Steps to start an online business
Creating
an online business is one of the easiest things to do these days. The internet
has made it possible to just create a blog or a website to do it. From hiring a
developer to creating one yourself, the decision entirely depends on you, but
one thing is sure, the process might not be too different. The internet has
grown extremely fast and become a gigantic marketplace where big and small companies want to have their share. Don't be left out.
Your online business can be seen not only in your area, city or country, but also all over
the world and this will double, if not, quadruple your sales overnight. Amazon
and E-Bay are some examples. The advantage of creating an online business is
that, you can make sales anytime. Even when you are sleeping, someone in
another part of the world is looking for a product that you are selling. So,
what are waiting for?
Here
are useful steps you can take to get your online business up and running.
Select your niche
A
niche is a specific, narrow market area targeted to a small (particular) group
of people sharing the same preferences, requirements, products, tastes etc. In
other words, you select and focus heavily on a particular type of customers who
are willing to buy a particular product that you are marketing. It’s always
good practice to start small and then expand your business to other niches as
it grows and becomes well known. Some
popular niches are Computer software, environment, travel and tourism, health
and fitness, dog training, self-development, men or ladies clothing, personal
finance and many more.
Create a blog
You
can create a free blog using blogger.com for example and start from there. Blogger
is one of the best blogging platforms. You get a free hosting and you can buy a
domain name and import it there. Here are some steps:
- Register to have a Gmail account
- Go to Blogger.com
- Sign in
- Enter your name
- Click on Create a blog
- Write a title for your blog
- Choose an address e.g. myblog.blogspot.com (which you can change
later after you have purchased a domain name)
- Choose a theme
- Click on Create blog
And
there it is! You can now write posts and paste in your affiliate links. I wrote
articles which provide more details in how to create a blog on Blogger.com and
Wordpress.com.
Create great content
Great
content is what will drive more people to your blog. Your site is going to be
indexed by major search engines and people will view your content. One thing
that will retain your visitors is your content. That is why you have to choose
a niche which you are passionate writing about. You have to write reviews of
your products. Sometimes. You will have to purchase them in order to provide details
of the products so that customers will make an informed decision. Getting
people to purchase a product is not always easy, so you will have to be
convincing to lead them to click on your links and make purchases. When you are done with this process, you are
ready for the next step.
Get traffic to your blog
One
way to get people to view your content is to lead them to your site. In this
case, you want to make sure they land on the right page where you display your
links. There are two methods: free and paid. Once you have narrowed down your
niche and written great reviews, you can start a paid advertisement campaign on
Google, Facebook, YouTube or Instagram. These companies know their job. They
will channel the right people to your site without you having to do it
yourself. Starting with a great ad campaign to get people to your site is one
of the best and fastest ways to drive in potential customers. They will stumble
upon what they are after and bam!, huge purchases flow. Like I said earlier,
great content will retain them and they will feel satisfied.
The
other option, though, is to get free traffic using social media. This is a good
approach once you are well established as an online business. I speak about how
to drive free traffic to your site using social media.
Get more professional
Now
that you have driven enough visitors to your site, you want to make sure they
stay. For that, you want to get more professional. Your Dot Blogspot Dot Com (.blogspot.com)
doesn’t look like it. So, you will have to purchase a domain name. A domain
name is an address that points to a unique, specific website on the internet.
An address used by your customers to access your website. It should be Dot Com
(.com), Dot Net (.net) etc. Your .blogspot.com was one, but less professional. Like
I said, Blogger offers free hosting so you may want to enjoy it. Head to your
favorite hosting provider and purchase one. Then, you need to go back to
Blogger.com and replace your old domain with a new one. Here are the steps:
- Go to your dashboard
- Click on Settings then Basics
- Look for the Publishing section. You will see Blog address
- Click on +Set up a third-party URL for your blog
- Write in your purchased domain
- Click Save
Now
your site is getting more professional. You now need a professional theme. I
discuss theme choice in this article.
Create an email list
By
far, this is one of the best ways, if not, the best way to increase your
product sales in online marketing. It consists in creating an email list of
your visitors by registering to your Newsletter for free tips and updates on your
site. They have come to your site for something. You can give part of that
thing for free after they sign up. Next, because you know they are interested in
your products and you know their profiles, you want to look for a way to
communicate with your email list. So, you need an email marketing platform. EWeber,
Mailchimp, SendinBlue, iContact, to state just a few, are some of the most
popular email marketing platforms. An email marketing platform helps you send
emails to your visitors in an automated way. These emails contain offers,
discounts on purchase, and many more. They help you keep good customer
relationship, engage them and get them interested. They also display products
based on the need of your potential customers and lead them to click to
purchase them. The best strategy is to send emails which have offers that are
really tempting and that people want to buy. It is a powerful way to market
your products and share your affiliate links.
Conclusion
That’s
it. You now have the required knowledge and skills to start an online business.
Don’t forget that to be successful on the internet, you need to be serious
about what you are doing and patient.
Fire
away!
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