Some people think it is so easy starting a business online, much easier than opening a shop but really once you start getting into it, then it can be so tricky. I have tried to make this guide as simple as possible to detail how to go from the start of your idea to running a successful business online, so here are the 10 steps:
- The first step is to decide on the type of business that you enjoy, will fit in with your lifestyle and try to choose something that is not ultra competitive. My kids were really young when I started my business selling peppa pig party supplies so it fitted in nicely with my lifestyle.
- The next step is to decide on the design for your website and whether it will be a service product or a physical product. Many online companies like freewebstore offer free e-commerce websites for say a minimum or 15 products but once you need more products then you have to pay per month. Remember your store design is really important as it needs to be easy to navigate. A search bar somewhere on the website can help your customers buying your products.
- Marketing – Having an email capture on your website is a great free marketing tool – Especially if you are giving away a free guide or something as people will sign up and then you get there details for future email marketing purposes so you can email people your special offers, discounts and notify them of new products.
- Advertising – This is huge as it is all well and good having a website if no-one knows about it that is why advertising is so important. Advertising here there and everywhere is no good, so consider advertise in media that only your target market will read or look at. So for example if you have a baby product consider advertising in pregnancy magazines or mum websites like net mums.
- PR – Public relations can be great for your business as a way to get the word out for free. There are many ways to do this, one could be by building up relationships with journalists so get there email addresses and when they have a feature coming up and they need a business or entrepreneur they have all the details about your business. You could send information to your journalist mailing list about events you are holding that could relate to the media, especially if there is a story in the media related to your products. Other ways to get into the media include sending the features department your products for review so they write about them or sending in help and advice for the readings so for example ‘Ten ways to de-clutter your home ready for spring’ but only if your products are relevant to the article.
- SEO – Search engine optimisation can be a great way of getting traffic if you are prepared to work hard for it. Seo comes down to a number of things such as making sure on each page of your website the meta tags and meta description describe the product or service, then you can add content to your website that adds value to the products you are selling so if you were selling pushchairs then pushchair reviews would be a great idea as they help the customer but also look good in googles eyes of content. The other SEO method is link building, commenting on forums and blogs with your website link, posting articles on other websites with your keyword in the article hyper-linked to the specific page of your website relating to the hyper linked words.
- Keywords – Research keywords using the google keyword tool and see which words people search for that are related to your products, check out your competition and see why they rank on google and bing so highly and then build some links with that keyword to the page of your website.
- Social Media – This includes facebook, twitter and all the other social media websites where you can build groups, advertise your products, chat to potential customers and make sales. Most of these can be linked so once you post on one it can automatically go to another site.
- Products – Products on your website shouldn’t just be a product per page, they need to have excellent descriptions, add the social media buttons to the product pages so that people can share your products with friends. Once you have added a good description, add other associated products the customer may like, then an option to show customers what other customers purchased. Another great idea would be to have a comments or review box on the product page so customers can see reviews.
- Networking – Networking is a crucial part of your business but you don’t have to go out of your way to network. You can talk to friends and family, they will probably then recommend you to others when they are in need of the service or products you provide. Remember any situation can be an opportunity to network, if you see a post on forums or Facebook that you can offer advice to but don’t over promote as then networking can work the opposite way.
