10 Things To Consider Before Starting An Online Business
By now you might have seamlessly streamed through so many online businesses and not given a second thought as to what goes behind them. Big or small, an online business is easier said than done. In this vast, expanding world of ecommerce, one can never be sure as to what effort is required for a successful online business venture. Let me summarize 10 basic rules of thumb to look out for when starting an online business.
Don’t Hold Back Your Online Business Ideas; Helpful Tips To Get Started:
1. Hit it off like a game plan
Take your well deserved time and think. A well thought out plan is what will initiate your idea to come to life.
Calculate how much you are willing to invest, emotionally, physically, financially into your business because once it starts, you don’t want it to hit you like wave of panic and sudden realization that you have got work to do.
You should have a clear aim and objective before you start your business because those factors will drive your business rather than the other way around. Mission and vision of a business are specified to the business type but aims and objectives are personal and generalized to what you as an entrepreneur want to achieve from your business.
A strategic, well thought out game plan is what you are looking for as an end result of this step. It will provide you a basic outline to follow throughout your business procedure and keep you from moving out and doing extra.
2. Take your assets into perspective
For an online business your home computer and internet connection is your major asset. It needs to be in a well organized condition in order to benefit you professionally in your business. And somehow if it is not in an optimal condition then don’t hesitate in buying a new one. Use facilities like Verizon to provide you with working internet devices. Communication service provider like Frontier communication can as well provide plans that can benefit your business financially as well as save time.
Some of the Frontier plans that can accommodate any online businesses are:
- All plans come with 24/7 technical support, free of charge.
- A free wireless router is included with all plans.
- All plans include a 3 year price lock.
- All plans require no contract.
3. Value and quality should be the focal point.
Monetary goals are not the only goals. Putting them completely aside is also wrong for the business but one should focus on things which will in turn remove any financial issues in the business which are value and quality.
Value and quality are those two factors in any business that never let it down. Business that serve quality and sell value added commodities derive success and attract monetary value in the process rather than focusing on just money and not delivering as you promise and letting your reputation down, in the short run it may benefit as you take in money but in the long run when you lose your customers, your business would reach peaks of shutting down.
Customer is the king and quality will always prevail with the customers making them come back for more.
4. Seek where your strength lies
Conduct thorough researches and conclude results in your favor. See what keywords you typed in and found less results that actually help. This will give you a head start over finding out what business you should venture in and that is exactly where your strength lies as you found less competition.
Basically your strength is in the ground level where a problem has fewer solutions. Problem solving is always the beginning of any analysis and in order to conduct your business analysis think like an entrepreneur and search what the world is lacking and how can your online business fill it in. Your business needs to be able to provide solutions to that specific problem better than those search results you found. Take them as your competitors and build your business into your strength over them.
5. Set the performance stage
Now that you are done with the research, you must’ve come up with a result which should suggest a clear path leading to one specific stage i.e. your market.
Fix your audience and cater to that specific market. Build your business remaining within the parameters of your market and serve your customer the value and quality that you have better than your competitors. Engage them in your business and keep them coming back for more.
6. Design your product
Now that you have checked your…
- …Strengths
- …Assets
- …Market
- …Audience
You are all set to design your product which will bring that value and quality to life and attract profits. It can be a service you are providing or a physical product for sale but no matter what it is, it should have one underlying factor of being beneficiary to your customer. For this you are required to think like a customer before designing your product in order to learn what your customer desires. Think like if you were the customer and had this specific problem “would I buy this product?” Or “would I use this service?” Answering questions like these would bring you on the same level of thought as your customer and you would be able to provide better.
7. Construct your website
Once you have out done yourself for the procedures above and you are completely satisfied with the progress you have made; now you are good to go on your website’s construction. You should actually put in effort required in web designing and not take it easy. Your website is like your store front which will work in attracting your customer and engaging the customer in practical approaches on your website that are availing the opportunities your online business is offering.
Not only does your website need to be attractive and engaging but easy to use and mobile friendly too. You have mere seconds to encourage your customer to buy your product before he/she changes its mind, so your website should be easy to use to navigate the customer through easily in performing the task.
Today the world is on the go. Most of your targeted audience would be a mobile phone user hence your website should be mobile phone friendly, if not entirely then it should be able to provide at least a separate mobile friendly version which activates when a customer opens the website on his/her mobile phone.
8. Keywords are really the key.
Focus on your web content. Your plan should be to utilize the keywords you initially searched for which helped you generate this idea. Those same keywords will help generate visibility of your website on the search engine. The quality of your content would improve with the use of those keywords.
Search Engine Optimization is a cost free way of increasing your visibility on the web.
Pay per click ads are also very helpful as they quickly show up in search results and also because they allow you to experiment with more keywords and attract targeted audience to your website.
9. Customer is the king.
Serve, provide and reward your customer as the customer is the king. If the customer is happy with what you are doing, then only is it the proof that you are running a successful venture. If your customer is disappointed then may you need to recheck all the previous steps you took and find out what you are missing to provide?
Your business needs to be a level ahead of its competitors so that it attracts customer loyalty and keeps them coming back again and again.
A business should not ignore customer service. Your business is initially there to provide help so why ignore such an important factor that actually caters to providing help needed specifically relating to your online business. As well as comments and feedback from customer help the business to remain on the right track and maintain its reputation with the clients. Also it can prove to very motivating when you get positive feedback making you want to do more for your customers.
10. Last but certainly not the least; don’t underestimate the power of social media…
You would not want to blow your budget at the start of the business, but you have to advertise and socialize your business too. So one should look no further from the power of social media in spreading your business and helping it gain popularity. Internet plans that provide high speed data uploading facility should be handy for surfing keeping your social media promotional strategy in check such as uploading ads or creating web pages to engage customers on sites like Facebook and Twitter.
In addition to the 10 steps I have mentioned, never let go of the positive thinking and the urge to succeed that should motivate you to keep going when you’re just getting started with your online business. Never forget that one size does not fit all, if something worked for your competitor it is not necessary that it will work for you too. Disappointment should be taken as a positive criticism to work harder and achieve more.
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