We all know that it is important to work from home during covid. Some businesses who provide services, it is easer for them to do so through virtual meetings. But what about shops and businesses who used to sell products in your local market?
They have been affected adversely during Covid Lockdowns. For them, I have brought easy to follow steps to set up their very own E-commerce business.
1-Register your domain Name!
E-commerce business starts with a Domain Name. It is a basic foundation of E-commerce business. If you don’t have an attractive domain name then you are already loosing customers. So I implore you to focus on selecting good and inciting domain name.
If you already own a business, then try to come up with the domain name that matches your business name as much as possible. Don’t buy domain name on your own, as being a tech novice you might not know which vendor is best for your business or budget.
Therefore, I insist that you look for a web developer and hire them! They are expert and know which hosting provider is good in the market. Talk to them about your business niche and your target client base in detail.
After a discussion, they can buy a domain and hosting service for you. It will also make their jobs easy later on during the development process.
2-Take Pictures of your products
After discussing with your developer, you need to start taking pictures of your products. It is important that you take pictures in good lighting. Make sure that you save all the pictures in your laptop or USB properly. I mean organise your pictures in categories folders. It will save you a lot of effort and time later on when uploading them on the website. Remember! YOU NEED TO BE ORGANISED TO RUN A GOOD BUSINESS!
3-Write a Content for each Product
Next Step is writing a Content for your products. Each product deserves your attention and love. So Try to spend as much time as possible you can while writing a description for any particular product.
I know that it is easy to just copy paste the descriptions from internet on your blog. But Trust me! your client is looking for a unique take and point of view about your product. If you copy the content, then it is high chance that the customer will not buy from you. WHY?
You are starting a new business online. Most of people who stumble on your website for the first time don’t believe in your product quality. So if you just copy paste the descriptions, it will definitely not leave a good impression on your customers. As a customer, I would think hey why should I buy from this new business? Why don’t I go to the popular vendor and buy form them especially if the content or product description is same on both websites.
I am not trying to discourage you. Since I believe in Tough Love, so I am just explaining why it is imperative for you to focus on writing a good and inciting content for each of your product.
4-Hire a Developer Company to develop a website
The next step is to hire a experienced web developer for your website. Remember, I asked you to hire and discuss your project with a developer in first step. Well this is where you need to sure that you have hired them properly and they are ready to take on your dream project.
Everyone has their own experiences and jobs. Just like it is for job to sell products and no doubt you are experienced in it, Web developers are also experienced in developing and managing websites. Please don’t try to develop a website on your own. Again I am not discouraging, I am only trying to explain why I think that you should make your life easier and get your website development right?
As a business owner most of people don’t know basic programming or which Content Management Systems suits their desired niche.They invest lots of money in purchasing wrong hosing services, domain names and content management systems. And later on when applications are not compatible or when they need to customise their website using basic programming, they get stuck BIG TIME.
Trust me, most of the clients who come to me have already spend so much money on wrong things are then short of money for their stock investment. Therefore, I implore you to hire a good and experienced web developer company.
5-Choose Design Theme
You need to select the colour themes for your website graphics and website. Sit down with your website developer and discuss your desired colours for website themes. Sometimes, web developers already have a pre-made websites themes, which they can show you as a sample. You can then either customise the themes to suit your needs or select them as it is.
One more tip here, I know that everyone wants to run wild with their favourite colour themes. But please don’t do that, you need to pay attention to your business niche. Think about what colour themes suit it best and select that colour theme.
6-Send the Developer all the data
Remember! I asked you to take pictures and create the content. Now is the stage where you send all the data to your web developer. They will use it after development and upload it to your website.
Please don’t ask your web developer to write the content. As much as they are experienced in writing the content, you are the only one who knows every tiny detail about your products. You are the only one who can convince your customer to buy your product. Therefore, I again urge you to write the content yourself!
7-Wait
After sending the developer all the content and pictures, all you need to do is Wait! All good things take time, so be patient.
8-Your website is Ready!
Once your website is ready, you can check that all the content is uploaded correctly. Please try to buy at least one product from your website at this stage to ensure that everything is working smoothly and you are getting money in your account. Although the developers must have done their best but still you need to be sure that you will getting all the payments from your sale.
9-Spread the Word!
The Second last step is to spread the words to your local area, friends and family. Encourage everyone to share the good news with everyone and put in good word for your business as well.
10-Hire an SEO Expert
The final step is to hire a SEO expert. Remember you might get customers who were your regular or your friends and family. But you will not be able to get new customers without a proper SEO. SEO means Search Engine Optimisation. It can help your business to rank on first page of search engines and get more web traffic and sales.
One more tip, YOU CANNOT DO SEO! No matter how many blogs or content you read online, you cannot do proper SEO. Why? Because there are lots of softwares and techniques laid out in internet that are confusing and don’t deliver results. Yet people are praising these techniques and softwares. You don’t want to end up wasting money on such softwares.
So final tip of this post is to hire a SEO expert. They know which tool works? how and when to use these tools? They will also save you money as well. In other words, if you do it yourself you won’t get any results with lots of work, while SEO expert is able to get results with less effort and in short time.
I hope you follow these steps and set up your very own e-commerce business. If you do then kindly leave comments to let us know about your business. Moreover, kindly share these tips with your friends and families as well.
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