I find e-commerce fascinating. Many people succeed at creating successful small online businesses, but even more fail. I’d like to take a look at two online businesses and how they have (or haven’t) been able to leverage the power of the Internet to flourish.

Meg McElwee is a preschool Montessori teacher, and until recently was living and working in Mexico. About a year ago, she started a blog called Montessori by Hand, intending to focus on handmade projects and materials to be used with children in a classroom setting. (You’ll notice that her blog has moved, but I’ll discuss later on.) Because of her engaging writing style and skill as a photographer, her Montessori blog immediately became a hit – but not quite in the way she expected.

It turns out that Meg is also a talented seamstress, and as she posted pictures of things she made (children’s aprons, messenger bags, baby carriers), the sewing community sat up and took notice. Within a few months, Meg launched an online store selling her sewing patterns because of continual requests made by her blog audience.

She started a Flickr community where people could post pictures of the things they made using her patterns, a Box.net community where people could share educational- and sewing- related files, and a Yahoo! Discussion group about her blog projects. She engaged with the people who visited her blog, replying to them in comments and repeatedly thanking them for their participation in her various social media projects.

What made her blog special, besides the gorgeous photographs and inspirational posts, was the fact that Meg has the ability to reveal herself through her writing. She shared her hopes and dreams, fears and worries, and included very personal posts mixed into her Montessori and sewing ones. Visitors to her blog learned about how she and her husband met and got married, and saw pictures of her as a young girl. They participated in fun giveaways and gift exchanges with each other.

Within a year or so, Meg’s blog had thousands of incoming links and even sitelinks. The demand for her sewing patterns became so great that she was having a hard time keeping up with the orders, and had to recruit family members to help her.

The most amazing thing about her online success is that it was completely unstudied. I'm not even sure she's ever heard the term "SEO". The links, and subsequently, sales of her sewing patterns, were simply a by-product of the fact that she created a vibrant, supportive community through her blog. Basically, she did exactly what Patrick always advocates: she concentrated on people and not on building links.

In fact, because her blog ended up being more about sewing than education, she actually started a new one called Sew Liberated. Her previous blog is just sitting there, abandoned, with thousands of links pointing to it. (Psst…Meg, can I have your Montessori by Hand links? Pretty please?)

For every person like Meg, who seems to instinctively understand how to build a community and market a business, there are many more who just don't get it. A few months ago, some people I know sent out an email to their friends and family with a link to their new Etsy store. This couple has decided that they'd like to supplement their income by selling homemade soap.

I visited their store and found lovely photos of the soap, well-written descriptions, and not much else. Intrigued, I purchased a few bars of soap and really liked them. But unfortunately, I can say with certainty that my friends will most likely never make any money from their online business.

How can I know this for sure? It’s simple: they are not leveraging the power of social media to build a community. It’s now been about six months, and from what I can tell, the Etsy store is still the first and last thing they’ve done to try and sell soap. There’s no blog, no community, no buzz, and no links.

When building your small business online, you can go about SEO deliberately (as I did) to increase your rankings and visibility. Or, you can go Meg's route and do it accidentally, as a by-product of your desire to share about things you love. But you can't just do nothing. Small businesses can be successful online, but not without a huge investment of time and effort.

Most of us can't build successful businesses accidentally. Luckily, there are plenty of helpful resources available. Here are some great links that focus specifically on small business and/or e-commerce.

Blogs:

SEO for Small Businesses from the SEO Igloo Blog

Get Elastic E-Commerce Blog

Small Business Search Marketing

Small is Beautiful - Small Business Posts at Search Engine Land

Search Engine Guide – Small Business Guide to Search Marketing

Posts:

The Beginner's Checklist for Small Business SEO by Danny Dover

Keyword Discovery for Small Businesses by Rishil

Small Business Link Building Part A & Part B by Rishil

Ring Bell for Service – Usability Checklist from Kim Krause Berg

17 New Rules for Successful E-Commerce Websites by Rand Fishkin

When Choosing an E-Commerce Solution, Remember the Search Engines - by Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea

Know of any other great small business resources? I'd love to hear about them! Also, you can visit my very own small business, and follow me at Twitter if you like.