DOA: Don’t Let This Happen To Your E-Commerce Business

/in /by

It’s a well-known fact that the majority of new businesses online fail, typically within their first year. Why does this happen? What’s the cause? These are questions that you should be interested in if you are planning on setting up your own e-commerce company. E-commerce companies may look easy to set up and run, but it’s notoriously difficult to actually make a profit with this type of business models unless you know what you’re doing which most people don’t. So, how can you make sure that your e-commerce business isn’t DOA?

Get The Right Domain

First, it is important to make sure that you are getting a fantastic domain name for your e-commerce company. People often miss the importance of a great domain because they are distracted by the fact that no one searches for this. While that’s true, it’s worth pointing out that the domain name will impact your search ranking and this determines how much interest you’re going to see online before you even start to think about investing in SEO.

On top of this, you should also consider revisits. People are far more likely to revisit your site if they can remember the domain. That’s why certain domains sell for thousands online at auction. It does have an impact, and straight off the bat, it’s worth making sure that you are paying a little more here for the perfect domain.

Hosting is important too as this will give you complete control over how your site operates.

Keep Things User-Friendly

Next, it’s important to make sure that your site is completely user-friendly. You need to keep things as easy as possible for buyers. The easier you make it, the more likely they are to buy. It’s as simple as that. There are lots of ways to make your site easy to use but if you want to perfect the interface, it’s worth working with an IT support team. Using IT services, you can make sure that there are no issues with interface that could ultimately drive customers away.

You should have a blog as part of your e-commerce site as well. A blog will allow you to hit a number of birds with one stone. First, it will give you an easy way to add lots of SEO optimised content to your site and indirectly impact the rankings. Second, it allows you a great way to connect and target your audience encouraging them to commit to a purchase. Third, it will keep the rest of your site clean and free of cluttered content.

Target And Remarket

Lastly, you need to think of ways to hook the customer so that they can’t escape. One of the best ways to do this is to get their details even before the sale. Newsletters, email offers and deals are all fantastic ways to do this. That will ensure you can continue to market to them and get those always important repeat purchases.

We hope you take this advice and make sure that your E-commerce company isn’t DOA.

How to Create a Dynamic Business

/in /by

Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or you’ve just started your own business, it’s vital that your customers engage with what you’re selling. Companies that create excitement among the public and in the media are often described as “dynamic,” but what does this term actually mean and how does it affect your business?

According to Business Dictionary, the word “dynamic” describes something that’s “capable of being changed; in a state of flux, not static,” while other definitions focus on high efficiency and strong motivating agents. These are all positive attributes of any business, so how can you make sure yours matches up?

Be a Motivator

As the figurehead of your company, you need to be able to motivate your employees – or at least employ a manager who can do this in your absence. Motivators are important assets to companies of any size because they create a ripple effect that influences the attitudes of everyone in the business. Put simply, if a manager only ever delegates tasks he or she doesn’t want to do and is forever cutting corners while doing as little work as possible, no staff member is going to feel motivated to work hard – and why should they be? There’s a great deal of competition for top talent in the job market these days, so you need your employees a reason to stick around. If you don’t, you risk losing your best workers to an industry competitor.

Streamline Your Processes

Creating a streamlined working environment will keep everybody working together toward a common goal. There are plenty of ways to streamline your day-to-day processes, from automating payroll, invoicing and software licensing with a trusted provider like Bytes, to outsourcing and delegating tasks. Keep the whole team informed of your streamlining processes and decisions, and your motivation to better the business will create infectious energy throughout the organization.

Embrace Technology

Nothing says “dynamic” like a forward-thinking, technology-driven company. However, some businesses have the mistaken notion that they don’t need to deal with technology in the workplace because they’re not a tech-based company. A few years ago, digitizing your workplace was a choice, but these days it’s essential if you want to stay ahead of the competition in your industry. Most day-to-day processes can be automated using technology, freeing up both you and your employees to focus on more creative projects and drive the business forward.

Plan For Continuous Improvement

Your business will only continue to grow if you commit to a continuous improvement plan. What made you successful five years ago is unlikely to still have power in five years’ time, so you can’t afford to rest on your laurels for too long. Staying motivated to better yourself will have a ripple effect on those in your team, too, which will affect how your customers feel about your organization. Business is not a fixed entity; your company culture is always moving and changing, so it’s important to make sure it’s moving in a positive direction rather than a negative one.

The Most Important Areas Of A Business

/in /by

When you’re managing your own business, it’s important that you know where to focus your attention. It can be very overwhelming at times because there are so many different things that demand your insight and skill, but one way to know how to manage all of that, is by setting out your priorities. While everything is important, some require a bit more concentration than others. The sooner you figure it out, the sooner you can ride your way to success without a worry in the world, because you’ll have everything covered and under control.

