| Dedication | x |
| Acknowledgements | x |
| Introduction | xi |
| PART 1 TAKING IT TO THE WEB! | |
| CHAPTER 1 Getting Your Business Online | 1 |
| What Do You Want Your Site To Do? | 3 |
| Why Do You Want To Sell Online? | 5 |
| What Do You Want To Sell? | 8 |
| Decide How to Reach Your Customers | 10 |
| Let Your Customer Drive Your Content | 12 |
| How Two Successful Online Businesses Use FrontPage | 16 |
| Striking Out on a New Path | 16 |
| Exploring New Horizons in Health and Spirituality | 18 |
| CHAPTER 2 Getting to Know Your Online Customers | 21 |
| Understanding Those Fickle, Hurried, Skeptical Online Shoppers | 22 |
| Research Likely Customers Online | 23 |
| Who Are Your Online Competitors? | 23 |
| Learning About Your Customers by Eavesdropping | 24 |
| What Do Your Customers Need? | 26 |
| "Make me feel welcome." | 26 |
| "Make purchasing a no-brainer." | 27 |
| "Make me feel safe about shopping here." | 27 |
| "Give me a reason to buy from you." | 28 |
| Reviewing What You've Learned | 28 |
| Creating a Customer Profile | 30 |
| How Do You Meet Your Customers' Needs? | 31 |
| Making Your Customers Feel Welcome | 32 |
| Buying the Easy Way | 35 |
| The Extra Touch that Means So Much | 36 |
| CHAPTER 3 Keeping Your Customers' Information Private | 37 |
| Mitigating the Risks of E-commerce | 38 |
| Protecting Data | 39 |
| Reassuring your Customer with a Privacy Policy | 42 |
| Writing a Privacy Statement | 43 |
| Encouraging Customers to Share Information | 43 |
| Knowing your Responsibilities as a Credit Card Merchant | 44 |
| Preventing Trouble by Knowing What Can Go Wrong | 45 |
| Developing Best Practices for Credit Card Payment | 46 |
| Keeping Directories Secure | 47 |
| CHAPTER 4 Assembling What You Need to Do Business Online | 49 |
| Your Site Planning Checklist | 49 |
| Setting up Your Infrastructure | 52 |
| Getting a Good Domain Name | 52 |
| Finding a Home for Your Web Site | 54 |
| Connecting Your Office to the Internet | 61 |
| CHAPTER 5 Building an E-commerce Tool Kit | 65 |
| Pushing the Web Envelope with FrontPage | 65 |
| Gathering Web Site Development Tools | 67 |
| Choosing the Right Computer | 67 |
| Making and Managing Graphics | 68 |
| Visiting Your Own Web Site | 71 |
| Using Other Browsers | 72 |
| Keeping in Touch with Mail and News | 73 |
| PART 2 MAKING IT ALL HAPPEN | |
| CHAPTER 6 Blueprinting Your Online Store | 77 |
| Designing Your Site's Structure | 78 |
| Creating a Logical Page Flow | 79 |
| Drawing a Site Map | 82 |
| Jump-Starting Your Web: Wizards, Templates, and Themes | 86 |
| Creating Your Core Pages with the Corporate Presence Wizard | 87 |
| Customizing Your Business Site | 91 |
| Other FrontPage Design Tools | 100 |
| Selecting a Color Palette | 100 |
| Getting Consistency with Shared Borders | 102 |
| Modifying Pictures with the Pictures Toolbar | 104 |
| Learning More About Web Design | 105 |
| CHAPTER 7 Adding Search and Navigation Links | 107 |
| Refining Your Site Structure | 108 |
| Looking at Your Navigation Links | 108 |
| Adding and Deleting Pages | 113 |
| Making Your Site Payment-Friendly | 117 |
| Providing an Express Purchase Lane | 118 |
| Avoiding Distractions and Dead-Ends | 119 |
| Adding Search | 120 |
| How FrontPage's Search Function Works | 121 |
| Adding a Search Form to Any Page | 122 |
| Customizing Search Results | 124 |
| Adding a Site Map | 125 |
| CHAPTER 8 Streamlining Web Sales with an Online Catalog | 127 |
| Designing an Effective Online Catalog | 129 |
| Creating a Catalog with Microsoft bCentral Commerce Manager | 132 |
