Your website should be selling your products or services, we call it an "online sales system" or "Sales Funnel". The image here shows you the basic initial structure (click the image to download a PDF) which can be refined and built on. You must have an online business system to succeed in eCommerce these days, you must take a professional approach using established sales models.

A brief overview

THE ONLINE BUSINESS SYSTEM - There are various ways to put together the online structure which we will discuss elsewhere. you have 3 options; Get someone to show you how to do it, get someone to do it with you or have someone set it up for you.

PEOPLE - you need to think about who your audience is, what subject will your product be about (Your Niche), is there a large group of people interested who will pay money for your product? One common factor about products or services is that they solve a "problem" or "need" for your customers, your job is to identify this problem or need and offer a "solution" (your product/service) When you have decided, after carrying out the necessary research, you then have to contact this group (Traffic) and guide them to your firstpage (Landing Page or Optin Page).

LANDING/OPTIN PAGE - This is the first contact you will have with your prospective customer, you have a limited time to grab their attention. One way is to offer them some useful and/or valuable information in the form of a free gift, this is an incentive for them to give you their email address (This is important).

FREE GIFT - This should be about the same subject matter as your product, it should also offer the opportunity of your prospective customer getting some immediate results towards the solution they are seeking. Within the free gift you will also have an explanation about how your product solves the problem or need and links to the sales page. Your free gift can be delivered instantly on a "Thank You Page" or automated email.

OPTIN TO YOUR MAILING LIST - Once you get them to enter their details into the optin form you will have in place an automated system that will deliver emails with additional useful information (An Autoresponder) and contain "Calls to Action" to encourage them to visit your sales page and chack out your offer.

SALES PAGE - This will explain how your product or service offers benefits to your customer, you must create this to explain "WIIFM" (What's in it for me). You must look at your product entirely through the eyes of your customer. The product or access to your service will be immediate in the case of it being digital or you will give instructions on the next steps by instant email if it is an offline product or service.

PAYMENT - You will need to have a method of collecting online payments in place such as PayPal or a merchant account from your bank.