How to Start an Online Business

How to Start an Online Business You have reached this website, because you either want to know how to start an online business or you are struggling with one already. Regardless, this article aims to put you on the right track to success.

Setting an objective The very first thing you need to do is get a crystal clear picture in your mind of what you want to achieve. Think about why you want to start an online business in the first place and identify one overwhelming reason. Put it in writing, as this will be the basis of your overall business plan.

Having zoomed in on a very exact target goal will help you stay focused all the way through your work. It is easy to get sidetracked, so whenever confusion or doubt sets in, you can simply revisit chapter one of your business plan.

This also offers a psychological benefit as it helps you staying focused.

I am sure that you have experienced situations in your life, where you have wanted something very badly and gotten it, because the desire to get it kept whatever it was in the front of your mind all the time.

What are you selling You can sell anything online, but the strategies you will be implementing will differ according to what your product is. You should consider which of these categories you fall into: 

Selling a physical product.

Your website must be able to handle payment transactions, returns and refunding, stock levels, customer reviews, etc. 

Selling a physical product (drop shipping).

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Different from the above since you are now advertising physical products as an affiliate and the actual seller handles all transactions via his/her website.

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Selling a downloadable product.

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E-books, graphics, video clips, etc. differ from physical products, as you do not need to worry about stock, but you still need to handle transactions.

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Selling a downloadable product through an affiliate network.

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Let others do much of the work for you and reward them with a commission for every copy sold.

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Become an affiliate.

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Advertise other peoples’ products and receive commissions.

Obviously you need a website or a blog in order to establish yourself in an online market, but from the above categories it is clear that you must consider which kind of website is right for you. After determining the right category, put it into your plan for how to start an online business. It is important, because much future work will depend on the decision you make here.

Who are you?

You know the term “branding” and you may think that it isn’t too important for your fledgling business. If that is the case, then you are wrong.

Remember that when people shop online, they aren’t physically holding the product they are buying in their hands until they have actually received it. It is therefore important that they “trust” your product immediately, when they are browsing your website. This in turn means they will have to trust YOU. Building authority around your product, service and/or yourself as a person is an important step throughout the development of your online business, so put into your business plan how you want to accomplish this. Here are some ideas:

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Introduce yourself to potential customers.

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Write an “About” page and include information not only about your business, but about yourself too. The more your visitors feel they “know” you, the more likely they are to buy from you. Don’t get too personal though, but try to keep a professional distance.

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Allow customers to write short reviews on your website. People are more likely to trust the opinion of other customers than you. Just think about when you for example book a vacation online. Do you read other peoples’ reviews on the hotel before you buy? Of cause you are.

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Implement a rating system.

Especially if you are offering a service, you might benefit from good ratings from customer.

Who are your customers?

Just is important it is for your customers to know who you are, as important is it for you to know who THEY are. You must be able to identify yourself with your customers. Try to put yourself in their shoes. What are they thinking about, when they are looking for your product?

What is important to them? This should be reflected in the content you write for your website as well as in any other advertising material.

Your writing style should also be reflected by who your target audience is. For example, young people talk and act differently from elderly people, have different interests and focus on different matters and events.

Your website Your website is your face to the world – make it a pretty one.

Use a clear and easy-to-navigate design. Pictures of products as well as other graphics are important, but make sure the files are small (compressed). Your website should load as quickly as possible, since potential customers wont stick around waiting for a slow site.

Again you should think about your customer group and try to figure out what would be appealing to them. You can look at other websites you know that they will often visit, to get some ideas.

Advertising If you decide to use any kind of advertising, it becomes even more critical that you have determined exactly who your customers are, so you can target the correct market. There is no point in attracting visitors, who will not buy anything, because they belong to a different market segment.

You can also let the search engines deliver your customers through “organic traffic”. This is the traffic you receive from people, who search for a specific keyword phrase and find your website in the result list. It can be a challenge to land high in the search results, because you are competing with thousands of other websites for specific keywords/phrases.

Another option is to use PPC, which stands for Pay-Per-Click. You can create PPC campaigns for example on Google using Adwords. Basically, you tell Google for which keywords you want to be found and pay a specific amount every time someone clicks on your link.

A word of caution though, this can become very expensive if you are not careful, but also very rewarding if done correctly.

Execute – how to start an online business

So far so good. You should now have learned the basics of how to start an online business and also have a decent business plan to follow. The next critical step will be to implement it and this is where it becomes difficult. What matters most now is to keep yourself motivated as you face various challenges along the way and follow through with your plan.

On this blog I will be writing many more posts on how to overcome the different challenges as well as guides to implementing the steps I have outlined here.

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