Marketing is about communicating who you are to the world. To make a strong statement, you need to start out by knowing who you are, in your bones, and be able to articulate that, to yourself most of all.

Take some quiet time and write down some thoughts. Don’t wordsmith it,  just write a version in plain language for yourself. This is a credo, a manifesto–what you stand for and how you are different in the world. Don’t worry about using fancy words–fancy does not necessarily equal powerful. It needs to speak to you.

When you have this, ask yourself, “How can I demonstrate this in my website? How can I convey this to my visitors?” and brainstorm.

Consistently communicate and demonstrate your values.

Communicating is saying “We value customer service”, and providing testimonials or reports to back it up.

Demonstrating is actions–following up with people, being courteous, really listening, etc.

Both are important. If you are good at one, start working on the other. It’s not enough to just demonstrate it – communicating it helps people anchor in the experience and remember it. Telling a story that demonstrates your values is one of the most effective ways to build interest and is a great use for a blog.

Your website should communicate and demonstrate your unique selling points immediately and clearly. Definitely on the homepage—but keep in mind that people may enter your site through other pages too. Make sure you capture the essence of your company in a tagline or similar header text on every page.

Building a brand is all about consistency. This means the look and feel of your website should match your business cards, brochures, and letterhead. Have the same person write your brochure copy as your website so they have a consistent flavor and tone. If you can’t have the same person do both, make sure the person writing copy knows they are to match the existing style.

Beyond look and feel, make sure the character and vision of your company comes through in the website copy and visuals. It’s not about creating a corporate veneer of sameness–it’s about bringing your passion and values into every possible interaction someone can have with your business. That way every email they get, every call, every service or product builds on their happiness with your company.

Provide as much (well-organized) information as possible.

There’s no reason to skimp on a website–the more you flesh out your content the more your visitors will sense that you know what you are talking about. Expertise builds trust. Plus, search engines love content.

Make sure to present information in successive levels of complexity. Let people navigate into more and more information–don’t overwhelm them on the homepage.

Appeal to your niche—but don’t alienate others.

For small and micro-businesses, identifying and targeting a specific niche is key to being successful. However, you never know who will end up on your website, and you might discover a whole new market for your product or service that you hadn’t thought of. So when aiming for a target audience, make sure your site is still professional, user-friendly, and accessible for everyone.

Invest in professional design. Gorgeous photography, sharp error-free copy, and an easy-to-use website demonstrate that your company cares about quality.

Know what you want visitors to do and make it easy.

Do you want visitors to contact you? Fill out a form? Sign up for a newsletter? Make a purchase? Attend an event? Get clear on what your target actions are and make it very easy for people to complete them.

For instance, if you want your visitors to join your Facebook fan page, don’t hide a little icon in the corner of your header – make it big! And write some copy about all the fun that is going on over on the Facebook page (of course, make sure some fun is happening first).

The same goes for Add to Cart links. Make them obvious. You can’t make someone click on it, but you can make sure they don’t miss it!

Give your customers a low-key way to interact with you.

Blogs are great because someone can leave a comment and develop a relationship with your company that is low-intensity. Provide many ways for them to learn and interact with you: subscribe to your blog, download a free e-book, join your Facebook page, follow you on Twitter, or come to a free event.

Many people research and have repeat interactions before they are ready to buy. The more options you give them, the more trust you can build with them until they are ready to buy. These low-key interactions can also keep repeat customers in the loop and keep you in their minds.

Wanting to develop a clear marketing plan?
My printer-friendly worksheet Create a Marketing Plan takes you step by step through the major elements of a focused, effective marketing plan: what you sell, how it benefits your customer, who you are trying to sell to, and how you will reach them.

• Building Trust Through Your Website What makes the difference between a small company you will...
• What Should I Be Thinking About When Planning My Website? Is your website to generate new leads or to provide...
• How Do I Write Great Website Copy? When writing copy, the key is to let your personality...

Who is your target audience?
Is this website for existing customers, potential customers, investors, or all three? Who is most important for you to reach and what information do you most want to give them?

What information do you want to provide and how will it be organized?
Make a list of everything that any potential visitor could want to know about your company and products first, and then start organizing it.

