As an athlete, or someone who is coaching athletes, you have a unique viewpoint of your sport and can profit from it online! Here's a list of reasons why you need to bring your knowledge to the internet today:

1. You need more money. You may have a job you love, and even make decent money. You may hate your job and get paid peanuts. Either way, a web business can help! You will be able to make a decent side income to supplement what you have, or even make a career out of your online business.

2. You need more time. Having an online business means you can create passive income, and free up the amount of time you have to spend working.

3. You can give back to the world. Creating a site around a concept that you are aware of or that you already teach others means bringing those ideas to the world. If you are an expert in a certain sport why keep everything to yourself? If you are a coach, why not teach to a massive audience instead of a small, local one?

4. You are an individual and don't like bosses. Who likes to have a boss, even one that you get along with? A web business can eventually free you from this seemingly inevitable human condition, of having to answer to someone besides yourself.

5. You want a flexible schedule. Maybe you love your coaching job and always want to do it, but it doesn't pay the bills. Maybe you just want to leave the 8-5 world and create your own hours. Either way, a web business is a great way to great freedom daily, and not be a slave to a schedule.

You've got plenty of reasons. Now it's time to take the first step in starting your sports business online!

I had to run into the supermarket the other day to pick up a few items. Unfortunately for me it wasn't the store I do the normal weekly shopping at, so I was unfamiliar with where everything was. To make matters worse it was one of those massive stores where you can buy groceries and probably find a contractor to build a house for you.

Nothing bothers me more when I walk into one of those huge stores and have to spend a good hour to find a gallon of milk. Your website should not be this way either.

I have listed a few ideas that should help make your website more user friendly to your customers so they are not overwhelmed when they type in your web address, and at the same time, know they can trust you.

First and foremost you need visitors to your website. With little effort you can have about 200 to 300 unique visitors each day. That can be done just by registering your website on Google, Yahoo, Ask and the other search engines. However the goal here is to attract customers not just visitors. You will need to get those numbers up. You need to find ways to attract new customers. A good way is to advertise. If you are on a limited budget sign up for an advertising website`s free account at first, and then as sales pick up, move over to their premium account. There are a variety of advertising websites out there. Develop a plan to use them all.

Once you have visitors you need to make your website user friendly. In other words easy for someone to navigate around and find what they are looking for. Hire yourself an experienced web designer. A real good one is worth their weight in gold. They will design you a website that is not only user friendly, but also one where visitors will want to continually come back to and tell their friends about. Once that happens, the sky is the limit.

Build trust and confidence with your customers. Your customers want to know that you are not some fly by night web company. They want to know if they order from you, you will deliver and if something goes wrong, they can get a hold of you. Put on your website a contact page. Let your visitors see how they can get a hold of you via email, phone, physical address and so on. Do not forget to respond promptly to your customers when they do contact you. In today`s world of "I need it yesterday", people will move on to your competitors if they don`t hear back from you within the same day, sometimes faster.

To go along with the above tip and to add on to the trust factor, provide detailed information about your company. Post your company history, your mission statement, and what means the most to you about being in business as it relates to your customers.

So there you have it a few tips to help your website out. Implement them to build a better online presence.

By: Bruce A. Tucker

Web design for a competitive business isn't easy, especially when you add e-commerce (the buzzword for buying and selling online) to the mix. Thankfully, many service providers have basic web hosting templates available to their customers at little to no cost depending on your package. More complex templates can be quite expensive. Companies that provide hosting with templates make setting up and maintaining an e-commerce website possible for people without the expertise to do it themselves and without the money to hire a professional to design their site from the ground up.

When purchased separately from your web hosting package, a template can run anywhere from $20 for a basic, simple web template and well into the hundreds of dollars for a more complex, custom design. For the majority of small business owners, basic templates designed for businesses are usually a safe bet.

An e-commerce template may include basic pages, search and navigation tools such as a virtual shopping cart, but it will be up to you to find your own online payment processing - most often through a third party provider such as PayPal. A web search for "online payment processing" will provide you with several options.

As an alternative, you might want to consider a turnkey solution such as eBay Stores or Yahoo! The designs of sites like these make e-commerce solutions for small business accessible to everyone. Be sure to read the find print about transaction fees and other costs before you decide.

Questions to Ask about Functionality

1. Does the shopping cart accept debit cards and online checks?
2. Is there a limit to the number of products, services or categories you can set up?
3. Does the site offer automatic notification of orders and transactions?

Questions to Ask about Cost

1. What are the basic monthly fees?
2. Are fees charged on a per transaction basis?
3. Is there a setup fee? If so, what is it?
4. How are taxes handled?

Talk to other business owners about their choices and do your homework. The right solution is out there for you, you just have to be willing to do what it takes to find it!