Too many business owners still think that launching an online store is the key to instant riches, or that it doesn’t take much beyond a nice layout and a reliable shopping cart to find customers over the Internet. Unfortunately, neither is completely true, and both of those notions tend to lead people to make the easiest e-commerce mistake there is: to sabotage their own online stores by failing to make the right investments.
In any industry, you need the right tools to succeed at the job. That’s especially true in e-commerce, where your competitors are literally seconds away, in the form of a different search engine listing or a click on another ad. If you want your online store to succeed, it’s important that you make an investment in your site from the beginning.
Here are just a handful of things that a profitable online store requires:
The right domain name. It’s getting harder than ever to find catchy, keyword-rich URLs, but you’ll never build a loyal following without one.
A great web design with a clear navigation structure. Visitors need to understand right away what your store is, that it’s trustworthy, and where to look to find what they’re shopping for.
An e-commerce platform like Magento. There are others out there, of course, but the point is that you want one that combines content management with e-commerce reporting, marketing tools, and other “goodies” that make your site easier to maintain and more profitable to operate.
Detailed online marketing plans. There is a huge difference between having an e-commerce site and drawing thousands of visitors to your online store. Unless your online marketing plan is as good as your products and prices, you’re always going to be losing customers.
A competitive analysis. You don’t want to jump into the e-commerce waters without knowing who your competitors are, what they charge, what keywords they rank highly for, and so on.
These are just a few of the items you need to launch a successful online store, and in truth we could probably add half a dozen more. The point, however, isn’t to make a detailed checklist of everything to do with e-commerce, but to note that skipping out on the details is a great way to put yourself at an enormous disadvantage from the first minute your site goes live.
Do you need help creating a profitable, cost-effective e-commerce site? If so, call or e-mail us to set up a free meeting today.