What are your long term goals for this website and in what order will they be accomplished?
If you plan to start small and expand later, it can be helpful to break your plan into “phases”. The first phase might be a brochure site with PayPal buttons for a few products. The second might be a larger e-commerce site with an integrated admin so you can update your products. A third phase might be a robust cart application that can integrate with your inventory and suppliers.

What are your real needs and what is “bloat”?
It’s easy to get carried away by what you could do with all this technology. But technology that you don’t understand or isn’t really integrated into your business system and practices is pretty useless (and can cause more headaches than it’s meant to solve).

What are other people doing and how will you be different?
See what your competition is up to on the web. Look at major retailers like Amazon and Target. See what other similar-sized retailers in different niches are doing. But don’t just copy what they are doing: think about how you will stand out from this crowd.

What is your overall marketing strategy and how does your website fit into it?
Is your website going to generate new leads? Where will your traffic come from? Will you utilize social media sites like Facebook and Twitter? What are your marketing strategy and tactics?

Need more help planning your website?
My printer-friendly Website Planning Worksheet asks all the major questions you need to be organized and prepared for your website design or redesign.

• Should I Get on Facebook? Marketing Strategy vs. Tactics Facebook, Twitter, and blogging are marketing tactics. They can be...
• How Can I Make My Website a Better Marketing Vehicle? An overview of marketing principles and practices that can improve...
• How Do I Decide What My Website Should Look Like? The best way to develop ideas about design is to...

Make sure your site is finished before submitting it—nobody wants to list your under construction page.

Global Directories

Yahoo Directory used to be free, but now it’s a $299 yearly charge to be listed. Could be worth it…depending on how crowded the page you would be listed on is, and what PageRank it has.

The Open Directory Project (DMOZ) is still free. Getting in can be a bit of a pain, since all the categories are run by different volunteer editors, and sometimes they won’t get back to you right away. Make sure you find the exact most appropriate category for your site, and prepare to wait quite some time for it to be approved.

Niche Directories

Although niche directories often do not have the PageRank that Yahoo and DMOZ have, they have the advantage of being very relevant to your site, and being easier to get listed in.

To find niche directories, you will need to search for them using your keywords. For instance, if you sell organic handmade soap, you could search for:

You can also try searching for words that are typically on a directory site:

You get the idea.

Avoid submitting your site to directories that don’t relate to your business at all, such as free-for-all links pages. Search engines like links that are relevant to your site content.

Paying for links

I think that paying for listings in small niche directories can be very worth it. The fee is generally small, and some of these directories have been around a long time and have built up good PageRank. You’d also be surprised at how much traffic you can get from them, independent of the PageRank boost they might give you.

If  you are buying a link primarily for the PageRank benefit, be sure to check that they are not using rel=nofollow in their links – this tells Google to not pass PageRank through the link from their site to yours.

Reciprocal links

People debate this one. It is true that Google devalues reciprocal links compared to one-way links, but it still counts them. I think they can be valuable. It all depends on if they are relevant to your topic and are otherwise a good link.

• Do I Need to Submit My Site to Search Engines? It depends. Major search engines like Google will find you...
• Search Engine Basics: Incoming Links, PageRank, and Relevancy Learn the basics of how incoming links affect your PageRank,...

Google PageRank

Google assigns each page a number called PageRank, and uses this in determining how high your page is ranked for any given search term. You can see the PageRank of any page by installing the Google Toolbar and enabling the advanced features.

The PageRank (PR) of each page is determined by the number and PageRank of pages linking to it. For example, if a page with PR 7 links to another page, it will pass PageRank on to that page and the linked-to page will usually end up with a PR of 6. If you have a lot of PR 5 pages linking to a page, that could also bump it up to a 6. PageRank is a logarithmic scale, so it is much easier to go from a 2 to a 3 than from a 6 to a 7.

It’s easy to get carried away with this and think that all you need is a bunch of incoming links. However, PageRank is only one factor in how high you rank for any particular search. The other factor is relevancy—how closely one of your pages matches the particular search term someone types in.

