4 Steps To Getting Your Business Online

social media website Mar 16, 2016

It’s no secret that getting online will help your business enormously. It opens you up to a whole new world of customers, and the potential for more sales. If you’re not sure how to get started, we will go through the basics. It all starts with a simple website or blog, and you can build from there.

Depending on your type of business will depend on if you need all of the following:-

Website

If you decide you need a website for your business make sure the foundations are set up correctly from the start, this will save you money in the long run. Building a website might sound tricky, but doesn’t have to be hard. There is plenty of online how tos for DIY or you can invest in a web design company to complete the project for you.

Some factors to consider when getting a professional to set up your website:-

  • Purchase your domain and hosting yourself so you have total control over both of these. Nothing worse then having a falling out with your web developer and your website is held hostage or you lose it all together.
  • Remember what you like today might not like in 3 – 6 – 8 months time, who knows your business might take a turn in a totally different direction, there is nothing wrong with just a template or theme for your website vs fully customised design.
  • If you go down the fully customised design road check about costs to upgrade design as the platform changes (eg: if on WordPress and WordPress release a huge functions and system update will your custom design still work with this or will you have to pay to get the website redone?) Will any web developer or designer be able to take over or work on your site or are you locked in?

Contact Email

You need a simple way for customers and clients to get in touch. Everyone can set up a Gmail or Yahoo account, but it’s not very professional and often hard for a prospective client to remember. What you need is an email address like [email protected]. You can set this up while building your website (or ask your web designer to do it for you). When you purchase a domain name or website address, you’ll get the option to add an email package. Make sure you do this, and follow their instructions to set it up.

Online Store

If you run a brick and mortar shop you should look at your options to take your business online. It will allow you to sell your goods and produce online, even while you’re sleeping. It’s quickly becoming the best way to sell products. Again, this is fairly simple to set up, even for beginners. One option is to use a platform called ‘Shopify’ which automatically creates your store. It also manages the tricky purchase mechanisms behind the scenes. If you set a website up using WordPress, you can use a simple plugin called ‘WooCommerce’.

The advantages of online store include:-

  • People can shop outside of your business hours or even view / choose the product they want prior to coming into store.
  • Allows them to check the range you offer, and research prices with out actually going into your store.
  • Quick and easy transaction.

Social Media Presence

When you first decide to establish your social media presence for your business you will want to secure your account on all platforms, even though you wont want to use all platforms it stops someone else claiming your business name or social media handle and the account is ready for you when or if you decide to branch out your social media presence.

You really want your social media handles to be similar if not the same across all platforms.

Would love to hear from you – What other aspects should a business look at when expanding to online business?