| Choosing a Sales Channel | 135 |
| Assembling What You Need to Get Started | 138 |
| Installing the Commerce Manager Add-in | 138 |
| Creating a Catalog with the E-commerce Wizard | 140 |
| Adding to or Changing Your Catalog | 153 |
| CHAPTER 9 Accepting Online Payments | 155 |
| Using bCentral to Process Credit Card Payments | 156 |
| CHAPTER 10 Managing Sales and Customer Contacts | 161 |
| Responding to Incoming Orders | 162 |
| Setting Up E-mail Notification | 162 |
| Processing Incoming Orders | 165 |
| Handling Returns | 170 |
| Calculating Sales Tax | 170 |
| Adding Shipping Rates | 171 |
| CHAPTER 11 Testing Your Site Before the Doors Open | 175 |
| Taking Your Site for a Test Drive | 176 |
| When Should You Test Your Site? | 177 |
| Getting Help from FrontPage | 179 |
| Testing on Multiple Browsers | 181 |
| Testing with the Most Popular Browsers in Mind | 182 |
| How Long Should You Test? | 184 |
| PART 3 OPEN THE DOORS TO YOUR ONLINE STORE | |
| CHAPTER 12 Attention-Grabbing Customer Come-Ons | 187 |
| Finding Good Company | 188 |
| Putting Billboards on the Web Highway | 188 |
| Getting Your Site into Search Engines | 189 |
| Exchanging Banner Ads | 193 |
| Exchanging Links with Other Sites | 197 |
| Enlisting Your Own Affiliates | 198 |
| Reaching Customers with Direct E-mail | 198 |
| CHAPTER 13 Keeping Track of Your Customers | 201 |
| Where Do They Go? | 202 |
| Viewing Web Site Logs | 202 |
| Adding a Hit Counter | 205 |
| Reading Usage Reports | 207 |
| Looking at Your Top 10 Lists | 209 |
| CHAPTER 14 Keeping the Customer Satisfied | 213 |
| Adding Customer Support Pages | 214 |
| Creating the Customer Support Area | 214 |
| Customizing the Support Pages | 216 |
| Adding bCentral Customer Manager to Your Site | 220 |
| Tracking Orders | 223 |
| CHAPTER 15 Building a Customer Community | 225 |
| Do Your Customers Need a Community Forum? | 226 |
| What Do You Gain From a Community Forum? | 228 |
| Organizing a Community Forum | 228 |
| Setting Up a Discussion or Support Forum | 230 |
| Making Your Forum a Success | 232 |
| Publishing Your Files | 234 |
| Adding a Discussion Forum | 234 |
| Managing Your Discussion Group | 237 |
| Setting Up a Mailing List | 238 |
| Setting Up a Chat Area | 240 |
| CHAPTER 16 Keeping Your Content Fresh | 243 |
| Doing a Regular Tune-Up | 244 |
| Setting a Maintenance Schedule | 246 |
| Updating Links | 247 |
| Listening to Your Customers | 248 |
| Update One Thing Per Day | 250 |
| Borrowing Third-Party Content | 252 |
| Adding Automatic Web Content | 253 |
| Linking to Online News Services | 255 |
| CHAPTER 17 Managing Traffic, Outages, and Performance | 257 |
| Why Monitor Your Web Site? | 258 |
| Monitoring Web Site Performance | 258 |
| Installing Site Monitoring Software | 258 |
| Hiring a Monitoring Service | 259 |
| Dealing with Web Site Outages | 260 |
| Talking to Your Host | 261 |
| Exploring Better Hosting Options | 261 |
| If You Do Have to Move... | 262 |
| CHAPTER 18 Adding New Features to Your E-commerce Site | 265 |
| When to Redesign Your Site | 266 |
| You're Overwhelmed by Success | 266 |
| You Just Need a Makeover | 267 |
| Strengthening Your Business Presence | 268 |
| Joining a Business Community | 269 |
| Becoming a bCentral Business Customer | 269 |
| Taking Stock with a Database | 269 |
| Adding a Spreadsheet to a Web Page | 270 |
| Publishing an Excel File to Your Web Site | 272 |
| Working with an Access Database | 276 |
| Using Third-Party Resources | 277 |
| GLOSSARY | 279 |
| INDEX | 283 |
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR | 294 |