Relevancy

The search engine’s job is to provide the most relevant results for their users. This means that when any user types in a phrase, the search engine wants to list the 10 individual pages on the entire internet that are most about that phrase. Consider that for a moment. This will help you realize how important it is to have a lot of pages and focus each page on a particular phrase you want to rank highly for.

Google uses incoming links (among other things) to help determine what your page is about. The idea is that if ten people link to your site and their sites are all about fruit baskets, and the text of their link says “Buy Fruit Baskets Here”, then it’s likely that your page is about fruit baskets. Of course Google also looks at the text of the page itself, but it places a surprising amount of weight on incoming links. It’s that voting idea again–if lots of people think your page is about fruit baskets, chances are it is.

The factors Google considers in its algorithm are always under hot debate, but we can make some general observations. The most important things Google looks at are:

• What the page linking to your page is about (ie the text contained on that page)
• What the link text is (what words are actually underlined and you can click on)
• How popular the page linking to you is (i.e. that page’s PageRank)

Please note that I am talking about individual website pages, rather than your web site as a whole. Since links go from page to page, and search engines list individual pages in their results, it’s important to think of optimizing your site on a per-page basis. This means getting relevant links to the exact page you want to come up higher in the search engines for a particular term. Often you want that to be your homepage, but it’s good to get links to other pages in your site too (this is called deep linking).

It’s also very important to have good internal linking within your site. Interlink your pages with text links (rather than image links), paying attention to what words you use in the links so that you are matching the keywords in the link to the content and title of the page you are linking to. Avoid useless link text like “click here” or “read more”.

Besides establishing the topics of each page, good internal linking also distributes PageRank evenly throughout your site.

Natural Linking Patterns

There are lots of people trying to deliberately make their site rank higher (like you and me), and this is something search engines constantly try to counter. They want to rank all the pages on the internet their way, not your way. One thing they are looking at recently is the pattern in who links to your site. What is a natural linking pattern? The theory is that if you have good content, people will naturally want to link to you. These links will grow steadily over time, be mostly one-way and not link exchanges, and be from sites about related topics. Search engines are developing sophisticated ways of determining if a link is likely to be a natural one or one that was pursued for the express purpose of increasing rankings.

What this means practically is that you want to try to mimic natural linking patterns. This means don’t pursue links from unrelated websites, build incoming links gradually over time instead of all at once, and try to get one-way links more than reciprocal links.

How do you get one-way links? Provide good content—something that people will naturally want to link to. Another good way is through blogs – blogs have RSS feeds build in that get picked up by feed aggregators which then provide links back to your site. Other strategies are to submit articles to article banks, submit your site to niche website directories, and add your site to your social media profiles.

Learning more about SEO

There is a wealth of information about search engine optimization (SEO) and related topics on the web. However, it is not all reliable as the landscape changes constantly as the search engines change their algorithms.

Practical Ecommerce has an SEO section that is invaluable. Their writing is very accessible.

Another place I recommend to learn is the Google Search forum at Webmaster World. If you really are interested in the topic, purchase the membership and read the Supporter’s Forum. Some of the top names in the search engine field spend a lot of time on that forum (including representatives from Google).

• Do I Need to Submit My Site to Search Engines? It depends. Major search engines like Google will find you...
• How to Find Good Link Directories for SEO There is a directory (a catalog of links) for just...

A good way to approach this topic is to pay attention to your own level of trust when you shop online. Chances are you trust large merchants like Amazon.com and Target pretty readily, but when it comes to small merchants, you are more wary–unless you get a sense of who they are personally. What makes the difference between a small company you will buy from and one that you won’t? Here are some things I’ve observed.

Let them know who you are

Don’t hide behind the anonymity of the web. An “About” page is essential—but don’t stop there, spread your personal brand throughout your website. The more your customers know about who you are—your values, your process, and your phone number—the more they can connect to you as a human being instead of an anonymous entity. This is what trust is made of.

Keep in mind that when you write content, it is not going to be plastered on a billboard or put in a telephone directory. It’s going to be read by someone who is giving it their exclusive attention. I read somewhere that the internet can be looked at as “personal space” because of the way most people use it: they sit within two feet of their screen and they are almost always viewing websites alone. A conversational and personal tone can be very effective in establishing that one-to-one familiarity that leads to trust.

