Successful businesses are built on strong foundations. However, it may take a long time before you establish a strong footing for your online business to kick off. Sometimes it is advisable to cut corners and get things done faster at the beginning. You can always revisit the tasks that were done in a hurry later when the business is stable. However, taking shortcuts may be your biggest undoing. So you have to be careful. Here, I have summarized the tips on how to jump-start your business for online shopping.
How to jump-start your online business
Take shortcuts where possible
As long as you play by the general rules of the game, you can take shortcuts and jump-start your online business before the networks catch up with you. The most important thing here is that you play by the rules. For instance, content is king when it comes to online businesses. Instead of taking days and months creating content all by yourself, you can hire freelancers to do it for you. Don’t hire professionals yet. Additionally, instead of having a fully-fledged e-commerce website, you can start with a blog. Get traffic to the blog first then turn it into an online shopping website later.
Substitute SEO with SEM
SEO is good for your business, but it falls under the ‘important matters’ category. It will take some time for you to be the most visible website online, at least in your business line. SEM is more important in the short run than SEO. However, it is expensive. In SEM, your ads are placed on search engine results pages. You pay whenever a visitor to the page clicks on them (Pay-Per-Click). This is an easier way of getting to traffic to your site compared to SEO which is quite involving and time-consuming. With time, you can start using both of these strategies together
Work on urgent matters first
The debate on working on the urgent matters in your business versus the important ones goes on. It is arguable that you should concentrate on the essential activities of the business rather than the urgent ones. This is a good strategy, but its effects begin to be felt after several months. Since you want to jump-start your online business, you can concentrate on the urgent matters first and postpone the important ones to a later date. Examples of urgent matters in online businesses include word-of-mouth marketing strategies, online advertising, and engagement with all customers. Important matters, on the other hand, include sale projections, acquisition of assets and analysis of returns on investments. These are things you can do once your business is up and running.
Make the customer the king
Creating value for all stakeholders is the ultimate goal of any business. However, to get things moving faster, in the beginning, focus on customer satisfaction first. When you satisfy the customer, your employees, suppliers, and other stakeholders will be satisfied. You cannot start climbing a tree from the branches. You need to sell your products for you to pay your suppliers and employees and create value for your business. Therefore, by all means, focus on the customer first.