The process of starting an online business is something that you can repeat over and over again. Serial entrepreneurs aren’t lucky people, they have a simple system that works. It doesn’t matter what niche your business is in; creating the site and becoming a success is the same process. After you learn these steps like they’re the back of your hand, you’ll be able to repeat them. The real trick to internet success is being able to scale up your operations without a hitch effortlessly.
Let’s talk about the seven critical things every business owner must do to start a successful site
7. Tap into an underserved market
The most common mistake new business owners make is they dive in headfirst into an overcrowded niche. You assume that since there’s so much money to be made in the niche that it must be easy to collect some of the low hanging fruit. There is no low hanging fruit in saturated niches. Search the web to find customer bases that aren’t being served properly. You’ll have a much higher success rate in servicing those customers, but acquiring them will be cheaper and much easier.
6. Seal the deal with your site text
Copywriting is an art, and it’s not something that you can easily do. Should you hire someone to write the sales copy on your site? Ideally, you would, but if you don’t have the money, then there’s no option for that. If you work hard at it, then it’s possible to become a good copywriter eventually. The most important thing is, your site must have text that describes what the person is getting. If you have a store, then make sure the buyer knows what they are buying before entering their credit card information.
5. Your design must be super simple and fast loading
There are two reasons why you want a simple, fast-loading site. The first reason is that you don’t want to confuse customers. The ordering process should be as easy as possible from start to finish. Google has a tough time spidering pages that are bloated with too much code. Also, Google hates pages that load slowly. Google will penalize your site if it loads slowly.
4. Optimize your site to get traffic from Google
We spoke briefly on why page speed and clutter-free pages are essential to Google. All of your site needs to be optimized for Google, but it’s not as difficult as it sounds. Simple changes such as crunching the size of your images, so they are smaller will make them load quickly. Doing proper keyword research will help you rank in Google for more keywords. The titles of your pages are important, and Google seems to place massive importance on them. Also, spend time learning about internal linking and how Google views internal links as quality backlinks to your pages.
3. Be seen as an influencer in your niche
How do you become an influencer in your niche? You do so by hanging out where other people do. You should have a social media presence, a YouTube channel, and also be active on places like Reddit and Quora. How important is it that you spend time at these places if you have a store. Well, some of them are more vital channels than others. YouTube is a great place, no matter if you’re a blogger or have a site where you sell physical products. Places like Reddit are a little touchy when it comes to self-promotion, and you have to be careful there.
2. Start an email list and cash in
You know what they say, and it’s true, the money is in the list. You don’t need to build an email list from day one since you’ve got no traffic or customers. After you begin to see a trickle of traffic, that’s when you start to put your email list together. The entire process of sending out emails and maintaining your list is all automated. The only work you have to put into it is creating the emails and getting people to join your list.
1. Upsells are crucial to your overall success
Ever wonder why they ask you at McDonald’s if you would like fries with your order? It’s because upsells bring in huge money. It’s not good enough to have a product and sell it; you need things that the customer can add to their order. The addons are where the money is, and if you’re not offering them, you’re setting yourself up for failure. The customer has already demonstrated a desire to buy something, now is your chance to convince them to buy even more.
Rinse, repeat, and grow
These are the same steps that you use to start a business and make it grow. If you already have an existing business that’s doing great, then there’s no reason why it can’t do better. Spend all of your time and energy following these steps, and they are sure to produce the kind of results that you’re after.