Succeeding Online

– Contributed content –

(Mediamodifier, Pixabay)

12 April 2017. If your business isn’t online, you’re already a million steps behind. Even if you run a physical store, it is important to have an online presence, where people who can’t or won’t come out to your location can also make a purchase. Luckily, running a successful business online isn’t as difficult as you might think. It isn’t easy either – don’t get me wrong – but if you have something good to offer and you pay attention to the following tips, there’s every chance you will succeed.

Get a good connection

First and foremost, you should invest in the fastest and most reliable internet connection you can afford. Every second you’re not online, you’re not productive, and you could be missing out on sales, giving the impression you don’t care and turning customers off. Get connected and stay connected to see results.

Setup and manage online assets

(Animated Heaven, Flickr)

Online assets include everything from your business website and Facebook account to your online data storage. If you want to be an online success, you need to setup and manage these as soon as possible. Ideally, you should have a website and accounts on every popular social media site out there to maximize your exposure.

You should also take steps to ensure that your websites don’t go down and your data is safe and secure. Professional disaster recovery as a service for businesses is something that you won’t want to miss out on because it will rapidly get you back in business should any of your systems fail. If your website goes down and you lose your collected data, that alone could cost you thousands of dollars in sales, so it really is worth getting some sort of protection in place.

Know the competition

Unless you’ve discovered a unique new niche, you’re going to have to fight it out for customers with a whole host of competitors, and the only way you can hope to do this is by studying them. Check out their social media profiles and their websites to see what keywords they’re using and how they’re marketing themselves and you might just be able to work out what makes them so successful. Using that knowledge, you can make your own services even better!

Invest in SEO

(Paloma Gómez, Flickr)

Search Engine Optimization is of the utmost importance for online businesses. It is what will get you noticed on Google and bring the customers to your door, metaphorically speaking. If you’re on a tight budget, finding reliable freelancers might be a better option than hiring a full-time SEO manager, or if you have the time you could learn the basics yourself, but you can’t simply ignore it and expect people to flock to your website in their thousands.

Protect your brand

Once you’ve got everything up and running, you need to ensure that your brand has a good reputation. When you’re starting out, even one or two bad reviews can be enough to sink your company without a trace, so set up a Google Alert for your company and do what you can to limit any damage to yourself and your business.

What are your top tips for starting an online business?

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