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6 easy steps to start your online business

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The decision to open a business is a difficult stage, especially when the business project is the first one. If you have firmly decided that you want to create your own business on the Internet and do not know where to start and what problems you may encounter, then our article is for you. For clarity, we have divided the stage of creating a business into 6 simple steps, each of which will be discussed below. Ready? Then go ahead!

Stage #1. Determining the niche of a business project

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To understand whether a business niche will be successful or not, analyze the market. We talked about this in more detail in our article “How to find and choose a niche for an online store”. If you find it difficult to decide on a business niche, we advise you to read it, you will find a lot of useful information. Many aspiring entrepreneurs remain at this stage without trying to bring their ideas to life. Why is this happening? Because this stage is really one of the most difficult. Right now you determine the vector of your direction and, of course, this choice should be balanced. So let's move on to the selection process. To do this, write on a piece of paper 10 areas that you are interested in and that you would be happy to do. Now circle exactly those niches in which you are well versed. Based on the options received, we proceed to further analysis, it is he who will help weed out unpromising niches and narrow the overview of choice as much as possible. Everything is pretty simple. In order to understand whether a niche is relevant or not, we will use special analytics services. Google AdWords or Yandex Wordstat online services are perfect for this. In one of these services, enter the query that interests you, for example, “buy a smartphone”: If we enter the query “tailoring”, we will see that this query is less popular: In addition to demand, it is worth exploring the competitive market. Usually, the higher the demand, the more competitors in the niche.

Stage #2. Business Positioning

To build customer loyalty, you need to convey the uniqueness and essence of your offer to the market. Why they should buy from you and not from your competitors. To do this, create your unique selling proposition based on your main advantages:

  • A unique product or service introduced to the market for the first time.
  • Unique additional service.
  • Targeting a narrow segment of the audience.
  • High achievements.
  • Unique distinguishing feature.
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Stage #3. Drawing up a detailed business plan

For any project, accounting is important, everything must be thought out to the smallest detail. In order to avoid many problems and organize everything as correctly as possible, it is necessary to draw up a business plan. It is best to put your thoughts and ideas on paper, write down the main steps that you have to do. For example, we have compiled a short sample business plan for creating an online store. 1. Store management:

  • Supplier search.
  • Analysis of competitors.
  • Derivation of prices of goods.
  • Organization of the stage of delivery and payment.

2.Website development:

  • Search for a contractor to create a site.
  • Development of a resource, filling the site with content.
  • Start of work on search engine optimization (SEO) to increase traffic from search engines.
  • Launching an advertising campaign (contextual advertising or advertising in social networks).

3.First orders:

  • Organization of calls and consultations with clients.
  • Delivery and payment of goods.
  • Customer feedback (receipt of feedback, e-mail distribution).

4.Analysis of online store errors:

  • Calculation of profit for the billing period. We find out what influenced the indicators, how to increase them.
  • We analyze what goods or services are in demand by the buyer.
  • Analysis of the flow of customers. Determine which channels to attract customers are most effective.

Stage #4. Site creation

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If you are planning to create an online store, then you cannot do without a website. We advise you to use contractors who do not welcome conveyor projects, but work with each site according to an individually designed plan. This will create the most efficient resource that will operate at full capacity. A website is one of the main steps in creating an online store. This is a kind of platform for doing online business. Many aspiring entrepreneurs underestimate how the quality of a website affects sales. If the site has an unattractive appearance, inconvenient structure and low-quality content, a potential buyer is likely to choose your competitor. Therefore, it is better to entrust the process of creating a site to a specialist and pay enough attention to finding a contractor.

What to pay attention to?

  • Cheapness. At the stage of starting a business, all funds are in the account, but savings can bring negative results, website development simply cannot be cheap.
  • The contractor agrees with you in everything. Be prepared that contractors who value their reputation and who monitor the quality of the produced resource will challenge your proposals and offer many different EFFECTIVE options. If they agree with you on everything, perhaps this is an occasion to think.
  • Timing. This is an extremely important criterion, the faster your site is implemented, the sooner you can get the first profit. Deadlines must be clearly defined and spelled out in the contract.
  • Take a look at the contractor's portfolio. Projects must have links to ready-made sites.

Stage #5. Advertising, SEO and client search

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After creating the site, you need to attract traffic. To do this, first of all, you need to decide on the portrait of the target buyer. In our article “The target audience of the site: how to target a potential client?” we have detailed how to do this. If you follow our guidelines in detail, you will have an accurate idea of ​​your audience. This is extremely important for creating an effective advertising campaign. We suggest using contextual advertising, social media advertising and SEO promotion. Contextual advertising is advertising that is displayed in search engines for given search queries. This makes it possible for a potential buyer to easily find you in the forefront of search results. Contextual advertising is best ordered from specialists. Because wrong setting can sometimes lead to fruitless draining of the budget. Social networks can also be a great help in finding new clients. SMM promotion is now at the peak of popularity. Based on the data of the analysis of the target audience, targeted advertising is set up, which will be displayed on users' social networks. SEO promotion can bring a large segment of organic traffic. If you are interested in learning more about this type of promotion, read our article Why do you need Seo website promotion. SEO is a complex measure of resource optimization, which as a result increases the attractiveness of the site for search engines. If you're at the site building stage, SEO can help lay the foundation so you can get customers without ads.

Stage #6. Starting a business and first profit

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When the site is ready and the customer search system is set up, you need to think about how sales will go. Good service is the key to a successful sale. Provide the user with comfortable payment and delivery conditions, follow the relevance of prices and information on the site. After the first sales have appeared, you can ask the client for feedback. For example, leave a review on the site. Site visitors prefer to be sure that the resource on which they are looking for a product is popular with buyers, so reviews will come in handy. Loyalty to the resource can also be increased through e-mail distribution. Send customers current offers, show interest in the user.

Conclusions

An online store is a rather complex project and requires outside help from specialists. To create a high-quality trading platform, you need to create an effective website, find suppliers with favorable conditions, launch an advertising campaign or use SEO promotion. Successful sales to you! Author: Karina Manko, Content Marketing Specialist Read also:

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