Improve Your Online Store

Spice up your customers' shopping experience with web tools that let you do just about anything, from one-click calling to webcasting।

Taking your website to the next level--and improving the shopping experience for your customers--is simpler than you think. The following low-cost tools are a cinch to deploy, so what are you waiting for?

One-call shopping: Great customer service is a must for any business, and a live sales agent who provides immediate customer support can help you get there. With Click-and-Connect, a web-initiated phone-to-phone service from Jaduka, e-tailers can easily add web-initiated click-and-connect technology to their sites to let users trigger a regular phone call from virtually any internet application. Once customers click on the "Click-and-Connect" button on a web page, Jaduka instantly connects them to a customer service or sales agent via their regular home, office or mobile phone. You can also add a "Click-and-Connect" button to outbound e-mails to improve response rates.

In addition to live phone leads, web-initiated calling delivers online marketing analytics that enable advertisers to track the effectiveness of campaigns in real time। The service is free for the first 60 minutes; it's $4.99 for an additional 60 minutes.

Just map it: If you have a website as well as brick-and-mortar stores, add a graphical map on your site's home or checkout page so local customers can easily find you, especially if they'd like to return products to your store. The quickest way to do this is with the Google Maps API, which lets you embed Google Maps into web pages with JavaScript. The free beta service is highly customizable. JavaScript-savvy developers can change the appearance of the map controls, location markers and information windows. Custom overlays also let you draw on top of the map.

Web music: Want to add a little music to your website? Sonific allows merchants and consumers to select tracks from its library and create their own "SongSpots" that can be downloaded onto their site. The library contains thousands of songs, and users can even upload music they've created themselves. SongSpots are basically Flash objects that stream the selected music and can be quickly pasted onto websites, blogs, social network profile pages, eBay auctions and so on. Visitors not only hear the music, but can also click on the SongSpot logo to find out more about the artist or purchase the song from affiliates such as iTunes. Sonific is a free service--it makes money by offering targeted and strictly contextual advertising and by collecting commissions from e-commerce transactions that are generated by people clicking on the SongSpots.

Moving pictures: Another tool that makes e-merchants' multimedia dreams come true is PhotoShow.com, a service from San Francisco-based Simple Star that turns photos into rich, multimedia PhotoShows with credits, captions, special effects and music. "PhotoShows can be used to better showcase products and [make] the online shopping experience more interactive," says Chad Richard, 35, CEO and co-founder with Peter Rice, 33, of Simple Star.

"Entrepreneurs are already using PhotoShows to sell products on eBay or on their own sites." After they're created online, PhotoShows can be sent via e-mail or broadcast on a website, blog or social networking site like MySpace. While the basic service is free, customers can upgrade to the more robust PhotoShow5 for $39.99.

Video on demand: Web video is taking off--and more and more e-tailers are using webcasts to promote their products. If you want to dip your toe in the world of video, try IVT Studio from Interactive Video Technologies, a do-it-yourself video web-casting application that puts the power of webcasting into the hands of everyday business users. With the push of one "Publish" button, IVT Studio synchronizes PowerPoint slides and screen captures with your video. In a matter of minutes, you have a sleek, professional video webcast or podcast to share with your audience. Growing e-tailers can use webcasting to engage their customers in online events and promotions. Or you can use IVT Studio to create weekly content or "how-tos" to build brand recognition and loyalty and encourage shoppers to return to your website. A fully functional version of IVT Studio is available for free download, but for extended use, packages start at just $20 per month. You'll also need a microphone and a webcam (which range from $20 to $100) or camcorder (starting at $200).

ब्य: Melissa Campanelli, author of Open an Online Business in 10 Days (www.entrepreneurpress.com), is a marketing and technology writer in New York City.

8 Ways to Keep Your Homebased Business Running Smoothly

Leaving corporate America to run a homebased business is the ideal situation for many people: There's no boss breathing down your neck, no boring meetings to attend and no 45-minute drives in rush hour traffic. Working from home can be a rewarding experience, but it's easy to forget the basic rules of running a successful business when it's 10 hours of just you, your computer and the distractions of home.

