For many people, knowing what they wish to sell online is the easy part. It’s setting up the business, and knowing how and where to start that’s difficult. Here are some surefire tips on how to finally make your online business dreams come true without suffering a mountain of headaches.
Choosing a provocative name for your business. Something catchy is best, but it’s ideal if your business name could also explain what it’s all about. It should be something easy to spell as well so that people won’t have a hard time searching for it in the Internet. Take the time to pick your name, there is no rush and it’s better to get it right then to change after you've spend a fortune on printing and advertising.
Register your business. Even if it’s an online company, it still earns money the way other businesses do and because of that, you’re obliged to pay taxes as well. As requirements vary depending on the type of business, the best thing to do is make your inquiries with your local government body or IRS. If you live in any resident community, you should also speak with them and see if they have stipulations regarding residents setting up online businesses.
Spend several days to a week diligently researching about search engine optimization or SEO. This is the lifeblood of the ecommerce, and it would cost less if you do the SEO for your online business yourself. You should look at keywords for your industry, then research the competition and then create your products and business model.
Build your website while keeping SEO in mind. If your budget allows it, you should pay for your own web space so that you get to choose exactly what kind of ads would appear in your website and where. A good online business website is one that’s not only visually attractive but also offers excellent content that relates to the target market or customer. Provide complete information regarding products, ordering and payment processes, promotions, and customer service. Always offer a brief company background. People only buy from people they know like and trust.
Register accounts with the necessary online payment handlers. Although you can still accept payment by cash, check, or money order, it’s still better if you also accept payments by credit cards and from online banks as these are more convenient for your customers. Depending on your product you should expect around 90% of your transactions to be done online and younger people are generally more comfortable about it and increasing numbers of them jumping online it makes sense to do it.
Be a member of creditable websites or communities. If you sell anything online it pays to use services such as Honest E Online to provide better assurance of a safe and secure shopping experience for your customers. If you’re new to internet business, this can be one of the quickest ways to instill trust into your customers.
It’s time to start advertising. Your first sales and marketing promotion should consist of offering free advice. Hire a copywriter if you truly believe you don’t have the writing skills to create marketing content. Make sure you issue an invitation to join your free newsletter with each article.
Collect the email addresses of people who have signed up for your newsletter. Your first issue should again include original, unique, and valuable tips related to your online business. Start with that then follow it up with product or service updates.
Find more ways to advertise. Create a blog and start blogging about your online business. Get RSS feeds for your online business. Create podcasts and make sure to insert brief advertisements about your online business in the middle.
Only when free methods of advertising don’t work should you finally use paid advertising methods for your online business. Give it two months and if it doesn’t work then that’s time you should go for the big guns. As a general guideline paid advertising and free methods can work well, but to master the free methods you will need to pay money to the experts to find out how to best use them. So in reality, if you leave it to your own devices and don't pay for expert advice or resources then it would be best to assume that free advertising will only account for 10% of your overall traffic figure, it is therefore safe to assume that if you where to pay money for advertising there is a potential 90% more effective traffic generation techniques.
Online Money Tree provides tips and resources on how to make money online. New and aspiring internet entrepreneurs can find some great ideas and advice on how to start a small internet business from home.
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