Online business is a kind of small business which carries on business electronically through websites. It is a way or style where small ventures can carry out their business on the internet as it provides effective access to customers as well as easy solutions for clients and prospects with less investment and fewer concerns.
Online Business is a step-by-step blueprint for setting up and running your own online business. Learn how to become self-sufficient financially, build your brand without having to pay for advertising, and get others to promote you all the while building an army of loyal fans.
Top 10 Online Businesses
Online is a complex realm that encompasses both tiny startups and businesses with a whopping market capitalization. Here are the Top-10 online companies worldwide:
- Amazon – an American internet-based retailer of a wide swath of products;
- Alphabet Inc. (Google) – an internet search giant leading in search, contextual advertising, and other online offerings;
- Facebook – the world’s most popular social network.
- Tencent Holdings – an Asian online tech giant best-known for its messaging service WeChat;
- Alibaba – a Chinese e-commerce giant;
- Netflix – an American video streaming company;
- Salesforce.com – the most well-known CRM system provider;
- JD.com – a Chinese e-commerce company;
- Booking.com – an online travel company that lets users book reservations for restaurants, hotels, rental cars, airline tickets, safaris, cruises, and other travel services;
- Baidu – a Chinese search engine.
As you can see, the top earners include eCommerce websites, multimedia services, B2B software, search engines, and so on. This means that there is a place for almost any type of good or service online. Mull over the business niche you’d like to fill – the next part will give you some hints about it.
How to Start an Online Business
- Find a niche
- Do research
- Learn online business laws
- Choose the right platform
- Drive online traffic
- Analyze your performance
Rolling out a business is a complex task that encompasses tons of processes and actions. To make it more clear-cut, adhere to the six essential steps listed below. Bear in mind that this list is not comprehensive, but it will come in handy at the initial stage.
Find a niche
Most online business starters try to get their heads around the idea for their business. If you still cannot decide on this, here are a couple of tactics you can stick to:
- Pinpoint issues you face from time to time. Have you ever experienced problems finding a quality good or service? Instead of perceiving it as another annoying situation, think of it as a business opportunity. People around you may struggle with the same issues and wish to pay someone to tackle it for them in the form of a product or service.
- Conduct online research. Google can help you find out what problems your audience wants solved. To spot them, do keyword research – find out what people are looking for. The next step is to visit forums where users share their difficulties – read them and try to find a way to solve these problems.
After taking these initial steps, you’ll get a clearer vision of what niche to choose. Knowing it, you can play around with the details, such as the products you sell, your unique selling proposition, and so on.
2. Do research
When you’ve found a niche, you may get excited and want to start acting right off the bat. Avoid jumping the gun – test your business idea first. For this purpose, you’ll have to study the market, competitors, and target audience.
Start with evaluating market viability. Try to understand how practical your product or service is and what challenges you may face. Take into consideration as many details as you can.
You’ve learned a bit about your market while defining your business idea. Now you can test the waters – launch a website to check the demand for your product or service. It’s also a great way to gain some traffic and collect pre-orders before you’ve opened.
Remember to look at your competitors – an in-depth analysis of their businesses gives you hints on your unique selling proposition, marketing, mistakes to avoid, and so on. Make a full list of your rivals, including all the ways your customers tackle their issues. Carefully examine websites, customer experiences, market positioning, price policies, and other details.
Finally, pin down who your target audience is – follow our guide to define and reach them. For better results, combine strategies from the guide with other frameworks, such as the jobs to be done (JTBD) approach or Ben Hunt’s customer awareness ladder.
3. Learn online business laws
Legal stuff may seem to be the most tedious part of launching a business. However, knowing online business laws not only keeps your firm from failing but also helps you get additional benefits.
Start getting an idea about the legal side of eCommerce by reading online business regulations. Whatever country you’re in, most of the rules are available online on government or local business associations’ websites. For instance, US citizens may look through the Small Business Administration (SBA) site for a rundown of online business laws.
Learn about tax obligations for your online business. Carefully examine different tax regimes and options; some of them may be milder than others. Last but not least, get information about the tax deductions available to you.
4. Choose the right platform
Building your website from scratch with the help of developers or special agencies is not the only option. To find the perfect platform for your online business, consider your niche, your business needs, and the places your target audience prefer.
Sometimes you don’t even need a website. For instance, if you’re a small handmade store, you can market your goods through Instagram, Facebook, or WhatsApp. All three of these platforms have tools for helping users shop without leaving an existing platform.