Bring your passion into your writing. If you believe in something, let it show. If your products are exquisite, brag a little. Help people feel your love for your business and your customers. Work on your content when you are in a great mood, and overflowing with genuine happiness—it will come through in your writing.

Lastly, put a photo of yourself and/or your business location on your About page, or maybe even your homepage. A professional photograph can be wonderful, but don’t make it a stiff posed one if you can help it. Find a photographer who can bring out your genuine joie de vivre.

Tell them everything they could possibly want to know

First, tell them everything about your product or service. A website is a very cheap medium, and as long as you organize it well, it can only help to provide lots of information. Your enthusiasm for your product will come through, and you can address any potential doubts your customers may have.

Second, provide insight and perspective related to your field. I bet if you are reading this article, you are forming an opinion of me as someone who knows something about the topic of online marketing. It’s natural, right? When someone speaks on a topic, and they don’t sound like a complete fool, you generally think they are knowledgeable about the topic in question. Providing lots of information on your field is an excellent way to demonstrate your expertise (instead of merely saying you have it).

Providing good content also demonstrates goodwill and helpfulness, two qualities that build trust. And as a bonus, search engines also love content.

Avoid tricky tactics or subtle manipulation

I have seen marketers recommend that you offer a “free report” in exchange for people’s contact information, which you later use to contact them about your products so they don’t forget you exist. I dislike this tactic. When someone takes the time to share something that they know, with no expectation of a sale and no requirement for contact information, it demonstrates generosity of spirit. Then, if the person finds value in the information, and determine they are a good fit for your service, they will contact you and will feel good about it.

I like to operate from a place of trust that people who are right for my service will self-select themselves. I don’t need to trick or force them into giving me their contact information. Demonstrating that you trust your customers and respect them provides a sense of safety that invites your customers to trust you in return.

• How Do I Write Great Website Copy? When writing copy, the key is to let your personality...
• How Can I Make My Website a Better Marketing Vehicle? An overview of marketing principles and practices that can improve...

Specialty search engines and directories, however, are another matter and it pays to seek them out and submit your site. For instance if you are here in Oregon and have a blog, you can submit your site to ignoregon, an aggregator of Oregon-based blogs. If you are female, you can submit your blog to BlogHer.

Speaking of blogs, most blog systems (like WordPress) have an integrated way to “ping” sites like Technorati that are search engines just for blogs. This means any time you write a new post, they are notified that your content was been updated. There are thousands of these aggregator sites which is why blogs are so handy for building link juice.

There are also a lot of niche “link directories” out there that can be a great starting place to get incoming links. Some are free, some require a link back (reciprocal link), and some charge a small fee. Some examples are EcoBusinessLinks and FindGraphicDesign.com. Make sure to install the Google Toolbar so you can see the PageRank of the page you’ll be listed on. If it has no PageRank, I would still list if it’s a free listing, but I might think twice for paying for it.

• Search Engine Basics: Incoming Links, PageRank, and Relevancy Learn the basics of how incoming links affect your PageRank,...
• How to Find Good Link Directories for SEO There is a directory (a catalog of links) for just...
• How Can I Make My Website a Better Marketing Vehicle? An overview of marketing principles and practices that can improve...

free

The best option is stock.xchng.

$1-$5 per photo

• istockphoto – also has a lot of great illustrations. It’s getting a bit more expensive as they grow.
• stock.xpert – great selection, clean interface, and still low prices
• fotolia – more photos, more to sift through

higher priced

• ibid has striking black and white photos.
• Also check out Veer.

• Hiring a Web Designer Readiness Checklist This list represents many years of practice understanding the components...

If you’ve collected a stack of business cards over the years, pick out the ones you like that have websites and take a look. Take your favorite magazines and look at the advertising section. Scan the ads and if anything stylish catches your eye, look up their website.

Pay attention to your initial reaction, but also spend some time getting to know the site. Is it compelling? Does it seem like it would appeal to your target audience? If you were looking for something specific, would it be easy to find on this site?

