Essential Internet Marketing Software Part II

You will also need a checkout and payment system. There are many different kinds of such systems available. Most banks operate a merchant system to allow you to accept credit and debit cards, but they can be very expensive. One that I looked at when I was starting in internet marketing some years ago charged $500 just to set the system up, and then a hefty fee for each transaction.

Internet marketing is now a more common way of doing business, and while the larger stores still use the traditional expansive banking merchant systems, most ordinary internet businesses use systems such as PayPal, 2Checkout (2CO) and e-Gold. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, but PayPal is probably the most commonly used, accepting credit card, debit card and direct bank transfer payments. If you accept payments with PayPal, you can use your PayPal account credit to pay your bills, and use a PayPal debit card for offline payments.

2Checkout is a system that allows you to populate your account with products, sell them on your website, and accept and make payments. Whichever you use, you will need a checkout system to allow people to make purchases from your website.

If you deal only in items that can be delivered online, then you can decide to sell only those products in the Clickbank inventory. You then require no other sales software since Clickbank deals with it all. They provide you with the links to put on your sales page that takes care of all the sales and payments needed. PayDotCom does a similar thing, but does not have the range of products that Clickbank has.

The third essential software package you will need is an email package. Not one of the free email packages that you can get from Google, Yahoo or any of the other popular free services such as Hotmail. You need an email service that is specific to your website.

If your website is doggles.com then you don't want to be sending emails from me@gmail.com – that is unprofessional. Your email address should be me@doggles.com, and you should have the option of unlimited email addresses so that you can use addresses such as sales@doggles.com and help@doggles.com.

It would take too long to write about all the software needed but these are the three major packages required for an effective website. Whether they are purchased separately or supplied with the web-hosting package you purchase, your online business cannot be effective without the essential internet marketing software comprising an autoresponder, checkout and payment system, and dedicated email addresses.