Web Business Management

Web Business Managers

Internet businesses require both time investment and web expertise in order to succeed and generate increasing income. Many business owners find that their resources in either or both areas are limited, and find it better to contract their website management to experts. We are specialist web business managers and know exactly how to plan and implement the correct strategies.

Defining Web Business Management

At present there are few agencies such as ourselves who specialise in the management of Internet businesses. There are many digital agencies but they are primarily marketing agencies who promote websites via paid advertising channels, along with basic SEO, and who may be linked with a specific web application suite. They may be website managers but cannot offer a complete service. In contrast, though:

Our speciality is icommerce management - we are expert managers of online businesses, not website managers or marketers.
The emphasis is on Internet business efficiency, technical work, and organic promotion - not PPC marketing
Our staff include an MBA business manager, technology manager, corporate accountant and corporate counsel.
We are not linked with any single application suite or therefore restricted in the solutions we can provide
The correct running of a web business is our area of expertise, not PPC marketing
We know how to monetise a site, if you require additional income channels
When improvements are needed to the website's technology, we don't use old-style HTML or PHP web pages, instead we utilise a wide range of database-driven website applications
We develop a business plan involving our experienced management, accounting and legal staff
We base our initial marketing and promotion on expert SEO for CMS and ecommerce web applications - our methods are primarily organic and technical-oriented, and are far more efficient for ROI

For these reasons we can safely improve your web business and maximise ROI without high expenditure on paid marketing, which is not a core factor for online success but an add-on component.

Website business management

Currently there is no universally-accepted term for our service, though the description 'icommerce management' is gaining ground. We are able to completely take over the running of your web business, and we aim to increase revenues above and beyond what might normally be expected. It is not unusual for us to double or triple traffic and earnings, and while this might be expected for many businesses in the long term, especially growing ones, our timescales can be much shorter than expected for growth of this scale.

Website managers

There is a difference between a website manager and a web business manager. A webmaster also has a related function. Here is a rundown of their duties:

A webmaster attends to the technical functionality of the site, looking after the server and webapps. He may also act as site manager but this is not part of the defined job outline. His job is to ensure the site runs smoothly.
A site manager or sysadmin or website manager is responsible for the correct functioning of the site and its marketing campaigns. He may act as webmaster. He employs a webmaster (especially if he looks after many sites), plus marketing staff or contractors. His job is to ensure the site runs smoothly and is promoted correctly.
A web business manager is totally responsible for the business. He controls all business, marketing and technical aspects. He employs an accountant and other business management staff; marketing staff; and technical staff. He determines business direction and strategy in addition to running the site/s.

Here you can see that a web business manager is responsible for the enterprise's future results, and this can never apply to a website manager or webmaster.

Types of online business

Online business can take many forms now. In the past, we would have mainly thought of ecommerce websites as the only specific form of web business - but now there are many more forms of viable Net commerce. Also, due to the very high earnings from advertising that busy sites can generate, any type of website can qualify as a successful web property. In addition, some of the highest earnings of all are made by community-based sites, which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

Monetising your websites

Some sites are sales-driven, some are dependent on advertising revenues, and many mix their sources of income. Advertising and affiliate partnerships are now a major source of revenue.

For example, some measures of earnings from onsite advertising that we apply are:

Site type 1 -- $40,000 per year per 5,000 visits per day
Site type 2 -- $20,000 per year per 5,000 visits per day
Site type 3 -- $10,000 per year per 5,000 visits per day

Therefore a site of type 1 with 10k visits per day can earn $80k per year from onsite sponsorships. This figure, though, is for sites with a positive visitor spend profile, and with advertising 'maxed out' and therefore not applicable to sites that require a more subtle approach - though it could also be achieved with a lower level of advertising but more affiliate sponsors. Site type 2, a more likely profile as advertising is at 50% of the possible max density, earns half of this - but still a substantial figure. A site type 3 is the most common profile seen, with sufficient but not overly-obtrusive adverts.

You can see, therefore, that even sites with no product or service for sale can have a high earning potential. We know how to safely increase your web income, according to strategies that we will mutually agree.

Time expenditure

As more business moves to the web, online business management services (or icommerce management) will be used more widely. The time input, together with the technical and marketing expertise needed, mean that many web business owners will find it more profitable to contract-out the operation of the business to specialists. An associated factor is that owner-managed web businesses tend to under-perform, since so many skills are needed. And where the business is working well, it is often found that the owners are devoting extensive time resources to it, which means the personal cost or business cost is far too high.

