So, you have products or services you want to provide and you’re ready to start your own business? Congratulations, you’re taking a major step in life that could be a very rewarding experience! However, starting an online business requires more thought and effort than simply throwing up a bunch of pictures of your products or services on a website.
If you’ve already identified your brand’s name, voice, and services and are ready to focus on bringing it online, the five steps below can help you get started.
Five steps to starting an online business
- Make a plan — You might think you have a good idea of what you want to do, but you should really write down your plan. Writing down your plan can help you identify gaps or problem areas that you need to address. The remaining four steps in this list should factor into aspects of your plan.
- Establish your budget and finances — Are you keeping track of your expenses, hours worked and prices you’re charging? Maintaining a website costs money. You need to pay to host it somewhere, and you may need to pay for the domain name, shopping services and other services as well. This all needs to factor into your regular budget to help you track what you’re spending and what you’re gaining profit on.
- Research your audience — To reach your target audience online, you need to make sure you understand your audience to begin with. Research your clients or who you expect to be your clients. Identify their pain points or needs that your products or services can help address. This information will factor into your site’s presentation and voice as you work to make your site relevant to the audience you wish to reach.
- Use the right tools and platforms — Is your target audience active on certain social media platforms? Are they more prone to simply search for something on Google? Do they prefer phone calls or personal interaction?
Make sure you are active on all the correct platforms where your target audience is active. If your target audience likes to use Instagram, then your brand needs to have an active Instagram account. If your target audience likes to use telephones more than web browsers, make sure it is easy for them to be able to find your contact information and call you. - Use SEO — SEO (search engine optimization) is the practice of attracting visitors to your site through search engines, like Google or Bing. This requires some time and effort that many people choose to outsource to digital marketing agencies. However, if you have the time and drive, you can learn how to do SEO on your own to help attract new visitors from a relevant target audience to your website.
Want to attract new visitors to your website? Burg & Co. can help
Increasing traffic to your website plays a role in increasing conversions and leading to new clients. However, it’s difficult to attract visitors to your site when you don’t know what to do. Fortunately, this is what we specialize in at Burg & Co.
Our team has years of experience in helping businesses improve their digital presence to attract new leads and retain existing ones. If you’re looking to perform better in search engine results and attract more visitors to your site, we’re ready to talk to you to see how we can help. Contact our team today for more information about digital marketing or to schedule a complimentary consultation.