Here’s what you need to know.

Your product

How do you intend on selling something successfully, if the products aren’t any good to begin with? That will just make your job even harder, as no one wants to be pushing a dead weight around that nobody wants. Every good business starts with a good idea, so make sure that your product is something that people feel that they need within their lives in order to make it better. You want to be able to fill that void, and make them realise that what you’re selling is what they have always been longing for.

Your target audience

You should know exactly who your target audience is before you even attempt to connect with them. Who are you making your product for? What kind of lifestyle do you imagine them to live? What kind of personality do you think they have? And what age range do they belong to? It may sound rather personal – but it has to be otherwise you won’t be able to engage on a deep level. The better you know someone, the easier you can cater to their wants and needs – and that’s the key to building up a great relationship between yourself and the consumer.

Your money

As soon as you start to make an income, things begin to change. You will be dealing with numbers that need to be understood, because the moment you earn, you are expected to pay tax and insurance. So it’s vital that you keep an eye on what is going into your account, and more importantly what is going out. This can get tricky sometimes as there can be some confusion, this is why you should create a paystub, because that monitors all the little details so that you don’t need to stress yourself.

Your marketing

Failure to market yourself properly will mean that you’re not allowing people to see you in the best light, and you wouldn’t want to do anything that tarnished your business – especially not by accident. So you need to ensure that you market the correct way that leaves people wanting to experience what you’re selling. Social media is the most effective way of marketing, but you must understand how it works in order to achieve your desire. The content you post is what people will judge you off immediately, so you need to be posting things that are eye-catching and intriguing, while giving people valuable information about what it is that you’re offering.

Internet Based Businesses: Where The Real Money Is!

/in /by

There are millions of sites out there that suggest ways to make money online. However, few are geared towards the creation of online businesses that can return a genuine profit over the long-term. In fact, you will often find that the majority are about ‘get rich quick schemes’ or ‘side hustles’ that are only designed to be a part-time way of enhancing a person’s income. This is strange, given the fact that there are some truly genuine ways to use the internet to create a prosperous business that will thrive over time. Luckily, we know where the real money is online, and you just have to read on to find out how you can get in on the game.

E-commerce

One way of setting up a viable business online is it go the e-commerce route. E-Commerce is where you sell products online at a profit, although there are a lot of different ways that you can do this in practice.

One is to set up your show on a ready-made platform and run your business through that. Popular choices in this area include eBay, Shopify, and Amazon whose FBA service not only helps you to sell your good but to store and deliver them as well. Something that can make things easier for those looking to set up their internet based business from home as they don’t have to find space for stock on their property.

Of course, there are other options for e-commerce as well. These include creating your own website to sell on, as well as getting a more well-known company to stock your products under their name. Something you can read more about here.

Service providers

Providing a service is also a good solid base for an internet company that is likely to go the distance and bring in a decent profit. That is as long as you pick the right service to offer.

Establishing which service will sell is something that may take some market research. Although services such as web hosting, professional social media management, and creative work such as illustration, writing, and video creation are particularly popular at the moment.

Professional video creation is one option for your online business.

Then there is always the option of setting yourself up in the role of exchange between clients that need and individuals offering these services. Something that site like Upwork, PeoplePerHour, and Task Rabbit have monetized to great effect.

Pay per call

Lastly, pay per call internet based business are also something that can do well in the long term, especially if you get a following of decorated customers that call in on a regular basis.

Of course, many people stay away from this type of offering because it is traditionally associated with the less seemly side of the internet industry. However, as you are in charge, you have control over the choice of service and the prices you offer. That means you can easily focus on things like advice, life coaching and work of self-esteem rather than the traditional tarot card, psychic, and other unmentionable services that are often associated with this type of online business.

The World Of Websites: Everything You’ll Ever Need To Know

/in , /by

As a business owner, you know that you need a website. The internet is definitely the future, and it has been for some time. So even when your business is offline, and you have a physical store or office, you know that you’re missing out on a huge chunk of custom by not being online. But at the same time, when you are an online business, you know that simply having a website just won’t do. You have to get it right, know the ins and outs of websites and what you need, and be able to create the best possible site for your business. And when you’re not all that well versed in technology or the internet, it can feel a bit overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be.

Websites can often seem complicated at first. Because they involve code, plugins, development, widgets and more. Whether you want to know exactly what a widget is and why you need it, or you want to be able to drive a significant amount of traffic to your website, you’ll need to do some research. But when that tends to tire your brain, you might like to have it handed to you on a plate, in one concise article, right? So here it is – everything you need to know about the world of websites.

Getting Setup

If you’re yet to launch your own website, then this section is going to help you to get started. If you have, then you may find that you can improve and enhance what you have by following these steps.

