tips to success in online business

Don t make the checkout process a mission to go through. A lot of potential buyers drop out of the buying process if there are too many steps or if it gets too complicated. Instead, make it quick, simple and only ask for necessary details. Make them buy before they change their minds! And keep in mind that even if your audience want to buy it doesn t mean they want to sign up to be a member . By making member signup compulsory, you may be losing a lot of potential sales. Instead, have 2 options, guest check out and member sign up.

The beauty about having an online store is that you can track almost every activity that occurs on your site and how people are finding you. There are various free tools that allow you to have transparency with your audience or potential audience. Two of the most powerful tools and they are free are Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools.

Being social online is paramount. Word of mouth is accelerated with platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. If you do not have a social presence you may be missing out on a very large volume of potential audience. These social platforms are a chance for you to connect to your customers on a personal level and customise your campaigns to suit their needs and wants.

When a visitor, a potential customer, emails you or fills out your contact form, it is imperative that you get back to them as soon as possible. People always take mental note of how long it takes an online business to get back to them. Even if you are on vacation, you should either have an employee answering the emails in your absence or take your laptop along and answer the emails while your out of town.
There is way too much competition out there now for you to let potential clients slip through the cracks because you werent diligent enough to follow through.

If you can turn your visitors into active participants on your website, you will increase loyalty and sales. The simplest way to do this is to add a blog and open it up for comments from your visitors. Advertise your posts in your newsletter and ask for comments. For larger sites, you may want to add a discussion board where your visitors can create their own topics.

No one likes a pushy salesperson in a brick and mortar business. Online business are no different in this aspect. People hate to feel like they are being overly pressured to buy something. You can point out the advantages of your product or service but try not to over sell. Watch out for superlative spammy language too. It will usually backfire on you.

You have probably heard of the term, search engine optimization or SEO. This is where people design their webpages with the intent of ranking higher in the search engines, particularly Google. Many online businesses push this way too far. Their sites end up being demoted or even banned from the search results because the search engines view their efforts as spam. Over optimizing pages also makes them less likeable and readable by real human beings.

In most markets, customers have different options to choose from. If your business has competition, you have to give your potential customers a reason to choose your offering over another.

The only reason my business exists today is because other entrepreneur friends wouldnt let me quit. Seriously, I tried to throw in the towel and start over with something else, but they wouldnt let me. They talked me out of it.

If you want to launch an online business, think twice. It may be worth to launch 5 online businesses at the same time and link them in a network. Maybe your flagship idea will consume most of your focus and resources, but having 2 3 satellite websites projects orbiting the main product will have a bigger impact. Not to mention the learning advantage: you will incorporate much more knowledge from a network, than from a single product.