Web business

Now there is a term for all the various types of online commerce, all grouped together: icommerce. Note that this refers to the Net as a business environment, and not to any specific type of site. All types of websites can participate now, not just those that sell products direct. For example:

CMS websites - the standard form is called an 'online brochure' website as it replicates a printed brochure. This is what could be described as a normal business website, where visitors read about the enterprise's offerings and may order by phone or email. Alternatively, the site may simply reinforce an offline existence. CMS sites will almost completely replace HTML (old-style hand-coded websites in HTML / PHP / ASP), for most business users, as they have huge advantages.
Forums - these are community-based sites that usually have discussion and information exchange about a topic or narrow range of topics. These are hugely popular now and many have more than 10k visits per day. The 'Big Boards' have 20k per day visits and up.
Wikis - such sites feature a community-edited document, such as an information resource on a certain topic.
Blogs - a form of online journalism, again these sites are immensely popular now. Most blogs have no specific item for sale, but are monetised purely by advertising.
Ecommerce websites - this ever-popular class of site sells products direct, through a checkout system with credit card payments enabled. Shipping and tax are all taken care of.
HTML websites - these, at least for the larger business site currently, are custom-coded sites that have some sort of specialist function not found anywhere else. They may also be small sites that are easily built by hand, and this applies especially to small business sites built by local web designers.

Who needs our services

You might be a sole trader who wishes to move on to other things, or you could be an enterprise that needs to contract out those parts of the business that are performing poorly or are a major drain on time. We specialise in online business management. We have the technical expertise, the business know-how, the marketing ability and the experience to maximise your income.

Many business owners also do not appreciate the fact that specialists will do a better job. We don't need to find out how to manage an online business correctly, or increase revenues in a persistent manner, or manage servers correctly - it's our job. As icommerce managers it is our daily task to run web businesses successfully, and to gradually and safely increase earnings.

Partnership arrangement

There are several options for this, ranging from our contracting as sole operators of the business through to a joint arrangement where you run the main business of the site and we run everything else. This might be appropriate for an ecommerce site, where you wish to retain management of the purchase / order-filling / shipping part of the business. On the other hand we can take over all aspects and manage the site in its entirety, from staffing through monetising, which will suit those web businesses that do not depend on specialist services.

What does it cost?

Every partnership is different because your business is unlikely to be the same as any other; though most arrangements are drawn up on an agreement (a 'contract'), that specifies who does what and for how much. In general we charge a set fee per month, plus a percentage of income increase. The monthly fee might be a percentage of profit at the start of the agreement, or based on the size of the task, when direct earnings are not easily measured.

This means that:

We need to ensure that income stays at the starting level or increases
Income gains are important to us
In order to be profitable to both of us, income gains should be appreciable
All gains must be persistent, that is to say they must be stable, and preferably increase

Benefits to you

You can completely divest yourself of all involvement, should you wish to - or you can maintain an oversight role. You will be able to step away from the heavy time investment that a large online business demands. If your business is not performing to its potential, rest assured that we can resolve the issues and turn it around.

You no longer have to worry about how to run a CMS or how to specify a load-balancing server set-up. You don't have to ask dozens of people for answers to icommerce questions like:

"What country should I host my site in?"
"How should I structure the company that owns the business, for the best tax performance and security?"
"Do we need to buy the German versions of our domains?"
"Which is the best ecommerce solution?"
"What merchant partner should we choose?"
"How do we go international?"
"What do we need to do to future-proof our business?"
"How can we monetise the site better?"

We know all these things - and have been complimented on the resources we provide by some of the industry's top professionals.

And if you simply need a hand running a successful site or site group, that's fine - you can be reassured that we are a safe partner.

Our aims

These are quite simple: we wish to act as partners. Your success is our success.

We want to manage your online property safely and securely. Income can normally be increased, and this has to be done in very safe ways that lead to persistent gains.

Please get in touch to discuss a possible online business management partnership.

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Footnote: The Role of SEO in Online Business
There are several reasons why top-class SEO is vital for a modern business. These include:

If organic sources of visitors are not maximised, a minimum of 50% of income will be lost
If search engine traffic is not developed to its full potential, the business cannot possibly reach its full potential
PPC and other paid channels require a far higher investment of funds for the same return as organic work: the ROI on PPC is commonly of the order of 2:1 or 3:1
The ROI on the best SEO is a minimum of 5:1, is commonly 10:1, and can reach 20:1 - which points out how much more efficient it is
SEO carried out by ethical consultants is safe and contributes to enterprise image and brand strength
It is designed to raise earnings safely and securely
It is neither risky, nor unethical, nor in any way a negative for the enterprise
SEO should be based on a quality improvement process above all else - if not, then none of the above can apply
In the modern web environment you primarily need technical specialists in database-driven web technologies, not people who work with HTML websites - and certainly not marketing / PPC specialists as the core managers
Marketing is an add-on for increasing income, it is not a substitute for efficient web business management together with full optimisation of technical and organic factors

Of course, there is a negative with good, organic SEO: the timescale. Genuine, ethical SEO is a quality improvement process and this does not have immediate results. Therefore we must utilise more PPC and paid solutions in the short term.

You should ensure that your SEO consultants are database technology specialists, and not marketing specialists - these are required in addition, not as a substitute for knowledge of modern CMS and ecommerce technology. Business SEO now revolves around DB-driven sites of considerable complexity, not the simple HTML sites of old. And it needs to be of bullet-proof safety, using purely ethical methods, or your business can take a sudden and expensive dive from which recovery might be long and painful.