5 Tips On Starting An Online Business

Online businesses are revolutionising the world of work, the days of Mon to Friday 9-5’s are on their way to kicking the bucket and a generation of laptop toting legends of the web are taking over. An online business can be flexible, inspiring and incredibly profit making if done right and here are 5 tips for getting yourself into the world.

Find A Niche

Whether you wish to create an information driven business such as a blog or a news feed or wish to set up a service industry or even sell a product, it is vitally important that you find a niche and run with it. Many have tried and failed over the years by creating very generic websites or industries that either promise too much and can’t deliver, or simply can’t provide 100 excellent products as well as 100 people can create 1. Regardless of what niche tickles your fancy, you can bet your bottom dollar that there are people out there in the World that it tickles too.

Invest Wisely

There are thousands of websites and people out there who can help your business, whether you wish to get to the top of Google, or attract thousands of followers to your social media page or even promote your brand on their site. There is nothing wrong with investing in these things but when you first begin you may find you are throwing money away. What is the merit of being at the top of Google if you haven’t sold anything yet or if your web design is terrible or you simply don’t have the infrastructure to cope with the volume of orders you may  be attracting. Plan carefully in the early stages and make sure that you do a risk versus reward evaluation before investing.

Network, Network, Network

The essence of the internet is that it is a network, and that is exactly what you need to have in order to succeed. Make friends in your industry whenever the opportunity arises, maybe do the odd favour for someone, if you have a product then send it to people who do reviews. More often than not, trust and confidence is a trickle down procedure and those who are popular now are the very once who maybe be pulling you up later.

Be a Social Media Machine

Social Media is one of the simplest ways to garner attention for your new business, we are very fortunate in todays world that we have the ability to touch thousands of people around the world with a single tweet, so make use of it. Try to tap into all mediums of social media whether it be Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Etsy and all others that follow. The more you engage with your audience, the more likely they are to engage with you, which means money!

Keep Track of What’s Going On

It is best to attract various revenue streams regardless of whether you are selling a product or a service. For instance, you may have a product for sale from your site, from eBay, from Amazon and from Etsy, that is a lot of different areas where you are making money and it is crucial that you keep accounts and records for where the money s coming from. Doing this means you can quickly identify where the sales are coming from and how you can target them to sell more, or what you need to do differently on the poorer performing areas to improve them. You may well think this is a pain in the ass but it is tasks like this that will help you take on the world.