Essential E-Commerce Development Websites

I remember when I first discovered the internet. I wanted to learn how to develop and market an online business, but didnt know where to begin.

Now 2 years later, after many hours searching, I have built up a list of my favorite website resources that I have used to develop my online business. This is by no means a complete list, but should be more than enough to get you started. Here are some of my favorite resources.

Domain Registration
If you intend to create a commercial website, you must register your own domain name. Dont even consider setting up your website with free webspace servers. The server response times are usually slow and youre usually required to add advertising banners to your website.

Both of which can kill an online business, before it even gets off the ground. There are other negative factors, but I wont go into these, as it would require a lot more space than is available here. To register a ".com", ".net" or ".org" domain name, I recommend you register them direct at Internic. For ".co.uk" (most popular), ".ltd.uk" or ".plc.uk" domains, register them directly at Nominet UK.

I wouldnt recommend using third party registration services, as they often charge an additional registration fee, on top of the fee you pay to Internic or Nominet UK.

You can check the availability of worldwide domain names, including ".com and ".co.uk", simultaneously with our free domain search service. You can also register and park your domain for free (excludes Internic fee of $59.99).

Please note that our domain searches the central domain registery, which will reveal whether a domain is available. Some domain search engines only search a local domain registry, so even if it says the domain name is available, it might not be the case.

Web Design
If you want to learn HTML or require a HTML reference, visit w3.org. This offers a comprehensive guide to old and new HTML tags and standards, as well as a free HTML editor and validation tool.

Graphics
Web-Spice offer a very nice collection of 10,000 free clip-art images from their stock of 2 million image library. These include icons, animated GIFs, buttons, bullets, and many other themes. The best thing about them is that you can use them in personal and commercial websites, which is not often the case with free images.

Web/E-commerce Statistics
NUA Internet Surveys offers hundreds of free summaries of survey findings, categorized by industry, and by continents. So whether youre looking for the number of US households who shop online or the demographics of internet population in Hong Kong, youll find it at NUA Internet surveys.

Javascript
"Javascript Made Easy" offers 184 scripts with working examples and explicit instructions on how to use and modify them for your own use. It has everything from pull-down menus to form validation scripts.

Perl/CGI
Most websites use some CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts to add interaction to the site. They are used to process form submissions, or process searches. Most CGI scripts are written in Perl, although other languages are used. If youre ambitious, you can learn how to program in Perl at www.perl.com.

If youre like me, its easier to use scripts written by other people. My favorite site for free and commercial CGI scripts is cgi-resources.com. Youll find just about every CGI script you would want there.

Affiliate Programs
Many people join affiliate/associate programs to make an extra bit of money on the side. This is still useful, even if you run your own online store. Lets say you sell shoes in your website. Why not add additional products to your shop, like socks, tights, shoe polish, or shoe racks?

Instead of having to use additional resources to find these products, purchase stock, and ship them, simply link to online stores who specialize in selling each of these products. You get an additional revenue stream, without all the worries.

Visit revenueavenue.com for a selection of over 7,000 of the webs leading affiliate programs. The best part about this site is that once you register, you can add as many affiliate program links to your site as you wish, without having to go through the whole registration process. You can also keep track of all the programs in one place.

For UK specific affiliate programs, visit associateprograms.co.uk. There are only about 130 programs listed. The limited number of programs is an indication of the state of the UK affiliate program industry, rather the website itself.

You can also set up your own affiliate program to increase your site traffic, create qualified leads and generate sales. You can either set up your own system by purchasing one of the many software packages out there, or let someone else handle the whole process. I recommend the latter, as the former requires a lot of time and resources to promote and maintain the system.

With the system at clicktrade.com, they will promote your affiliate program for you, as well as handle all the tracking, reporting, validate the click-throughs and best of all, handle all the work involved with paying your affiliates. Just imagine how much work would be involved in sending out checks to 1000, or 10,000 affiliates!
Copyright, Jan. 2000

About the author

Michael Wong, Editor and Webmaster at eBoz!. eBoz.com is listed as one of the Top 101 Best Business Sites by Windows Magazine. eBoz! offers webmasters & web marketers free valuable resources to help them build successful websites. Visit his site eboz.com
today!

:To contact see details below.


michael@eboz.com
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