Another option is joining a marketplace, such as Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Aliexpress, or others. The main advantage of this variant is the lower competition – 68% of online buyers go directly to these eCommerce platforms.
If you decide to go for a stand-alone website, you can still reduce the cost of launching it – just use a website creator. Follow our guide on webpage builders to learn more about different options, essential features, and pricing.
5. Drive online traffic
Your online business needs traffic, so think about how to drive it to your platform. We’ll take a closer look at different ways to promote your business online in the following part of this writing. For now, let’s discuss some additional rules.
First of all, employ the power of networking. Word of mouth is still one of the most effective ways to promote your firm. Share information about launching your business with your friends and family, former colleagues, social media followers, and so on. This move will create brand awareness and a customer base for the first time.
If your business has an unusual conception or affects social life, you may try to reach the media. Write a press release for local magazines and websites. Include your brand name, mission, and purpose, as well as a brief product assortment.
Media representatives often need comments or expertise for their publications – help them and get your brand promoted. Join services that coordinate journalists and speakers, such as HARO or ProfNet.
6. Analyze your performance
Keeping track of your performance underlies the success of your business. If you monitor your indicators, you can make timely changes to your strategy, outline new development directions, and improve your business model.
Here are three groups of key performance indicators (KPIs) you should keep an eye on:
- eCommerce data helps you understand your website performance and customer journey. The most common indicators here are the number of sales, conversion rate, traffic, and bounce rate.
- Marketing success indicators help you evaluate your marketing efforts. These metrics will vary from channel to channel. For instance, open rate and click-through rate are important for email marketing, average position – for SEO, the number of followers – for social media.
- Business KPIs measure your overall business performance and financial results. Here are a couple of examples: customer lifetime value, gross profit, average margin, and so on.
Leveraging your key performance indicators is almost impossible without a well-produced marketing strategy. Let’s unveil the most effective channels for your online business promotion.
Most Popular Online Business Ideas
Open a T-Shirt Online Shop
Platforms like Printful and Shopify have made it insanely simple to start an online t-shirt business for anyone with a speck of imagination and an eye for design. But it doesn’t need to be an online t-shirt shop; you can set up an ecommerce shop selling anything. The key here is to learn about print on demand, which forms the base for such businesses.
Kickstarter/Indiegogo Advisor
Grabbing the attention of curious browsers on the most popular crowdsourcing platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo is a tough job. If you’re inventive and know how to tap into human emotion, then this is a niche worth exploring. Many aspiring entrepreneurs look for personalized advice to carry their campaigns to the finish line, so try offering action-oriented eBooks or online courses targeted at this particular audience.
Selling Online Courses
Derek Halpern has built a really strong personal brand. He’s the founder of a software and business training company called Social Triggers and makes a LOT of money teaching people how to sell what they know best. And what he knows best is how to sell. If you’ve got some serious expertise, start making money out of it by selling online courses or simply teaching online.
Video Producer
YouTube is the second largest site in the world, so there’s no surprise that video is becoming one of the main communication mediums for businesses of all types and sizes. If you have video filming or editing knowledge, it won’t take you long to build your clientele. Everything from video production workshops and video editing services to soundtrack libraries and DIY tutorials can appeal to the business world. Producing a video might be one of the most attractive online business ideas with lots of creativity and challenges.
Website Developer
In the same vein as graphic design, website development is in constant demand as businesses are always trying to upgrade and improve their websites to get more sales. This means that you can work on new and existing websites concurrently, and get to try new things all the time. If being constantly challenged is what you are looking for, website development could be the best online business for you.
Social media consultant
Larger enterprises can hire an agency or full-time staff member to run their social media accounts, but small businesses often have to handle their own social media marketing. With so many responsibilities, business owners are often too busy, overwhelmed or undereducated about the importance of a social media presence to spend time developing and implementing a great social media strategy. As a social media consultant, you can help small businesses determine the best tactics, posting schedules and content for their target audience. As their follower count grows, so will your business.
Facebook and Twitter are still the top business networks, but businesses often tend to struggle with more visual platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Snapchat. All of these platforms have huge consumer audiences, but many businesses don’t realize how big they are, how effective they can be and how to make them work for their brand. If you have a background in social media marketing and a passion for photography, focusing your consulting business on one specific platform, like Instagram, can be a great way to make money while helping other businesses improve their content and achieve their business goals.
Conclusion
Businesses have been online for years, but in the past, they were forced to maintain separate online and offline presences, which was hard for businesses to do, especially small ones with limited resources. Cost also posed an issue for businesses wanting to be on the Internet.