Launching an online business can be a fun venture, even for those that are new to running their own websites.
After all, there are tons of free resources readily available on the web to help you. In fact, you can have a functioning website up and running within minutes.
But there’s a lot more to operating an online business than merely launching a website, and adding a few products to your shop, or promoting your services to future clients.
Growing your business, establishing yourself as an authority in your industry, and generating a substantial revenue is going to take a lot of patience. Customers don’t just appear overnight.
In the meantime, however, you can follow this quick guide to starting a successful online business to get yourself started on the path to success while people begin to discover your brand.
1. Get Reliable Hosting
One of the most critical parts of setting up a successful online business is to build a strong foundation.
To start, you need to choose a stable platform to build your website on. There are many to choose from such as Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify.
But if you want a flexible and affordable content management system, you should go with WordPress.
(Image Source – my website)
Powering over 31% of the world’s websites, WordPress is one of the best platforms around for building any kind of online business you can think of.
That said, with a self-hosted WordPress.org website, you’ll need to invest in a web hosting provider to store and deliver your site’s data to users.
When it comes to choosing the right web host for your business needs, look for features like:
- Built-in security measures
- Uptime guarantees
- The ability to scale as your business grows
- Plenty of bandwidth and storage space
- Free SSL certificates
- Superior customer support that’s available 24/7
There are lots of web hosts out there vying for your business:
The key is to research the best ones, find one that fits your budget, and make sure it has all the features you need to grow your business.
2. Secure Your Website
If you’re planning to run an online business, and collect payments from customers through your website, it’s crucial you protect your site as much as possible.
Luckily, there are plenty of ways to secure your website from outside attack.
This not only ensures your website stays up and running at all times, but it also builds trust with your customers, so they feel comfortable making payments on your site.
Here’s a look at the best ways to secure your website:
Security Plugins
If you’re using WordPress to power your online business, there are some great security plugins on the market you can install in your site free of charge.
(Image Source – my website)
For example, Wordfence is one of the most popular security plugins for WordPress.
With it, you can block malicious traffic, create an IP blacklist, and eliminate brute force attacks with login limits so no one can attack your site and ruin your business.
Content Network Delivery
Sure, using a CDN is perfect for delivering site content to users across the world as fast as possible.
But content network deliveries also help prevent DDoS attacks from taking down your host’s server, and with it, your website.
Using multiple servers across the globe with copies of your site’s data on each of them, when a DDoS attack brings down one server, another one kicks in and continues to deliver site files, uninterrupted.
Site Backups
No online business is one hundred percent safe from malicious activity. That’s why to prepare for the worst you should always have a backup of your website on hand.
Luckily, many reliable web hosting providers perform routine site backups and have easy one-click restore options for their customers.
(Image Source – my account)
However, if you want to have a backup solution to your web host’s backups (in case their servers go down and you can’t access them), consider using a backup plugin or a third-party backup solution.
When it comes to WordPress websites, these are the most popular backup plugins:
(Image Source- my website)
If you don’t use WordPress, you can always use a solution such as iDrive to backup your site’s files and safekeep them for the future.
Storing backups of your website in safe, secure places will give you the peace of mind you need to know that should anything bad happen to your site, it is easily restorable.
3. Have a Content Marketing Strategy
Again, just because you launch an online business doesn’t mean customers are going to come flocking to your site ready to spend their money.
In fact, that’s why so many business websites have a dedicated blog to inform, entertain, and encourage site visitors to buy their products or invest in their services.
There is a lot that goes into content marketing strategies. However, here are some of the key things you should focus on when just starting out.
Keyword Research
To get your site content in the right search results, you need to include keywords in your content that relate to what you’re writing about, what you’re selling, and what potential customers will be searching for.
One of the best ways to perform keyword research is to use the free Ubersuggest tool:
With this tool, you’ll get keyword ideas to add to your content, websites that are using those keywords to rank well in search results, and data about search volume, SEO, and pay-per-click costs.
Add Visuals
People process images 60,000 times faster than text. That means that chances are high that site visitors will notice your website’s visuals first before most everything else.
If you want to create unique visuals for your website, use a free online tool like Canva.
(Image Source – my account)
You can create social media messages, infographics, business logos, and so much more using their pre-designed templates and image editor.
Study Your Competitors
Your competition is doing something right or else they wouldn’t be your competition.
Because of this, you should check out what they’re doing and model your own content marketing plan around similar ideas.
A great way to see how well your competition is doing is to use a tool such as SEMRush.
(Image Source – my account)
All you have to do is enter your competition’s URL to see the following:
- Organic and paid search volume
- Number of backlinks
- Total number of ads displayed
- Top organic keywords
- Main competitor URLs
- Top paid keywords
- Landing pages with the most traffic
- And much more
You can use this information about your competition to create an effective content marketing plan that will help you compete as you grow your business and expand your brand.
Final Thoughts
This guide is of course, not comprehensive. In fact, there is a lot more you can do to build brand recognition and generate more revenue.
But for those that are just starting out, these are the main things to focus on without getting overwhelmed.
After all, you don’t want to concentrate on too many things at once and have them fail.
When you launch your online business, invest a lot of time and effort into things such as site speed and performance, site security, and site content.
Doing this is what will drive people to your business, engage them and encourage them to take action, and instill trust in those that want to purchase from you.
