What Your Website Needs

A website for a business has to accomplish very specific goals. You set the goals and then design each web page. Each page should have a specific topic and support the overall goals of the site.
If you talk with a business development specialist they will ask you for your “unique proposition”. This is the reason that your business will succeed. If you can’t identify a specific reason why someone should do business with you instead of your competition, your business venture will most likely fail.

A common mistake that many new business owners make is to say, “Well, the market for this product is huge and if I can get just 3% I’ll make money.” This approach is almost universally fatal. It’s such a common misconception that potential investors who hear this statement will back away very quickly.

Your business (and your website) will succeed only after you can identify the reason someone should buy from you. Websites that do not have specific goals to accomplish will satisfy no one, least of all the visitors who stumble across it. I say stumble because without the strength of relevant content aimed at a central topic your website will flounder.

Search Engines determine which web pages are relevant to searches by examining the text of the page. Pictures and fancy programming are only there for the humans to see. I saw a beautiful website recently when a potential client asked me to look at their site and see what recommendations I could make. There was no text on the website; the entire page was a picture. It was invisible to the Search Engines. My advice; rewrite the entire page using text and try to preserve the overall appearance.

I have said before that a lot of websites are high-tech extensions of someone’s ego. They’ve let their ego’s over-ride the functionality of the website. If your website isn’t working for you it’s a drain on your resources. A bad website can do more harm than not having one at all.

The Internet is a constantly evolving medium that requires constant changes to stay current and relevant. Techniques that were in common usage only a year ago can get your website banned from Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) today. For this reason, I recommend you use a website maintenance service unless you can afford to hire someone who works on your site 24/7.

You can live without SERPs if you’re willing to spend money on advertising but why block your business from the benefits with bad website techniques? I told someone this week that a website today is like the telephone of 30 years ago. It gives legitimacy to a business. Today it’s possible to conduct business without a telephone (we don’t advertise a phone number) but we certainly could not do business without the website and e-mail.


Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Helping Each Other with the World Wide Web

As a website designer and Internet marketer, I’m often approached by people with good ideas who want to know how they can get their thoughts to the Internet. I thought I’d share some of the more interesting projects I’ve seen this last year.

This first one (Freecycle) is designed to reduce the amount of stuff being sent to our landfills. Instead of throwing your unwanted items away they provide a place where you can tell people what you want to give away. Or you can list what you need to find for free. The concept is to give things away instead of charging or exchanging for it. A Wister resident runs the local group and here is their web address. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LeFloreFreecycle/ If you have problems finding them let me know and I’ll send you a fresh link in an email.

I found that group when helping to put together a local barter club. This group http://www.barter-oklahoma.com/ is for those who are willing to swap items and expect a fair trade. For now, the service is completely free to use. You can list what you have to trade or what you want. You’re not expected to exchange money but it’s completely up to the participants how they do their trading. Eventually the site will offer low cost memberships that will help you conduct inequitable trades (where one person gets more or less out of the transaction). The site developers are giving away free memberships while they find the weaknesses in the system. There is a variety of goods and services available; from tire swaps to movie rentals to propane heaters. You’re encouraged to list something even if you don’t see something you want. In this way, the number of people using the program will increase and more trading will happen. The site also offers information on why barter clubs help local communities.

Then we have people who want to help their neighbors learn new skills. Carl Albert State College business instructor, Anthony Fortner, is offering a free CPA review course this fall. There are details at his site, http://www.oklahoma-cpa-review.com/. The classes started this week so I encourage you to contact him while there’s still room left.. These classes can be very expensive to attend in other places. CASC also offers many other free and low cost programs to area residents. You can find information at www.carlalbert.edu.

If you just want to brag about your neighborhood children or have a program designed to help them, there is a free site at http://www.leflore-county-youth.org/ that is sponsored in part by the Heavener Chamber of Commerce. The original idea was to give everyone a place to exchange program details. It’s still available for anyone who works with our children.