Hosting

First off, you’re going to want to make sure that you get some hosting in place. You may be considering setting up a free website, but this isn’t really the best choice when it comes to professionalism and being able to grow in the future. In fact, it’s only ever going to hold you back. Instead, you need to look into web hosting options as listed in that post, and choose a hosting plan that suits you best.

Choosing A Domain

Along with hosting, you’ll also need to find a domain. When you have your own website domain name, your site will look more professional. To do this, you can find expired domains with someone such as FreshDrop or search to see what is currently available. And choose carefully, as you will ideally want your domain name choice to stay with you.

Building The Website

Your final step in getting setup is choosing how you’re going to build the website itself. When you take out hosting, you may find that you’re given a range of options by your hosting provider, so this will help you to decide. You may also find that WordPress, in particular, is an easy to use and manage platform to build your website from.

The Design

When you’ve got the framework of your website ready, it’s time to think about how you want it to look and what functions you’d like to be able to have.

The Look

This is where you can start thinking about the colors that you like, a logo, your font choices, and what kind of image you want to give off on your website. Unless you are experienced with code, which we are presuming you are not, you’re going to want to look into a template that you can use here instead. This is often an inexpensive way to get a design on your site.

The Functions

At the same time, you need to be thinking about the key functions your need your website to do. There are a range of website features that are important, and you will be able to find widget and plugins to help you add this in. Essential, these are small pieces of software that allow you to add a particular function to your website, such as an email subscription tool. So work out what you want your website to have, and find the right plugins to help you do to do.

User Experience

As you start to move forward with your website, you’ll want to make sure that you’re thinking about the user journey. This is how visitors of your site move around the website and effectively use it. As you start to gather this information, you may even want to hire a developer to help you edit your template or create a new design that will suit your user journey better.

The Content

You’re also going to need to populate your website with content. There is a range of information that you will need to include, so let’s go over what that will be.

Pages

From browsing the internet yourself, you’ll know that websites need to have different pages. When you’re building your site, there will always be a range of pages that you need. Alongside your product or services pages, you need to have an about page, as well as an FAQ, testimonials, and even a privacy policy page. So be sure to get writing these as soon as you can.

Blog

Whether you want to add this in before you launch or later on down the line, having a blog for your business is a really great idea. Not only will it help with your SEO (we will go into more detail about this in the next section), but it also gives you content to share with your customers and site visitors too.

Contact Information

A contact page is one of the important pages that you will need to have on your website. But your contact information is often the most important kind of content that you need to include across your blog, and not just on that single page itself. You’ll want to have your information visible on the homepage, as well as links to your social profiles. You never want your customers to have to dig for your details, as they may choose to just give up if so.

Traffic Driving Strategies

Now that your website is essentially up and running, you need your customers to find you. But how? Here are a few ideas on how you can start generating traffic to your website.

SEO

In order for your website to show up on search engines like Google, it has to be optimized. And that is exactly what the practices of search engine optimization (SEO) do. To make sure that you’re optimizing your content and site as you’re building it, be sure to use this SEO checklist as you go along. This will help you to show up in searches and generate traffic to your site.

Social Media

Next, you’re going to want to turn to social media. Because you can actually generate some traffic from social media if you take the right approach with your marketing. You’ll want to make sure that you’re applying tactics that will engage your followers and lure them to your website. Yes, it can take time, but it’s actually quite fun to test out different ideas and see how they do.

Online PR

Finally, you’re going to want to think about doing some online PR. This fits nicely in the above two points. Getting links to your website from other sites will help with your SEO, and collaborations on social media and with other businesses or influencers can help you to generate some online PR and bring visitors to your site.

The Importance Of Analytics

Finally, you’re going to want to get to know your analytics. Why? Well, they are essential for you to be able to find success with your website. So let’s see how you can do that.

Knowing Where To Look

As you set up your website, you will find that you have some tools right there in your dashboard (particularly if you’re using WordPress). You will be able to see how many visitors you get and sometimes even where they came from or what links they’re clicking on. But, you need more. Registering for Google Analytics (GA) is important here. GA allows you to see how many hits your site has had and by how many people, how they found you, what pages they’ve been on, and what they have clicked onto. This data can then be hugely important to improving your website.

Using Your Analytics

Once you have got your GA hooked up, you’re then going to want to read something like this guide that will help you to get the most out of your analytics. This data is invaluable and can help you to understand your customers better, which will then help your website to meet their needs.

Continuing To Improve

Finally, you’re then going to want to make sure that you apply your data findings to tweak your site and get results. And you’re going to want to keep on refining your site and then finding new insights from your analytics over time to make sure that you’re always meeting your visitors’ needs.

It may seem like a lot, but when you approach your website in this way, by taking in the build, design, populate, promote, and refine stages that we’ve walked through, you should find that your website is exactly what you want it to be – successful!