With so many areas to cover in starting up a new business, finding time to dedicate to your online presence can be time consuming, especially if you do not know where to start and what options are available. For example, if you are interested in growing your social media presence as a business but don’t know the best site to buy Instagram likes, you might feel overwhelmed with choice!.
Who are you Promoting to?
In beginning the journey onto the internet, you have to take time in understanding how to communicate with a potential customer without the use of industry jargon they won’t understand.
A look at existing web presences to get an understanding of how they communicate with clients. It may seem a simple task but communication with new clients is key to a successful web identity.
Discuss with friends about what they understand are your company's strong points and how they would discuss it with others.
The Hunt for a Free Domain
Finding a domain unregistered can be a long process if your ideal URL has already been registered. It is therefore a requirement to ensure that your preferred URL and its other suffixes are available through such services as Wix.
If your ideal URL is available, be sure to register the suffixes such as .net and .co.uk as these could still be registered by another party and cause market confusion.
Web Hosting
Lots of data will be shared so finding a reliable web hosting package for your business is of prime importance.
Be sure to read reviews and details of each provider to ensure areas such as security, speed and reliability are a main focus. A cheap and cheerful option is not necessarily the best option for your business, especially when a problem arises that needs urgent attention.
External Developers
A website can be a costly endeavor in time for yourself, especially if constant updates are going to be needed on a weekly or monthly basis.
Although there are many free website building options online, many businesses prefer the security of an external website developer which not only guarantees maintenance and updates are regular, but also handles the web hosting, design and trouble shooting are done to a high standard.
This also allows you to focus on your business where your strengths are and not get too tied up in running your online presence over it. There may be cheap external developer options but it is worthy of considering that for the service you are wanting you would be better paying extra for top level service from a reputable and responsible development firm.
The cheaper option can cost you a lot in the long run with unresponsive and unreliable work being done to save a few pounds over a professional and secure service.
Knowing the Difference on Trading Online
Whilst ecommerce and shopping cart software are basically similar in standing, they differ in what your use for them are.
An ecommerce site such as Shopify) is a full website designed as an online store for you to trade through, whereas shopping cart software is added to an existing website as an extra in the form of plugins or extensions.
Looking into reviews on how users and clients have interacted with the software and how accessible it is also very important to avoid any frustration in moving ahead with the choice made.
Ensuring Content is Correct
With the time and effort made on your website build, it is worth taking another look at how it is presented before launching it onto the web.
Spelling mistakes and glitches between the pages can look amateurish to a customer and reflect on your brand. Have an outside party test and review the website prior to launch to get a fresh perspective. Test the interaction and speed between pages and discuss with your web developer on any issues that arise.
As soon as you are happy with the feedback and second opinion, you are ready to launch and begin trading on the internet.
Link to Social Media and Marketing
Having an amazing looking website is great but you have to draw an audience to it for it to be effective.
Make sure to promote your published URL on all of your business cards, flyers and especially your social media pages such as Facebook and Linkedin. If you post on business pages be sure to link the URL in any post. This will also bring a lot of traffic to your website and hopefully plenty of enquiries.
You can also look into Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to bring top attention from search engines such as Google for any businesses looking for your services.
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