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262 Part IV: Getting the Word Out without Advertising

Online payment options

One-fifth of the adult population doesn’t own a payment within 24 hours to the merchant.
credit card. Of those who do, many have spend- See www.i4commerce.com.
ing limits that preclude online buying, and others
simply won’t use cards for fear of online fraud. ߜ iChecks allow customers to provide a bank
Credit cards are still the most popular form of account and check routing number to pay
online payment, but the following payment alter- for purchases. For information visit www.
natives are steadily gaining in popularity: paybycheck.com.

ߜ PayPal is a money-transfer system that Protect yourself from fraud before handling
allows online buyers to establish an online sales transactions. In the United States,
account to pay anyone with an e-mail consumers pay the first $50 of fraudulent
address. See www.paypal.com. bankcard charges. Merchants pick up the rest
of the tab. Visit the Internet Fraud Watch site,
ߜ Bill Me Later invoicing provides instant www.fraud.org/intinfo.htm.
credit to the consumer and delivers

Establishing Your Online Identity

The first step toward establishing your online identity is to obtain a domain
name, which is the string of characters a Web user types to reach your site,
such as yoursite.com. If you don’t already have one, think about getting
one — the sooner the better. Follow these steps:

ߜ First, see if you can register your business name plus .com. Sounds easy,
but it isn’t because nearly every word in the English dictionary is already
taken, so unless your business is named for you, and unless you have an
unusually unique name, your business name is likely not available. Try
anyway, but realize the odds are against you.

If the domain name you want isn’t available, here’s what not to do:

• Domain names involve two parts, your name on the left and a
three-letter top-level domain (such as com, net, or org) on the right,
separated by the now-famous “dot.” If www.yourname.com is
already taken, don’t try to use www.yourname.net or www.your
name.org. Out of instinct, most people enter .com at the end of a
business Web address, which means they’ll go straight to the other
site, which is likely a competitor of your business.

• You can use hyphens or unusual spellings to get to a domain name
very much like the one you want, but again, don’t. They’re hard to
remember and type correctly.