The best way to develop ideas about design is to simply pay attention. Design is all around you–on every product package, in every newspaper and magazine, and in every television commercial. Notice the designs that attract you and resonate with what your company is about.

Even though your site may be small, be sure to look at the large retailers like Target and Amazon.com to study their checkout flow and usability. Thousands of people buy from these sites each day, and they have done research into how to make things effortless for their customers. You can also get an idea of the kind of websites that your customers will be familiar with using for online shopping.

While you are looking at websites, bookmark ones that have a writing style that you like as well, to help inspire you when you are writing your content.

Need more help planning your website?
My printer-friendly Website Planning Worksheet asks all the major questions you need to be organized and prepared for your website design or redesign.

• How Do I Write Great Website Copy? When writing copy, the key is to let your personality...
• Building Trust Through Your Website What makes the difference between a small company you will...
• How Can I Make My Website a Better Marketing Vehicle? An overview of marketing principles and practices that can improve...

1. be relevant. speak to your target audience, speak to their needs.
2. personalize it. let your personality shine through. tell your story.
3. prove your expertise through giving some of it away.

Hold in your mind your ideal client while you write.

Before writing, get a good sense in your mind of who you are writing to – who you want to target.

Identifying your ideal customer is a whole process in itself, but the short version is to make a list of all the clients that you really like and then see what they have in common.

Once you have that person in your head, write to them.

It isn’t as hard as it sounds. Just doing some work identifying who your best customers are will automatically influence your writing.

Once you know who you are writing to, get into their (imaginary) head about what their problem is, why they are coming to you, what they are looking for, and what their pain, hopes, and fears are. These are the things you want to address.

The best writing is relevant to the reader. If you are speaking to people’s hearts, they will keep reading.

Be authentic; it creates trust in you personally and creates a connection.

For all the anonymity of the net, reading a website is a personal experience: when your customer is reading your site, they will probably be alone and sitting about 10 inches from their screen. This is personal space.

Keep their attention by being real—and not just on the “About” page. As a small business you have an advantage over gigantic retailers—you can actually care personally about your customers. It’s likely you have put a lot of passion and drive into your business. Make that show: it’s magnetic.

Write website copy that is light and engaging. Stay positive—talk about your products great qualities, rather than your competition’s bad qualities. Keep it energetic, upbeat, and easy to read.

Web users tend to scan and jump around a lot, so make sure you have headings and bullet lists. Your copy should be easy to digest and should allow the reader to pick out what is most important to them and find out more about that particular subject.

Be generous with your knowledge; it builds trust in your expertise.

Quality content can be a powerful aid in selling your products. Providing useful informational content demonstrates knowledge and quality in concrete ways, and it also helps build trust through your website. Trust is important to any business relationship—and freely offering good content is one of the best ways I’ve found to create trust online.

Have a copywriting plan, and test before launch.

Before you start writing, outline the mood and style you are going for, and where you want to direct your visitors. Keep these in mind as you write, and periodically review your content as you go to be sure it is focused and consistent in style. Be sure to highlight your product’s strengths in clear language.

When you have finished, show it to three people—at least one in your target audience. If your readers can’t easily describe what your product is and why they should buy it (or if they are so bored that they don’t finish reading)—rewrite your copy. Never try to explain to your test readers why they should have gotten it. You won’t get that chance with actual viewers. If the copy isn’t great, suck it up and rewrite it.

Need more help planning your website?
My printer-friendly Website Planning Worksheet asks all the major questions you need to be organized and prepared for your website design or redesign.

• Building Trust Through Your Website What makes the difference between a small company you will...
• How Can I Make My Website a Better Marketing Vehicle? An overview of marketing principles and practices that can improve...
• How Do I Decide What My Website Should Look Like? The best way to develop ideas about design is to...

Your website shopping cart script interacts with your payment gateway in a few different ways. If you are doing real-time transactions, your script will send the credit card information your customers enter to the payment gateway, and the gateway will send back either an authorization or a decline response. Then your shopping cart will tell the customer that their order went through or that their card was declined.

The payment gateway stores those authorizations and once daily it will run a “batch” of all your orders. This turns each “authorization” into a “funds capture” and starts the process of getting that money from your customers credit card or bank account, through your merchant account, and deposited into your bank account.

