If you are doing business on web, and selling either a product or a service, and feel you just can't afford to get a merchant account, it is costing you lost sales. Sure, it costs about a 700 - 800 dollars to become fully operational with online checks and a merchant account, but you will recover that very quickly.

But I have to have a "secure site" to accept these you might think, and you are right. You can do this in one of two ways that make sense. You can contract with a company that provides web space and get a "secure site" from them, but this requires a knowledge of HTML coding. You also have to manually enter credit card information, and you have little defense against a disputed claim, and may have "charge backs".

A second way is to set up a shopping cart. This is probably best and easiest way to do business online. You don't need a

secure site of your own as company providing shopping cart does. An added benefit is that customers enter information themselves and their "IP" address is automatically captured. If credit card is declined, they can immediately enter another. You are only notified when there is a successful transaction. The customer is automatically sent a receipt, so chances of a charge back are significantly reduced.

If you don't have merchant status, you should at least consider "Paypal" which is probably easiest and cheapest way for small businesses and websites to accept payments online. There is also a shopping cart available, but does require basic knowledge of HTML. "Paypal" is a viable solution for a small business. The only drawback is that your potential customer has to sign-up with "Paypal", and "jump through a few hoops". This does risk "cooling off".

There are many ways to capture a sale and if you find one that works for you, your online business will prosper.

So, using some common sense, you identify either some web sites where you can place an ad, or a newsletter that appears to cater to your potential client base.

The next step is tracking your results. This is where many budding entrepreneurs miss boat. There are a number of ways to track where your inquiries are coming from. Probably easiest is to give an email address, which is unique to that ad. If you have your own domain, you most likely have unlimited aliases that all come to same email address. If all else fails, get yourself a supply of free email addresses.

You can also use web to help in your tracking. Designing a unique form, which sends you an email for each ad someone responds to, is not an overwhelming task. You can build a keyword right into form, that person filling it out will never see, that lets you know exactly where they saw ad.

Newsletters are a good choice. If a newsletter has been around for awhile, and has a decent number of subscribers, they are doing something right. If your ad is not pulling, odds are either you are in wrong target market, or have a poorly written ad.

The first mistake someone might make is confusing subscribers with potential customers. One newsletter with 500,000 subscribers may produce minimal results, while another with only a thousand or so, may produce a lot. Here is where you have to determine if newsletter you are considering is reaching your target market.

Many people will throw together a "crummy" ad, and then blame vehicle they use to advertise it when it doesn't work. If it is reaching your target market, and you have a decent product or service, which is affordable to those you are trying to reach, you will do business.