Six things to know when starting an online business

Market and competitor research is essential for new businesses

By Brent Mckiernen

The internet is a great place to start a new business, whether you're looking to build an E-commerce store, a content site or just broaden the reach of your current brick and mortar business. The advantages of doing business online include little overhead, low start-up costs, quick expansion, large audiences and easy outsourcing to name just a few.

The absolute most important thing when starting any business is to do your homework. The more you know about the market you're in, the more opportunities you will see with every aspect of your business. Not to mention, you'll be more cost efficient, profitable and your business will run smoother. When starting an online business or expanding a current one, here are six important things to consider. 

Research your competition

Think about it, your competition has already done a whole lot of groundwork for you. What keywords are they targeting? Where are their inbound links coming from? Which web design company did they use? What manufacturer did they buy their product from? What are they selling? How is their blog setup? What features about their site do you like? What software or service are they using for their newsletter? You can track all of this information down. By doing this for several competing businesses you can acquire a lot of useful information, which will start you off with tons of confidence.

Create an audience

Many online stores end up failing due to little or no sales. This is because they get no web traffic. So, the question is "how do you get traffic?" The simple answer is "by adding written content to your site - and lots of it." It can be articles about your products, blog posts or whatever else you want. As long as you're adding lots of high quality, engaging content to your site, you will attract visitors, primarily through search engines and social media. 

Go one step further with your audience and make your content keyword focused to attract maximum search engine traffic. You can achieve this by doing some research using the Google Adwords Keyword tool. If you already have five hundred people visiting your site everyday to read your content, it's going to be a lot easier to sell your merchandise. Don't make the mistake of simply throwing up a E-commerce site, letting it sit there and then wondering why you aren't getting any orders. Your best bet for creating quality content is to hire a few freelance writers (on sites like Elance) who know your subject and then paying them by the article.

Find the best people and services to use

You should never settle when it comes to your business. If you can't afford the exact web development company you want to use, chances are you can find one that's just as good by doing more research. Talk to people, email them, read reviews, go on forums, read blog posts, do everything in your power to find out who is the best at doing what your looking for. By putting together the most skilled team of individuals, best companies and best services you'll wind up with a top notch website and a first-rate business that outperforms its competitors.

Hire an experienced SEO

Many people starting online businesses know very little about SEO. To make matters worse there's tons of bad and outdated information about SEO floating around on the internet. This is why it's so crucial to hire a professional and experienced SEO. This however is not as easy as it sounds. There are tons of spammy, scammy SEO companies out there that do nothing more than blast low quality links at your site. This will only hurt your search engine rankings. Again, you'll need to talk to people, read reviews and do your homework before selecting an SEO. By ignoring search engine optimization you are doing yourself a great disservice. Making your site search engine friendly, along with adding quality inbound links, can have a huge impact on your profits

Track your success

Whether it's a new SEO campaign, an advertising campaign, a change in ad placement or a new feature on your site, you need to find a way to track your success so you can find out what works and what doesn't. Tools like Google Analytics, Clicky and Open Web Analytics can track your success by recording many different statistics. Even if you don't want to handle this portion of your business yourself you should be kept up-to-date on this information so you can take the appropriate actions to optimize your revenue streams.

Focus on quality and be patient

Remember, nothing is more important that the quality of your product or service; not stats, not SEO, not profits, not anything. The motto "Content is King" is not only true about the written content of your site, but every aspect of your business. If you provide something that is highly valuable and useful to your customers they will comeback and they will tell other people about you. Sometimes it can take a little longer than you want like to get your business off the ground, but whatever you do don't take cheap shortcuts to try to get there sooner. You'll only be hurting yourself (and your profits) in the long run. 

About the author: Brent Mckiernan is a San Diego native and the owner of the  McKiernan Insurance agency. His agency offers all types of insurance to both businesses and individuals, while providng the best service the industry has to offer.

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