If you catch a transaction before it has been batched, you can void it, otherwise you will need to refund it. Note that when you refund a transaction, you get charged the discount rate again–you don’t get it refunded. This is not as bad as chargebacks though, where you get the money taken out of your account, and you get charged around $25 for the chargeback happening at all. So, good communication with your customers and fraud detection software is important.

• What is a Merchant Account? A merchant account is kind of bank account that lets...
• How Can I Accept Credit Cards Through My Website? There are a number of ways for a small online...

In order to accept credit cards through your website, you will also need a payment gateway. These are often bundled with online merchant accounts.

When I grew out of PayPal and was shopping around for merchant accounts, I did several months of research and decided to go with e-onlinedata. My criteria were low fees, good customer service reviews, no long term contracts or termination fees, and experience working with online merchants. I have been with them since March of 2005 and I have had no problems with their services.

• What is a Payment Gateway? A payment gateway is the bridge between your website and...
• How Can I Accept Credit Cards Through My Website? There are a number of ways for a small online...
• Hiring a Web Designer Readiness Checklist This list represents many years of practice understanding the components...

PayPal

The solution that is simplest and cheapest (but least customizable) is PayPal. You don’t need your own merchant account, which saves time and expense. With PayPal, your visitors can pay you with a credit card or e-check, and they do not have to have a PayPal account (unless you are selling subscriptions). PayPal provides a shopping cart and many other free services that are helpful to sites that are starting out. They charge 2.9% +$.30 per transaction and have no start-up fees. The downsides are that PayPal is not highly customizable, and it can have a “start-up” feel. However, this is changing and many mainstream sites are now accepting PayPal as more and more people have PayPal accounts.

Mal’s E-commerce

Another inexpensive option is a company called Mal’s e-commerce. Mal’s is a remotely-hosted shopping cart system that ties in with PayPal and other payment processors like Verizon and Authorize.net.

With the free version, you can accept PayPal, offline payments like checks, and credit cards if you have your own way to charge them already. For $8 a month you can upgrade your cart so it can integrate with payment gateways like Authorize.net. There are other fees associated with payment gateways and merchant accounts that you would also be responsible for if you go this route.

My opinion is that Mal’s is a great solution for people who want to offer a real credit card processing without using PayPal, but who don’t want the hassle or expense of installing and maintaining a full shopping cart program. It also gives you flexibility so you can start with PayPal and easily add a gateway and merchant account when your business increases.

Fullly Integrated E-commerce

This refers to when your shopping cart is hosted with and integrated into your website itself.

Depending on the software, you have the same payment options – PayPal, or a real merchant account and payment gateway. The real difference is in the other features: with a full shopping cart software, you can have customers log in, create “wish lists”, track inventory, and a host of other advanced features that are not available using PayPal’s simple cart or Mal’s cart. The exact features depend on your shopping cart vendor of course.

The difference between taking credit cards through Mal’s + a payment gateway vs your own shopping cart + a payment gateway is that you will have to provide your own SSL certificate since the transactions will be occuring on your site rather than on Mal’s secure server. You can usually purchase your SSL cert from your host.

There are many shopping carts available as pre-packaged scripts that can be customized for your situation, or a custom payment script can be developed that exactly matches your needs. Full e-commerce is more expensive and time-consuming to develop than PayPal or Mal’s, but it can be integrated into your site for a truly seamless payment experience.

It can also save you money in the long run if you are doing a high volume of sales, as you can work out a custom workflow and automate your proceses with custom programming.

You will need to choose whether you will host it yourself or buy a managed cart, where they host and do upgrades for you. If you are comfortable installing and maintaining scripts it is often much cheaper to do self-hosting. On the other hand, it is much less hassle (and can let you sleep better at night) to let the pros manage the upgrades and make sure the server is optimized for the software. If you end up having to pay a lot of consulting and programming fees to make sure your cart is running, it can be even out to be cheaper to buy hosted. It all depends on your skill level and comfort. Some vendors offer both options.

Examples of fully integrated carts are Magento or ClearCart (which I helped design the look and feel of). I do NOT recommend X-cart or LiteCommerce as in my experience they are badly coded.

