Your Guide to Starting an Online Business
Whether COVID-19 has pushed you from a brick-and-mortar store to an online environment, or you’ve decided to take the plunge and set up a web-based storefront, starting an eCommerce business can be a rewarding venture.
From 2017 to the end of 2019, approximately 28.1 million Canadians made purchases online. That’s a lot of people who go to web pages and pull out their wallets if they like what they see.
But there’s more to the process than buying a domain name and loading your site with products or services. There are technical aspects to navigate and content to consider.
Do you DIY with a website builder or hire a professional? Should you stick to SEO or focus on paid ads as well?
As a small business owner, I have helped many clients build successful online businesses. So I’m sharing this five-step guide to starting an online business with you to make the process clearer and less stressful.
1) Find out what you want to sell.
If you already have an established store, this could be very easy. But if you’re just starting an eCommerce business and focusing on products, you’ll need to think about what you’ll offer and where you’ll get it from.
The first thing to figure out what to sell and in what form is to make sure it’s relevant to today’s consumer. COVID-19 has made consumers much more in tune with their spending habits. Make sure that, first and foremost, there is a consumer who is willing to spend his money on the product he intends to sell.
Next, define how you want to sell your products. These are just some of the options:
- From business to consumer (B2C): This is the most common business model, with many different approaches. You basically sell to the end user, but there may be a third party acting as a middleman (think Amazon).
- Direct to Consumer (D2C): From design and manufacturing to sales and promotions, the company does it all. Dollar Shave Club is a good example of a D2C business that started small and grew on this model.
- Subscription service: Books, clothing, organic products, baby items… I could go on and on. Almost every industry has harnessed the power of subscription services to offer cost and time savings to customers on a regular basis.
- Direct delivery: Instead of having to stock a warehouse full of products, when you sell a product on your site, you’re essentially buying the item from a third party, who ships it directly to the customer.
2) Buy a domain name.
If you already have a business name, this part could be simple. However, you won’t get a nice short dot com name unless you invest a lot of money. And you don’t want a domain name that’s five words long or hard for customers to remember (or spell).
Ideally, use your company name like we did, with a dot com or a dot ca if you’re in Canada. There are many other TDLs (Top Level Domains) to consider, such as .net, .co, and .org, but strive to get revered.com as your primary domain if possible.
3) Create an eCommerce store
From incorporating branding into your design to uploading products/services, there are many things to consider when starting an eCommerce business, including:
- Your shopping cart software. Shopping carts can be built with a variety of coding languages, including ASP, PHP, JavaScript, and HTML. They can be provided by a 3rd party service provider (like Shopify) or installed on your WordPress website like WooCommerce to avoid monthly fees. Choosing the best shopping cart software requires a lot of analysis of the pros and cons of each choice. Many times the choice depends on your needs, your budget and the desired functionality.
- The visuals (copy and images). The way a shopper sees and feels about your store has a significant impact on whether they will trust a purchase from you. Also, the way each of your products is described along with the use of professional looking photos can make or break a sale if not done correctly.
- Installing a Secure Security Layer (SSL) certificate. This keeps your website secure and is required in today’s online trading environment. Even Google will boost your site’s search ranking if it detects an installed SSL.
- Your shipping model. If you’re selling physical products, you need to decide how they’re going to get into the hands of the buyer. Are you shipping items to customers directly? Or are you using a third party? Will you offer free shipping or international shipping? Do you want shipping to be automatically calculated at checkout or will it be a flat shipping rate?
- Your payment gateway. Are you going to accept only credit cards or debit cards and PayPal as well? Will you be using a hosted gateway that takes people off your site to pay and then redirects them, like our Ripping Vintage Packs client? Or is an integrated payment gateway more your style?
This is where it pays to hire a professional web development company. You won’t have to waste your time googling “SSL Certificates” or trying to configure your shopping cart software.
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READ: 3 Ecommerce Challenges and Solutions for Tough Times
Calling these “tough times” may be a bit of an understatement for you, or perhaps you’ve tweaked your marketing strategy very well and aren’t negatively affected by the COVID-19 crisis.
There is no arguing that this pandemic has led to an increase in internet traffic as people work, socialize and entertain themselves online.
That’s why I’m sharing 3 ecommerce challenges and solutions to help you sustain and even grow as an entrepreneur during this crisis.
Read more on our website.
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4) Focus on SEO
Did you know that SEO has the highest ROI of all online marketing tactics? Despite this fact, many small business owners build their sites with little regard for how search engines view their content.
SEO means doing keyword research to discover the keywords that your target audience is using to find what they need.
Your SEO strategy will largely focus on on-page techniques like keyword-rich content and meta tags.
5) Create valuable content
Your customers don’t just want to see pages and pages of products, or a single line that sells them services. They want you to be a trusted expert who can provide everything from helpful advice to reassurance that your credit card information is safe.
Content marketing is an ongoing process. If you want to please your target audience and the search engines, you’ll need to regularly post articles, blogs, and videos that are valuable to your audience.
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No matter what your small business model is, you’ll need to keep testing and tweaking after you’ve built an eCommerce store. You’ll want to dive into your data to see your customer behavior, such as:
- Do they spend time reading your carefully crafted content?
- Is there a broken link that causes people to abandon their shopping carts before they’re done shopping?
- How many of your website visitors are converting into customers?
Of course, there’s a lot more to starting a web-based business than I can cover here. From promoting your business on social media to creating paid ads to drive traffic, you’ll want to have a marketing strategy in place as you go. But this guide to starting an online business will help you lay a solid foundation for a successful ecommerce site.
For the success of your business,
Suzanne