The Ultimate Guide to Starting An Online Business

A lot of people dream of starting an online business. They imagine the luxury of being their own boss, taking meetings in comfy restaurants, and raking in the cash. But the truth is you need to choose the right type of business and understand how to start an online business in the first place. In this article, I will be giving you a step-by-step guide to starting an eCommerce business with a small amount of capital and a lot of hustle.

First, let’s examine a few theories over the types of businesses out there. The following is based on a product-demand matrix and works like this: Most entrepreneurs fall into the “labour of love” trap especially if they don’t use their money wisely. But, as you can see the

Mass Market model is actually the sweet spot most beginners can take advantage of and make a considerable profit.

Once you have an idea that fits nicely within the balance of low price and high customer potential you will want to follow these easy steps to get your idea off the ground:

Step 1: Check Out If Your Idea Is Viable

This should be done in a few different ways. First, don’t make the mistake of looking for a product before your market. By doing a proper market research you will be able to find and profit from the solution to your market’s problem. Here are a few ways to go about this: 1. Check out forums and sites like Quora to see what people are looking for and what issues they are facing 2. Keywords will tell you what people are searching for as well as check what your competition is 3. Research potential competitors – see how they do what you want to do and find your edge

I strongly suggest you do all 3 of these for your e-commerce business: For example, you may be excited to find out that people want better sunglasses and you know you can get them made better and cheaper than your competitors. But, if

you didn’t check the keywords you may be unaware that this market is incredibly saturated, and finding an edge will be very difficult given the competition.

Photo Source: Brightech Let’s take a look at a company named, Brightech. Brightech started a few years ago on Amazon and also has its own site selling its beautiful and affordable lighting products. To date, they have served over one million happy customers! At a price point of $50-$100 a lamp, you do the math!

How did they do it? Remember our matrix – they found thousands of customers who complained about a major problem – lighting. Either the lighting was cheap but fell

apart easily or it was so expensive it was only available to a select few. They listened and responded with affordable LED lights designed to imitate the latest trends.

Sound familiar? It should, this is how mega-billion dollar A ​ SOS made its mark.

Next, let’s look at how you take this great idea and communicate it to your customers.

Step 2: Create Intent-Driven Content

Speaking of keywords before writing your content always consider your strategy and how you are going to get your readers engaged and converting. If you notice when looking up information about starting an online store, the SERP’s rank questions or long-tailed keywords higher: For example,​ the phrases: Starting an online business and how to start an online store​ will rank higher than starting an eCommerce business as this is the way people quickly look up how to open an online store.

With that in mind, your content should be: ● Engaging ● Informative

● Optimized

The first two are pretty straightforward but let’s take a look at how you can use SEO to get your content read and generating income.

Remember those keywords we discussed a moment ago well we still need them. This time not only for ranking well but also to help us create content that people want to read. This means that we need to avoid bad practices, also known as Black Hat SEO like: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Keyword Stuffing Cloaking Using Private Link Networks Low-quality content taken from other sites

Instead, be a good guy and use White Hat SEO techniques that will help you rank higher on SERPs and drive excited customers to your site. Think outside the traditional content box by delivering content through video, optimized images, social media, and infographics. Here are some tools I love to use: ● Ahrefs ● SEMRush

● Google Keyword Planner

These tools provide great resources for keyword research, ranking, and scoping out the competition.

Step 3: Create Your Site Now that you have your plan and all your content is ready to go you will want to choose the best platform for your e-commerce site. With so many great options out there for starting an eCommerce business, it may seem hard how to pick the best platform for your business. Here are a few things to consider: 1. Cost – always an important consideration you do not need to spend a lot to get a lot 2. Integrations – look for helpful tools that will things easier like accounting plugins, email marketing tools, dropshipping, and more.

3. SEO-friendly – If we haven’t mentioned it enough you need SEO to get traffic and make money 4. 100% responsive – Its 2020 and over 90% of eCommerce transactions are being done on smart devices 5. Security – you want it and so do your customers make sure it’s verified and secure

6. Scalability – always think of the future and whether your platform of choice can grow as your company grows

Design It Right Once you have chosen how to start an online business and selected your platform – don’t forget the look and function of your site. Keep it simple and classic with one or two nice readable fonts. Use various videos and images that enhance your brand and deliver your message well.

Make sure your customers can easily navigate by using smart SEO like creating a Sitemap and social media buttons for

sharing. It is also always a good idea to run consistent SEO audits of your site to make sure that there is no duplicate content and those dreaded 404 errors.

Wrap Up Once you have done all of the above steps you are ready to go LIVE! Make sure you continue to learn about ​how to start an online business​ from home to improve your UX and UI all the time. Remember your site is only as good as its strategy and SEO – without both of those you may end up selling a few products to some friends and family instead of raking in the cash.

If you need to get started on eCommerce SEO tips pop round here​.