To help you stay on track, we've contacted homebased business expert Rosalind Resnick, CEO of Axxess Business Centers Inc., a New York small-business consulting firm. Resnick is a former business journalist who has regularly contributed her expertise to Entrepreneur.com. She's put together eight helpful tips for keeping your homebased business running smoothly.

• Structure your day. The problem a lot of homebased business owners have is that they no longer have a boss standing over them making sure they get their work done, or a tangible start and end of each workday. It's easy to let time slip by as you head to the refrigerator, catch a few minutes of TV, or dive into a project first thing in the morning, neglecting the other tasks you need to perform to keep your business running smoothly.

Create a structure that mimics what you had in the workplace. Structure your day so you have a start and finish time, with certain hours set aside for specific activities. A general rule is to spend the first hour of the day prospecting for new clients. Send your emails, write your letters and make your phone calls first thing so you don't forget to do it later.

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Use Outlook or some sort of contact management software to serve as a visual reminder of what you need to accomplish that day. Live and die by your to-do-list. Try to have everything crossed off by the end of the day. Even my own children know that if they want me to do something for them during working hours, they have to put it on my to-do-list or it will never get done.

• Stay connected. Carry an organizer wherever you go. If you're still using a day planner or similar dinosaur, consider upgrading to a Blackberry or other high-tech gadget. You don't need to go crazy and spend a lot of money, but invest wisely in something that will hold everything you need and allow you to instantly access it on the go. Another good idea is to not keep all of your information in one location, such as the hard drive of your home computer. Keep your data hosted on a virtual exchange server so you can access it anywhere that has an Internet connection. A big misconception about homebased business owners is that they stay at home all day, everyday. And as you know, that's just not always true.

• Organize your family time. Once your professional life is organized, you may need to consider organizing your personal life. Maybe you noticed right away, or maybe it's just becoming apparent, that you tend to work around the schedule of your family members. This is especially true if you have children. A lot of people, especially young moms, decide that they're going to quit their jobs in corporate America and work from home in order to care for their children and save on daycare expenses. But in reality, if you're serious about running a homebased business and earning a decent income, you're going to have to make arrangements for childcare in or outside the home. Otherwise it becomes too distracting. Consider hiring a babysitter so you're guaranteed five to six solid hours to get your work done.

• Motivate yourself. Sit down and set some goals for yourself. You no longer have quarterly reviews or progress reports, so it's important to keep track of whether or not you're making progress in your business. It's one thing to set small goals like completing your to-do-list--you also have to set goals to motivate yourself to succeed. Hopefully by now you're making as much, if not more, money at your homebased business than you were at your former job. If you aren't, begin by setting a goal to bring in the same amount of income you were, and slowly raise the bar to increase your income by a couple of thousand a month. Once you've met a goal, make time to reward yourself by doing something fun, which brings us to the next tip.

• Take time out for good behavior. It's not uncommon to find yourself working 60- to 70-hour weeks. But the good thing is, if you want to sneak out and see a movie at two in the afternoon, nobody's going to tell you not to do it. You have that freedom and flexibility as a home business owner. It can be tempting to work all the time when you start seeing how successful your business has become, but know when to relax. You've already established a smooth-running business. Take a break every now and then so you don't get burned out.

• Be a Jack-of-all-trades. There are a lot of roles you play as a homebased business owner: You're the CEO, president, secretary, office manager and tech support. Learn the basic skills of running an office, including how to troubleshoot some rudimentary technical problems. You don't need to become an expert, but make sure you have a basic understanding of tech support issues, bookkeeping, etc. Otherwise it will become too expensive to have to pay someone to do everything for you.

• Network. Network with other homebased business owners in either a formal or informal setting. This is a good way to find service providers, leads and potential clients. Surrounding yourself with people who also work from home will give you the support you need, and refer you to people who can help you grow your business.

• Consider moving out of your home. For a lot of people, working from home is a launching pad. In the beginning, many business owners work from home in order to keep overhead low. If you have more than one person with different roles working from your home office, you should ideally be working in separate rooms. It can be difficult having two people work side by side, even if those two people are spouses and love each other very much. It's distracting for anyone to have someone three feet away from you talking on the phone. Be prepared for expansion. At the point when your business becomes so successful that you cannot efficiently work close together, start considering moving your office outside the home.