Seven commandments of starting an online business

There are many online business models today, but there’s no clear-cut way to decide which one is the best for you. Affiliate marketing, Amazon store, dropshipping business are just some of the most commonly used ones. Lately, there has been a surge in vloggers and social media influencers who manage to build an excellent source of income by building a following.

The following six commandments should help you in your journey no matter which business model you choose.

1. Determine your niche and target market:

Before jumping into your online business, you need to know who you are targeting. Business ideas like “I want to sell my products on Amazon” do not qualify as a target market. Any business needs to focus on its niche and target market because they will make or break your brand.

Most businesses start with the assumption that they must go to where the people are. By doing so, you are essentially putting all your eggs in one basket. As everyone knows, there are no guarantees in business! Having multiple sales channels for your goods not only reduces risk but also increases sales exponentially. 

It helps if you can choose a niche with a set of audience that’s passionate about something. Going where they flock and engaging with them enables you to build a strong brand identity.

2. Build trust:

Starting an online business means that you must build trust in your customers. Trust is the most critical aspect of any relationship. If your customers don’t like to do business with you, they won’t hesitate to tell their friends about it as well. That’s why it’s crucial to build trust from the very beginning.

There are several ways through which you can build trust with your customers. You can use video testimonials, social media comments, and referrals. Other than that, you should have a return policy in place as well – not having one is a big no-no!

3. Learn Online Marketing:

It’s important to understand that all the marketing you do for your business won’t be effective unless you know how to market yourself online. It doesn’t even have to be complicated! You can start with simple things like email marketing, Facebook ads, or pay-per-click campaigns.

It would help if you learned how social media works as well. You should know how to create Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram fan pages. Businesses need to invest their time in social media marketing to send customers directly to your store.

A solid online presence through the proper channels will do wonders for your brand!

4. Build a mobile-friendly website:

Before anything else, a mobile-friendly website is a must for businesses! It doesn’t matter what kind of business you have or how much traffic you send from the web to your website. If it’s not mobile-friendly, then your sales will take a huge hit!

That’s why your eCommerce site must be responsive. Make sure that you are testing things for conversion optimization. Getting target visitors to your website is becoming more and more expensive. You need to try and convert as many as possible.

5. Invest in paid advertisements:

You can’t rely on organic traffic. You need to set aside some budget for paid advertisements. You can use many online platforms for paid advertisements, including Google Adwords, Facebook ads, and Twitter ads. However, make sure that you monitor your budget closely because overspending will burn a hole in your pocket!

Make sure that you optimize your website for search engines and set up an SEO campaign. This will help you in generating organic traffic to your site, which is free!

6. Track & Measure results:

When you start a business, you must measure the success of every marketing channel, whether paid or not. You need to know what works and what doesn’t. Without proper measurement, you won’t be able to understand the best practices to improve your business.

You need to track conversions and question them as well. It would help if you also experimented with different kinds of marketing channels for better results. Track everything!

This is the only way to get ahead of your competition.

7. Be patient & consistent:

Running an online business isn’t easy! It takes a lot of time to reap its benefits. It would help if you were patient until you start seeing results coming in from your efforts. However, having patience doesn’t mean being idle. If you are consistent with your efforts, you will surely reap the benefits at one point. Just don’t give up.

There you have it.

We’ve outlined six commandments to follow that will help get your foot in the door and make sure your fledgling company takes off. What would be most valuable if you were new to internet marketing? How do these six steps apply to what you’re trying to accomplish? Let us know in the comments.