The internet today has thousands or millions of shoppers. Payments over the internet have become common place for many people. How can you set up your site so you too can be part of this phenomenon?

To get your slice of the internet cake, how can you set up a site to take payments? How can you do so on a tight budget?

It’s fairly simple really, and very affordable. The first time you do it you may sweat a little as everything you do for the first time is not easy, but you will soon learn. It is also most affordable for most people. So what do you need to do?

So what do you need to do?

The first requirement would have to be a good web host. I would suggest a cheap host not a free host. I don’t mean cheap and nasty. There are plenty of good deals to be found. The other reason you don’t want to use a free web hosting provider is you don’t want their advertising on your site.

You will also need a payment processor, one that doesn’t cost the earth. Free preferably

You will also need the software to make your pages.

Choosing the right web host is not an easy task. You need to assess the quality of the hosting account as well as the value provided. Some of the things you need to look for are:

Can you run a number of domains on the one account? The more the better. How many subdomains can you have? Over time you will want to promote more products. Each of these products would need a new domain or subdomain.

Can you use CGI and PHP scripts on your site? How much disk space do you get with this account? How many MySql databases are you permitted to run? These are some of the things you need to get answers to in choosing a web host.

Next your payment processors. There are very affordable ways to set up a payment processor. I’m just going to mention three.

The free one is PayPal. You pay them a small percentage of your sale when you make one. Their payment system works with email. You will need to set up a dedicated email account. You will be able to do this with your hosting account. Your hosing account should allow you to set up quite a few email addresses.

The next one to look at is 2Checkout.com. They have an initial one off fee to set up your account. This is about $50. After this they take a small percentage each time a sale is made. 2Checkout is also well used by many internet marketers.

The last one we’ll look at is ClickBank. They sell many products for internet marketers and businesses. They organize and pay affiliates. It is free to join ClickBank as an affiliate. To become a seller you need to set up a separate account with a one off fee of $50 to set up the account and then a percentage of each sale.

All of these sites generate a code for you to use on your sales page where you want the buy now button. PayPay and 2Checkout.com both provide code you place into the HTML of the page. Clickbank generates a URL you can then link to a button on your page.

As you can see, setting up your own e commerce web site is not real difficult and is very affordable.

When you set up a new business you would need to make decisions as to the size shop or building required as well as what equipment you will need. A similar rule would apply in moving from one location to another

Your business plan would include looking over facilities offered and how they would go with your needs. When choosing a web host you’ll want to do the same. There are definite requirements you would make sure are available. You would also ensure you had the right location.

How much disk space do you need on the server?

How much space (disk space) do you need? Here it is sensible to get whatever you can afford. Most websites will run on just a few MB. You need to find out if you can upgrade without difficulty. Here is one instance where 500 MB may not be enough. If you are going to set up a site with lots of downloadable software you will need to have plenty of disk space.

What is Bandwidth?

You will also require a reasonable bandwidth. What is bandwidth? With your current internet provider you are allowed a certain amount of download. This is basically what bandwidth is. Each time you get a visitor to your site they view your site page or pages depending on how many they view. Each time a page is downloaded or viewed by your visitor they are using bandwidth.Hosting companies will limit the amount of bandwidth you use. If you exceed this your site could be temporarily suspended and is no longer visible to your customers. This helps you to see that bandwidth is very important. You need to make sure that you will have enough. If more is needed later it can easily be negotiated with your host.

Will You Require A Database?

The short answer is yes. In fact you will need to make sure that you can run a number of databases. There are many web applications that require a database to run. Let’s say you want to have a Blog on your site. You could download the free script from Wordpress. To install it you need a database. There are so many applications that require databases that you should consider at least getting 5 or 6 available as a minimum.

Which Control Panel?

What control panel is in use? The control panel is very important. Here is where you will be able to do all the things required to make you site run the way you want it to. Here too will set up all the e-mail accounts you want to run from you site. This is also where you will be able to set up your databases when required.There are two control panels that I like. Cpanel. This is a feature rich control panel and is very popular. The other that I find the simplest to use is Direct Admin. If you are choosing a new hosting provider it is always wise to see if you can test drive the control panel.

Other Things You Need To Look For

Just as you would need to decide what equipment you needed, these decisions are also made in choosing your hosting provider. Some hosting companies also provide on-line browser based software you can use to create your site. This software will allow you to create your site from scratch or use a template that may suit you needs. With some this software is so powerful that you can create dynamic sites using PHP. All this without knowing HTML or PHP.

Several hosts also supply a members area with marketing information and free of charge downloads. Many of these downloadable products can be useful in setting up your new site.

At the beginning I mentioned location. Unlike finding the right shop in which location is everything. In choosing the right web host you need to create the location. This is done by search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is only a small part of getting traffic to your site. There are many things you can and should do to get that traffic to your site. Your success also hinges on the traffic you create for your site.

If you’ve ever asked for information online about a product or service, or signed up for an email list or a group membership on the Internet, or you have received a nearly instantaneous response when you email someone from a website, an autoresponder program was responsible for delivering the reply.

To put it simply, an autoresponder is an email program that is set to send out a predetermined message response to every email that comes in to a particular address, or in response to input from a form submitted on a website. Some autoresponders, such as sign-ups for forums and internet groups may be single shot responses. Others may set up a sequence of responses over days, weeks or months. Almost every internet business uses autoresponders for many different reasons. This includes automating jobs that might otherwise take up excessive personnel hours following up all the way to building and maintaining customer and lead lists.

Autoresponders can be set up to send a series of messages to submitted e-mail addresses on a predetermined, timed basis. For instance, such a multiple autoresponder can be used to send an instant response, then a follow-up message three days later, then another five days after that, and so on. It can be programmed to send a message a day, one per week, twice monthly, or any interval that satisfies the purpose of the message series.

An autoresponder service is one of the most powerful tools in the internet business owner”s toolbox. They are fairly easy to set up and use and once they are set up, they carry out the work of responding and following up 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. A good autoresponder service can make or break a new internet business.

What can I do to make money with an autoresponder service?

There are very few businesses - online or off - that can’t benefit from using autoresponders. As a matter of fact, a brand new home internet business can be built up around an autoresponder program. All you need is a product to sell and a series of autoresponder messages to follow up for you and you can have your own business up and running within hours.

Your autoresponder service can be a golden goose. The tool that will make sales for you much more effectively than any other form of advertising. On the internet, most people want a lot of information before they make a purchase. If you are able to get your message to you potential customers repeatedly without having to worry about keeping up with it on your own, you could well see an amazing sales response.