There was a news article last month about the number of good computers hitting the landfills. To help avoid this problem you can donate your old computer at a number of sites. This site offers a national database where you can participate. www.sharetechnology.org

The Internet continues to be a place where people can easily share an idea. It’s very easy to get your voice heard, not just by your neighbors, but also around the world.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also read this article on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Sales On the World Wide Web

Online sales to consumers are up by 34% over the same week in July last year. This is helping to fuel the continuing yearly increase that online businesses are enjoying. For the first half of 2005, online sales are up by over 25% over the first half of 2004.

These constantly increasing numbers show that the Internet is still growing faster than the economy as a whole. The brick and mortar sales for the same period also rose, but only by 6.3%.
What are the dollar figures for these increases? Try $36.6 billion in online sales for the first half of 2005. That’s up from $29.3 billion for the same time last year.

These numbers are impressive and show why so many companies and individuals are taking their ideas to the Internet. Ebay also shows an increase in listings of 34% over last year and a 36% increase in gross merchandise sales. Many other retailers also show large gains including Amazon with a 26% increase.

If you’re in business or thinking about starting one, the Internet continues to be a place for large exposure for a small cost. Even the sales of computers have increased, up almost 15% over last year. There are more people with more computers buying from the Internet and the growth does not show many signs of slowing down yet.

A recent survey also indicated that real world sales are often preceded by an Internet search. Before buying larger ticket items many consumers are seeking out the best deals they can find from Internet sources.

Even if your company doesn’t sell from your website people are still looking for information. If you’re not providing it for them you can bet your competition is. Here’s a quote from the August 2005 Internet Retailer magazine, “The Internet is no longer a medium where it’s nice have advertising. Today, a web presence is required.”


Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also read this article on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Selling on Ebay

Recent changes at Ebay may affect some of you who use the service to sell your items. Ebay claims that there are over 700,000 users who make a living selling items on the site. That’s out of a total 64 million users worldwide. Chances are, even if you don’t use Ebay, you know several people who do.

Wow! That’s a lot of people. That’s a lot of money changing hands, too. How you get paid on Ebay has been a driving force of PayPal’s growth as well. Ebay owns PayPal and made the company the preferred way to pay for your purchases or collect your payment when the selling is done.

It hasn’t been difficult to get a personal PayPal account. You answer a few questions, provide them with a bank account and credit card, and you’re ready to move money around the world.

Ebay has even made it easy to show your acceptance of PayPal in your listings. There are numerous seals and banners you can display to let people know you’re ready to take their money.

So what’s the change that will affect you? If you will accept PayPal payments for your Ebay goods, you must now be willing to accept all PayPal payments including credit cards. Personal PayPal accounts cannot accept credit cards. To accept credit card payments you must upgrade your account to one of the premium services (Premier or Merchant).

Upgrading your account won’t cost you any money but when you accept payments you will now pay some fees. Generally, the fees are .30 plus 2.9% of the transaction. If you sell something for $50 your fees would be $1.75. That amount is subtracted from the transaction when PayPal transfers the funds to your account.

What this means to you will depend on how much you use Ebay. If you just buy there you may see some price increases from the sellers who look to maintain their profit margins. If you are an Ebay seller you may need to rethink your pricing structure to capture your increased costs. This policy goes into effect August 19, 2005.

So why would Ebay require you to accept credit cards? They say it’s to level the playing field and reduce buyer confusion. If you’re going to state that PayPal is an acceptable method of payment you must accept all forms of PayPal payments.

If you don’t accept PayPal you will not be required to accept credit cards. Many people who sell there only accept checks. It’s much slower than using PayPal and you don’t have the protections PayPal and Ebay offer. I’ve had to use Square Trade and PayPal’s buyer protection services to get money back from fraudulent sellers. It took a couple of weeks but I didn’t have to hunt the people down myself.

You can find more information about this new policy in the 7-15-05 “Updated Policy for PayPal Payments on eBay”.

Ebay is also discontinuing the Ebay Anything Points® program in the USA. Starting 8-15-05 you will not be able to use these in your listings and they will phase out completely by 2-28-06. If you’ve got some Points you need to use them soon.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also read this article on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.