Day 10: Incubator – Site Building: The Basics & Your Options

October 23, 2009 · Posted in 90 Days of StomperNet, Diary: StomperNet Incubator

This nitty-gritty StomperNet Incubator video lesson on Site Building delivers. The faculty, Audrey Kerwood, stated that, “E-Commerce is much more than just a numbers game. A site that is setup to convert will save you money, time and stress.” Everything about the content of her lessons – the tips, the itemizing of what is minimally needed to start, the steps to take to get from point A to point B… all of it screams EXPERIENCE! She runs 4 successful online stores. All of which she custom-built herself. This is one of those video lessons where care and preparation shines through and is the meatiest lesson so far.

Site Building Audrey starts out by using just 2 sentences on what the video is about. That’s it. No fluff. This is great I tell you. She dives straight in and gives you the low down on choosing the right platform for your E-Commerce business. She addresses the issue of price and argues the benefits of including other considerations besides price in choosing a platform. She then lists 5 must-haves for your platform and tells you why. This early, you already get a sense that you are being given kernels of experience which you can use to avoid looking like age 50 while still being only 35.

Audrey then gives you her top 3 platform recommendations. She gives you the reasons why and more importantly, she tells you which platform would best match your current technical savvy. Once you’ve chosen your platform, she then describes to you what she does in order to quickly get familiar with your platform so you can:

Customize E-Commerce yourself
Communicate effectively when you outsource E-Commerce customizations

Audrey then tackles Store Templates and how they can affect your E-Commerce website. She partially starts into Conversion at this point and gives simple, mathematical comparisons of Conversion rates. Nothing as complicated as e=mc2 so your looking like your age is still safe.

More meaty stuff coming… Audrey then lists down the minimum requirements for your E-commerce website. What pages, categories should be there… etc. You would think she is listing these down for your website to have content. Yes, but her experience lists these down for other objectives as well like to help get Merchant Accounts.

Next, Audrey lists down the steps she goes through to build her websites. Mind you, she doesn’t just present them in bullet form. Every step of the way, she gives you those kernels of experience which I can’t wait to apply myself.

Okay, at around 415 words, I’m usually almost done with the Diary or Review of the StomperNet Incubator lesson but Audrey’s video lesson is so meaty that I am only about halfway through the video. Sorry, I just had to get this in here to emphasize how meaty this basic lesson is.

Audrey now goes back to E-Commerce Conversion. What you need, why you need it and where you need to put it. There. Just one sentence to intro what she is going to talk about for the second half of the video. She then dives in to the details like what extra spaces are there for you to put strategic content. Next she talks about the minimum Contact Us requirements for you to succeed and why you need them.

She then goes briefly into E-Commerce Safety. How you can give assurance to your customers and how prominently you should emphasize this.

Hmmm… the next portion of the video is very visual. Suffice it to say that Audrey presented how she structures her website, how she presents her products and the reasons why she does what she does and where she puts specific items of her store and the reasons why. After doing this with a sample website, she repeats the whole process with a sample product page. And she does so again with the Check-Out page. Lots of experience kernels given out in this section of the video both orally and visually. She also emphasizes some tasks which should personally be done by you as it is at the heart of your E-Commerce business.

Audrey then discusses about your website’s Database and how you can save yourself a lot of stress by following her tips.

Finally, just as she started with only 2 sentences to introduce her topic, she uses only 2 sentences to close and promise more the next time.

On a lighter note, I think I will make Audrey a keyword for this Diary as I’ve lost count of the number of times I mentioned her name. Sorry, this is just my being an Audrey Hepburn fan shining through. audrey

Wow! Even my Diary for her StomperNet Incubator lesson has more meat than impressions. I better remedy that now. To start off, if you are a Newbie like me who is starting from zero on the E-Commerce side of the business, you have a lot of work to do after this video lesson. But the key here is to realize that this is a good problem to have rather than the problem of being frozen on your feet because you don’t know how to start and even worse, what to do. With this video lesson, you not only have one starting point like the earlier lessons but you have a starting point and the steps for a lot of ‘bite-sized’ modules for your E-commerce business. Examples are: a starting point for choosing and getting familiar with your platform, a starting point for working on your Product Pages, Shopping cart etc.

In short, this StomperNet Incubator lesson is as organized as Audrey’s websites. It has lots of meat but is organized into bite-sized chunks.

Spread the word...