For more information on the nitty gritty of payment processing, check out our articles on merchant accounts and payment gateways.

• What is a Merchant Account? A merchant account is kind of bank account that lets...
• What is a Payment Gateway? A payment gateway is the bridge between your website and...
• Hiring a Web Designer Readiness Checklist This list represents many years of practice understanding the components...

These avenues to connect can be a goldmine, or they can be a complete waste of time. The difference is if you have a strategy behind your use of them.

Marketing tactics are actions, like:

• put up a Facebook page
• make a Twitter account and start Tweeting
• make a YouTube video
• make link partnerships with complimentary websites

These are tactics in the same way old-school marketing had tactics:

• put out a classified ad in a trade magazine
• buy a direct mail list and send out flyers
• put up brochures at local businesses
• make referral partnerships with complimentary businesses

Never start with tactics. It’s a waste of time, like the cart steering the horse. You get nowhere. Start with your overall strategy.

Your overall marketing strategy lays out who you are targeting and why they should care. For example:

Our products are diaper bags aimed at new moms who also work. Our primary target audience is between ages 30 and 40, urban, and middle class/professional. Our products will appeal to them because they are stylish (they come in a variety of hip designs and colors) and they have “features” (technology that makes them more user-friendly and cool – like one has an integrated laptop case).

Your tactics should logically follow from your overall strategy. For example:

Because this demographic is active on a connected network of “mommy blogs”, our overall strategy is to become a trusted presence in this online community.

To support this goal, we are going to:

• make it clear on our About page that we were started by two working moms and make this part of our brand
• create our own blog where we will discuss issues related to diapers in the modern world, such as cloth vs plastic, including our own experiences to keep it personal. We will review related (but not competing) products to add value and create content that people want to link to.
• advertise on the mommy blogs that accept advertising, as long as it is tasteful
• comment on other blogs and link to them on ours
• create a Twitter account, in which we will follow other mommy bloggers, tweet about our blog posts and interesting articles we find, and some of our relevant mommy moments.

The key here is that these tactics aren’t random. They are all in support of the overall strategy to connect to the target customers and get into their world.

If you are getting scattered in your tactics, go back and refine your strategy.

Whenever you are not sure if a tactic is useful or not, you can go back to your strategy statement, and refine it. Think of it as a pyramid: the strategy is at the bottom,  the tactics are built on top of that. If the foundation is solid, the next step will naturally follow and make sense.

Wanting to develop a clear marketing plan?
My printer-friendly worksheet Create a Marketing Plan takes you step by step through the major elements of a focused, effective marketing plan: what you sell, how it benefits your customer, who you are trying to sell to, and how you will reach them.

• How Can I Make My Website a Better Marketing Vehicle? An overview of marketing principles and practices that can improve...
• What Should I Be Thinking About When Planning My Website? Is your website to generate new leads or to provide...

Mouth Feel

Consider how easy it is to spell. If you are telling someone over the phone, would you have to spell it out? The owner of Common Pulse (drum/rhythm stuff) explained to me that that’s why his business name doesn’t involve the word “rhythm” – nobody can spell it.

Dashes and numbers can lead to endless explanations. No, it’s a dash, not an underline. Yes, two words. Is that thirteen spelled out or 13? You could buy both, but it dilutes your branding somewhat to do that. Not that some companies haven’t made it work – 37signals for instance.

Memorability

If Person A tells Person B (word of mouth), will Person B remember? You want to support the methods of marketing you are going to rely on most.

SEO

It is true that keywords in your domain name can give you an SEO boost. That’s why I named this site ‘E-commerce in Plain English” – e-commerce is in the title. But I didn’t name it “E-commerce Tutorials and Tips” because while there are more keywords in that title, it’s not unique or memorable and it doesn’t give a sense of the branding of the site. “E-commerce in Plain English” says practical, down to earth. It is a little long, but Practical Ecommerce was taken (by a very good magazine I highly recommend).

If you know a lot of your traffic will come from search engines, having at least one of your major keywords in your name is a good idea. If your marketing plan involves mostly word of mouth, it doesn’t matter as much. Still, it doesn’t hurt to cover both.

