With the massive growth expected in retail eCommerce sales during 2020, the competition will likely reach new heights as well. This leaves a huge opportunity for eCommerce startups to thrive if they can bring innovative ways to beat out their competitors. It may seem difficult to beat the huge range of competitors at first glance, but as you dive into the steps for a successful startup you’ll quickly realize the massive opportunities to stand out. Generally, the steps for a successful startup involves:
Understanding your customers:
To accomplish any level of success with any form of advertising, you first need to understand your customers. This involves both where you should advertise and how you should advertise. Figuring out the demographics of your customers is a simple task with the extensive insights Google Analytics provides for free. You’ll also want to understand your customer’s buying trends. These involve how often an individual purchases from your site, their average order size, referral rates, and much more. With this information, you’ll be able to target your ads and the message of your ads so you can speak directly to your target audience.
Picking your name and domain name carefully:
A domain name is the first impression of your business, to make it positive and long lasting you should focus on some factors like it should be short, and memorable. Try to avoid numbers and hyphens. The domain name has a great effect on SEO so during researching, consider keywords related to your business. When choosing your business or domain name keep in mind it is a branding opportunity, so give it extra importance and come up with a good, brandable name that attracts your customers.
Researching your competitors:
Identify your top ten competitors, start analyzing their indexed pages, what keywords are they using, how are they driving traffic to their sites. Last but not least, what type of content are they producing, start producing better content than your competitors. For competitive analysis, there are many tools out there like AHREFS and SEMRUSH. Spy on your competitor’s keywords, backlinks, and content they are using and make a better plan to ensure your success.
Keeping your website’s appearance as a top priority:
Keeping your website’s appearance updated with what your customers expect should be a never ending battle. Each year consumer expectations for a trustworthy website will develop and grow based on what other top brands are doing. Keep your website up to date and follow the trends.
Planning your social media strategy:
A social media plan is a very important part of a business strategy. Make a clear list of goals and objectives. Improve your social presence make a content strategy that is equipped with all essentials images, videos, infographics, PDF, etc and make a calendar to share them in the right place at the right time.
Important Things to Work on Your eCommerce Website
The next set of steps for a successful startup involves what work needs to be performed on your eCommerce website. Generally, these tasks involve:
- Choosing the right eCommerce solution
- Implementing effective SEO tactics
- Providing a website that supports mobile devices and different browsers
- Including Terms & Conditions, FAQ, Delivery & Returns, and Contact Us pages
First, you need to set up your eCommerce site for sales. There is a wide range of eCommerce solutions available to handle different criteria, such as Nextaxe. This eCommerce solution aims to help start-ups get sales rolling quickly while still providing the ability to scale beyond the start-up stage.
The next of the steps for a successful startup involves driving traffic to your site through effective SEO tactics. This entails building out content aimed at keywords that will bring in people looking to buy your product. You can also reach out to other authority sites for backlinks to your site. For effective SEO, you’ll also want to ensure your website works on mobile devices and various browsers. Including Terms & Conditions, FAQ, Delivery & Returns, and Contact Us pages will help your customers decide if you’re the right choice for them once they’re on your site.
Sales & Marketing
Now that your site is set up and driving traffic to your landing pages, you’ll want to optimize your conversions through sales and marketing tactics. This involves having a smart plan for your ads and keeping as much data as possible about your customers. Whether you choose to pursue pay per click advertising, affiliate advertising, or any other form of ads, ensuring a consistent message that speaks to your target audience is key to success. You can figure out the best message that drives your prospects to action through analytics on your target demographic and tracking results as you test different ads.
