Part II

Establishing Your Online Presence

In this part . . .

Just as business owners in the real world have to rent or buy a facility and fix it up to conduct their businesses, you have to develop an online storefront to conduct your online business. In this part, we explain how to put a virtual roof over your store and light a cyberfire to welcome your customers. You also find out about security strategies to protect your customers’ privacy. In other words, this part focuses on the nuts and bolts of your Web site itself.

The World Wide Web is the most exciting and popular place to open an online store. But merely creating a set of Web pages isn’t enough to succeed online. Your site needs to be compelling – even irresistible. This part shows you how to organize your site and fill it with useful content that attracts customers in the first place and encourages them to stay to browse. We also show you how to get your pages up and running quickly, to equip your site (and yourself) to handle many different kinds of electronic purchases, and to keep improving your site so that it runs more efficiently.