Starting your own online business? As The Motley Fool point out, as many as 80% of businesses make it out of their first year – but only half of these continue to succeed five years down the line. Often, the root of this failure comes from mistakes made in the initial stages of development.
But what steps do you need to take to avoid a mishap? Today, let’s run through five essential tips for getting your online business off the ground.
1. Get your domain name right
This initial step is surprisingly one of the most important for online businesses. Picking the right domain name will go a long way towards success down the road – so it’s crucial you get it right from day one.
Go Daddy provide a series of useful tips in this regard, with some of their most helpful including:
- Making it a word or phrase which is easy to spell
- Keeping it as short as possible
- Avoiding using numbers or hyphens
- Making it as memorable as possible
Mastering this initial step gives you an advantage further down the line.
2. Consider investing in SEO
Having a detailed knowledge of how to best get your website placed in a favourable position on search engines will go a long way to achieving success. Employing a solid SEO (search engine optimisation) strategy will serve as a major benefit in this regard.
There are tonnes of tips and tricks which can be employed to ensure the best chances of this happening. Bringing in the expert knowledge of an SEO specialist can take you from ranking on the second page of Google to the first – something which will have a massive impact on your overall performance.
3. Boost your page speed
As the E-Commerce Guide handily point out, the faster your page load time, the more likely you are to achieve a conversion. There are a number of ways in which page speed can be boosted, with one of the most common including the leveraging of a browser’s cache image files.
The difference of even a few seconds can have a major impact on how likely someone is to want to buy your product. It’s amazing to think how easily consumers can be dissuaded from a purchase just because their journey has been disrupted by a matter of seconds.
4. Identify your customer base
It’s important to know who exactly your core demographic is when it comes to starting any business, whether it be online or not. Knowing your audience will go a long way to helping you achieve your targets for sales.
With a concentrated point of attack, it’s far easier to know exactly how to brand and market your product. Without this, there’s a good chance you’ll be taking wild stabs in the dark which don’t lead to any kind of consistent results.
5. Get your budgets in line
Planning is a key aspect of any business. It’s important to have your finances worked out and lined up prior to diving in. The last thing you’ll want is to get half-way through your first year, only to realise there’s no feasible way to financially stay afloat for the remainder.
As the old adage goes, if you fail to prepare, you’re preparing to fail. If you’re not the best with financial planning, you can always employ the services of someone who is. There are services dedicated to ensuring financial disasters don’t occur.
Be sure to bare these tips in mind if you’re thinking about starting up an online business. They could prove a massive help.
