Build your brand
Before you take your business online, make sure you have a solid vision of your brand. Where possible, you want potential and existing customers to see your activity online, and immediately be able to attribute it back to your business.
This might sound complicated at first; deciding on your brand’s personality is no easy feat once you get into the nitty gritty. Start small – if you haven’t already, think about colours you can use consistently online, a logo that represents your business well, or tag lines that fit your company’s ethos.
To navigate the digital landscape, small businesses should establish a strong online presence through a mobile-friendly website and active social media profiles, leverage digital marketing with SEO and targeted ads.
Create a website that represent your brand
One of the most important factors of online success is a well put-together website. You’ll need to use a lot of your branding here – make sure you incorporate your logo and brand colours, but opt for a design that’s clean and professional. You might be tempted to add all the bells and whistles, but you should aim to keep your site as easy for the user to navigate as possible.
Just ensure you go for something that showcases your work or products, and be sure to fill it with useful, well-written information about your service. You can create an online shop on your website, or simply link to wherever you do sell your goods.
Leverage Social Media
Social media platforms are essential tools for connecting with your audience. Choose the platforms that align with your target demographic and industry. Regularly engage with your audience through meaningful content, respond to comments, engage with fellow creators, and use social media advertising strategically.
Stay legally informed
As with physical business, you’ll need to make sure your licensing and legalities are in order. Many of the same regulations apply, such as obtaining a business license and respecting copyrights, but there are some unique laws and regulations you’ll need to comply with.
If you already work with a legal professional, it’s likely you’ll be advised as usual. But if you’re doing independent research, here are some common e-commerce legalities to familiarise yourself with, if you’re planning to sell your services or products online:
- Business license
- DBA license
- Copyright, trademarks and patents
- Tax obligations
- Data privacy & GDPR
- PCI compliance
- Shipping restrictions
Offer secure payments
If you’re selling services or products online, it’s your responsibility to provide a safe, secure payment method for your customers to use. While most third-party platforms have this covered already, it’s something you’ll need to think about if you’re setting up your own online store.
Luckily, there’s plenty of tools you can use to implement secure payments in just a few clicks. Services like Shopify, PayPal, Google Pay and Apple Pay are great places to start, as they allow your customers to pay safely from a choice of payment methods.
Improve your SEO knowledge
A huge part of online success is visibility. Search engine optimisation, or SEO, can help your website climb the ranks. Search engines, like Bing and Google, apply a number of complex algorithms to pages online. This is done to identify good, authoritative and trusted websites – and the websites that fit these criteria are more likely to be shown as top results.
If you’re not familiar with it, SEO might seem a little technical at first. But don’t worry, you can improve your SEO in plenty of uncomplicated ways. One great way is to include lots of useful information on your website, making to sure to answer common questions and including popular terms related to your industry.
Actively improve and encourage reviews
Never underestimate the power of reviews. Many shoppers use reviews to assess the reliability of a business, and bad reviews can often be a deal breaker. Whether it’s reviews of your business or your products, make sure to encourage both on-site reviews and third-party reviews.
Popular third-party review sites include Trustpilot and Google Reviews, but there are many to choose from. You’ll often need to validate your business with these websites, but once you do, all of your customers can share their great feedback. To shout about it, there’s a number of plug-ins you can add to your own site, so new customers feel confident making an order with you.
