Running an Online Business
Running an online business is no more complex than running a normal, street-based business, but it is different, and requires the application of different skills and knowledge. For instance, think of when you exit a supermarket - do you notice the up-sells next to the cahier points? Generally they are impulse buys - chocolates and drinks. But there are also small gift products at a higher piece level etc.
What else do supermarkets and restaurants do? Here are a few pointers
- Advertise widely so you know about them and are attracted to them for specific special offers - creating brand awareness
- Make the whole entrance look inviting and convenient
- Arrange the store so that you can find what you want as fast as possible
- Offer you memberships for discounts to keep you coming back
- Implement absolute security for your credit card details
- Restaurants use clever psychological tricks like making the price small-print and leaving off the $ sign (notice that?) to make you less price sensitive
- Use color psychology to increase your spending
- Make product complaints easy and provide no-quibble guarantees
- Stay up to date with product trends
These are just a few of the more obvious methods to generate and keep business- there are many, many more.
One final example: In its early days, MacDonald's had a very clever strategy: (1) Make the store really, really inviting from the outside with its lights, and red and yellow color schema and (2) Make sure customers did not hang around inside taking up valuable space by making the lights bright enough to encourage people to leave quickly after eating - no one wants a discussion under spotlights!
Online Methods
An traditional business owner will know most of these tricks but will often stumble in effectively implementing their online equivalents. In online-speak, these issues are summarized as:
- Business models - Drop-Shipping, 3rd Party Shipping (Amazon eBay etc), Freight Shipping, Stock Holding, Import/Export, Local Business, National Business, International Business
- Online Business Planning - how much is needed for every stage of the plan and what is the Return on Investment calculated to be at each phase? This is the online business owners' guiding star.
- Traffic generation - SEO - Advertising. Local Web Presence, National Web Presence, International Web Presence, Competition, ROI estimations. This is genuinely a business-critical, multi-layered and complex business activity. Warning: There are far more opportunists than professionals offering these services.
- Business Website Optimization - Speed, User Experience, User Interface, Trust, Reputation, Branding, Consistency, Conversion Optimization. Here's how not to do it!
- Customer communications planning - offers, rewards, complaint response, product tracking, email marketing.
- Website maintenance and updating
- Performance monitoring and course correction in every online activity.
Many business owners convince themselves of one of the following:
- I can't afford to implement a full program so I'll just do a bit of it e.g. a cheap but pretty website that is usually not optimized for business. This is a wasted sunk cost. We get many calls from people asking for help with websites that do not generate business.
- I'll do cheap SEO and scale up later. This can actually sink a site with spammy links that search engines hate. it can cost more to undo this damage that to start again with a new domain.
- Advertising on Google is easy. It's not if you want to get a return on your investment. Many businesses see little or no return at all - just costs. Advertising online requires expertise, planning, monitoring, course correction and patience in most cases.
- Advertising on Facebook is easy. It's not, if you want a return on investment. Facebook ads can be very successful or simply burn through your money like a forest fire.
- Selling on Amazon is easy. It's not. This is a real concern of ours as we see so many 'get rich quick' courses offered for this business model. It's really, really tough and competitive.
- My website looks great and cost me a lot of money, it must be fine. Wrong! Potential business problems with a website extend far beyond the pleasant appearance. A builder would not build a house without an architects plan, and a website is no different in that respect.
Those are some of the key issues. We have solutions for them if you are interested - first consultation is free.
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Sydney Business Web Services
Sydney Business Web is an award-winning online business agency established and run by professionals. We provide a full range of online services at fair-value prices. But we are not just technical specialists, we also have decades experience in the corporate world, driving companies to commercial success. The main services we provide are listed on the left - just click and read!
Technical Support
Your business website needs to be looked after and fixed fast if it is hacked. Also, the various software elements need to be updated regularly: not doing this exposes your site to attacks and failures. We ensure that in the event of your site going down, we are available and that where needed we can communicate with the top class hosting facilities we deeply. Your business is too important for long periods of downtime - another reason to use an Australian company you can trust.
Quality Hosting
High quality hosting is critical for your business website.
In the rare event one of our customers' websites is down, we have instant access to a team of technical experts to assist us.
Furthermore, every website account we run is also backed up by recent backups that can be restored very quickly in the event of site damage. We have a range of facilities including Private Virtual Servers and Shared Hosting.
Graphic Design
Effective graphic design on a business website is a big contributor to your corporates identity. You need to have a clear idea that your web designer can achieve for you including your corporate colors, fonts, and logo design. We work with you to achieve your vision and make your business website stand out as a unique business identity.
We have our own award-winning artist who consults on all our projects.
High Conversion
So you've got a beautiful website. Your SEO and advertising are bringing you focused traffic - what can go wrong? Now that's easy to answer - failure to convert visitors to buyers. Many business websites and eCommerce websites suffer from this deficiency. There are several key factors such as immediately earning trust, a quick and easy trip to the product and an equally easy trip to the checkout - all achieved with minimum delay.
Easy Updates
Many business website owners needs access to the back end of their business websites to change prices, add products and more. Having said that, many of our customers prefer us to lighten the load for them with monthly support contracts. Both options are available to you. Our websites are easy to maintain and coding is not required.
We can also provide training to help you if you want to do it yourself. Of course, this does not include technical training and we provide technical support contracts for that purpose.
Traffic
A website is just the beginning -now you need visitors who are looking for your goods and services.
1) Onsite SEO, which we take care of on your business website
2) Offsite SEO which requires a program after your website is built
3) Social Media presence and Advertising
4) Advertising on Search Engines
Business Plan
An online business is run along the same lines as a street-based business, and many of the operational methods and measurements are exactly the same:
- Sunk Costs (website)
- Advertising Costs and ROAS
- Operating costs - Cost per visitor, Cost per Click, hosting, Returns, shipping
- Predictable EBIT
eCommerce
Your online shop needs to be set up efficiently and be pleasing to the eye, easy to search and easy to navigate. Paying must be a breeze and the whole site must look trustworthy. But there are many types of facility you may need, from B2B wholesale, shipping integration, POS integration, sales email facilities, and much more. Not all eCommerce stores are created equal, and many are born and die within the space of a few weeks.
Business Website
Business websites need specialist expertise to set up. The difference between a eCommerce Website and a standard website library is very like the difference between a library (free to enter and browse and leave), and a supermarket or boutique or wholesale warehouse. The purpose and attitude of people entering the premises are completely different.
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