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Taking Your Business On-Line

  BY KEN SADLER   

Is every business you can think of short of your local dry cleaner rushing to the Web? Well, we hear that giant sucking sound, too, but some businesses are smart about it, and offer much more than rehashed print ads. We found plenty of advisory sites regarding on-line marketing and promotion, advertising agencies, and small magazines you may find helpful in the brave new electronic world. Here's a small sampling.




The 10 Biggest Blunders That Businesses Make on the Web : The title says it all. Nota bene.


The Electronic Money Tree, "A Netrepreneur's Digest," is a magazine filled with interesting and valuable articles relative to operating a business on the Web. We found no better site for dispensing the kind of helpful information that entrepreneurs and start-ups need. Aside from an interesting set of links to related sites, you'll find lots of articles that concern multi-level marketing, as well as renting booths at trade shows and finding prospects on-line. Our favorite section is the WWW Poet's Park, where you can renew your strength for the trip ahead. Since these articles will take some time to read and digest, you may want to print the ones that interest you and read them at your leisure. You'll get more out of them that way.

Entrepreneur Weekly is an interesting and aggressively written weekly newsletter on Internet marketing that should be of considerable help to small companies that want to sell on the Web. You'll see 16 back issues here, covering topics from learning HTML to using autoresponders to closing techniques. An attractive heading and simple layout contribute to making this a good site for small business owners looking for help in getting started on the Web.



ITL America creates commercial Web pages and rents space on its server to place them. It also publishes specialist magazines. The page, mostly text, is well done and presents the company's services effectively in an easy-to-read and understandable format. For its purpose, it would be hard to find a more well-designed page.


Trade Winds is a mall in which you can place your ad, which can contain up to 350 words and one photo or graphic, for a yearly fee of $300. The fee includes placing your company's name and address in all the major search engines on the Internet. Trade Winds will also make changes in your pages for a flat fee. For a small start-up company or even an established one not yet on the Web, this sounds like a good deal. It certainly is worth investigating. The site is bright and cheerful. The text is short and to the point. All in all, a well-done site.


The Agent focuses on on-line marketing and promotion. Part of the Hermes Project at the University of Michigan, a research project on the commercial uses of the Web, this site claims that "Print is passe," and that hyping your product on-line is the way to go. You'll find chat rooms here, and a lot of good information, if you can find it. This site's major flaw is that it is poorly organized and poorly written.

The Global Entrepreneurs Network calls itself "The Virtual Community for Entrepreneurs." After somewhat breathlessly exhorting that the Internet has ushered in a new era in business, these folks offer you a membership, from between $269 and $895 per year, including a variety of services and newsletters.

Do you want to be able to offer your customers a way to buy from you on-line with a credit card? Electronic Merchant Systems, a merchant account provider, offers one solution. The design of the site is not very inspiring.

Want to put your business ad into 5,000 e-mail boxes in a hurry? People may hate you for it since it violates traditional Internet culture, but here's how. For $58, The Entrepreneur Business Ad E-Mail Service will do it for you. It's all on this one page, short and sweet. The ad must be all text, and you can submit it from this site.

DynaSource Marketing has a one-page site offering its services as an Internet marketer. After squinting at its dark blue lettering on a mottled blue background, we doubt you'll be strongly driven to retain its services.

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QUICK CLICK!
The 10 Biggest Blunders That Businesses Make on the Web

The Electronic Money Tree

Entrepreneur Weekly

ITL America

Trade Winds

The Agent

Global Entrepreneurs Network

Electronic Merchant Systems

The Entrepreneur Business Ad E-Mail Service

DynaSource Marketing