrong way to go about email marketing. Without spending too much time focused on the wrong way, let's just call it by name. Buying "canned" email lists from third party vendors. Never a good idea for a number of reasons. Resist the temptation.
Ecommerce stores are booming. The value online shopping adds to customers lives with the increased choice, fast service and ease of use has resulted in a massive boom in eCommerce stores. Online shopping and eCommerce stores are only going to get more popular in the next few years as we approach the asymptote.
If a business has an ecommerce store, you know you are in a good place, but this artice isn't just to confirm that you are heading down a good road. Let's talk about how you can promote your eCommerce store. Marketing is the quintessential skill in online business so let's talk about it now.
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