A final note about registrars

You can register domain through a registrar, or through your web host. My personal recommendation is to go through a registrar rather than through your host – it makes it easier if you ever decide to switch hosts, and dedicated registars usually have better tools to manage your domains. On the same token, registrars usually suck at hosting since it is an add-on rather than their main gig. So I would buy each from a specialist in that thing.

I use and recommend DynaDot as a registrar. They are customer-centric and pretty cool. If you decide to use them, my referral code is 7A8N7S6v6i8G7jW (thanks!).

• How Do I Write Great Website Copy? When writing copy, the key is to let your personality...

	Domain name Choose your domain name carefully to make sure it is memorable and easy to spell, especially when spoken over the phone. Avoid dashes or numbers if possible, as they require additional explanation (is that the number 3 or three spelled out?). You will need to register your domain through a registrar, or your web host. I recommend registering all your domains in one place from a registrar rather than through your host – it makes it easier if you ever decide to switch hosts, and dedicated registars usually have better tools to manage your domains. I use and recommend DynaDot, based in San Mateo, California. From their About page: We individually respond to every email we receive – no cut and paste responses. Customer service is handled by highly trained customer service representatives that are managed by our software engineers, so you are likely to get an intelligent response to your question. If you use them, my referral code is 7A8N7S6v6i8G7jW (thanks!). More on how to pick a great domain name.
	Site plan This is a list of what pages or areas you are going to have on your site. You may decide to change or add things as you go along in the design process, but it gives your designer a place to start.
	List of sites you like The clearer you are about what you are looking for, the easier it is for a designer to give it to you. Take some time to look for websites that inspire you. Write down notes about what you like and don’t like about each one. See also How do I decide what my website should look like?
	Fabulous photos Professional photography is very helpful for online sales. This is especially true for sensory products like textiles or food. Clear, well-lit photos that show the detail of a piece let your products sell themselves. When planning your photo shoot, be sure to get clear product shots (and close-ups if appropriate), as well as some general photographs that can be used as graphical components in your site. These could be groups of your products in an artful setting or people using your product. Ask for your photographer’s input on how to capture the essence of your product and how to display it in creative and appealing ways. Great photography is a cornerstone of great design. Stock photos or illustrations can also provide visual interest and establish your style, and they don’t have to be expensive. That photo of blueberries? A stock photo. Isn’t it lovely? My list of inexpensive stock photo sites will get you started.
	Snappy copy Whether you write it yourself or hire a professional copywriter, your copy is an important component of your style (i.e. your brand). From the product descriptions to the About page, make sure the writing is consistent and engaging. See also How do I write great website copy?
	Web hosting There are many hosts to choose from. There are many bad ones and a few great ones. Your designer may have a recommendation, or they may offer hosting themselves. If they do, I would ask them if they can provide 24/7 support or if they are doing it all by themselves…you may want to go with an established company. I run a small, green-powered web hosting company called Acorn Host. If you would like to go with a larger company, or just shop around, I also have used and recommend WestHost, and have heard good things about  DreamHost (I haven’t used them personally). If you need a VPS or dedicated server I highly recommend ServInt and LiquidWeb, they are datacenters I work with for Acorn Host servers.
	Payment processing account If you want to accept credit cards on your site you can either use PayPal or your own merchant account. When getting a merchant account, be sure that the bank knows you want it for online sales as using an offline account for online sales is illegal. For more information, see the posts on merchant accounts and payment gateways. If you wish to save some start-up costs you may wish to use PayPal as your payment processor. PayPal offers services that mimic a combined merchant account and gateway, without any start-up fees. They also bundle in a shopping cart. PayPal is excellent for new merchants who want a low-risk and easy way to start selling online. However, because there is a lower barrier-to-entry, it does sometimes give the feeling of being amateurish, so if you are in it for the long haul you may want to go for a real merchant account. Or you can always start with PayPal and add that later.

And there you have it. Am I missing anything? Any resources to share? Comment below.

Need more help planning your website?
My printer-friendly Website Planning Worksheet asks all the major questions you need to be organized and prepared for your website design or redesign.

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