How to Set Up an Online Store – part 1

Setting up a business online has never been easier, whether you are an established business looking at spreading your wings online or a start up looking at trading online, options have never been more readily available than they are today, whether it be that you are looking into targeting the online community through an ecommerce website, or through eBay and other marketplaces, there are now plenty an ecommerce solution to choose from and even more so ecommerce software to help you manage your stores efficiently and effectively, ensuring every opportunity for growth, reach ability and success.

There are a few steps that any business must take and tackle before starting up their online store, these will be discussed and tackled simply with a guide being provided in order to better understand the necessary steps required to help you move forward. Start off by purchasing a domain name (web address), you can buy and register domain names at places like godaddy, 1&1, fasthosts etc, once this is done you can follow the steps below to set up your online store.

1. Building your site – essential for any online business is your store, who will build it? What do you want to achieve with your store? The good news is this there are now plenty of companies offering you an ecommerce solution, that fits your needs and requirements, aiding you in building your store and providing you with the necessary tools and ecommerce software to help you maintain and manage your site effectively and cheaply.
   Using a web development company is also effective when looking at customer support and lending a helping hand, ensuring that you are up-to-date and aware of any changes, affording you the correct training and understanding of the software and helping you build a store that is perfect for your targeted audience, develop an effective logo and advise you on the correct channels for effective advertising.


2. Advertising and marketing your online store – key to any online success is driving the right audience to your site, and ensuring that your site is built to encourage customers to buy rather than turn them away. Increasing traffic to your site and making searchers aware of your site is essential; there are many ways to achieve this. A quick solution would be to target your audience through a PPC (pay per click) campaign; this is a very effective form of online advertising simply because it offers you instant recognition and traffic, putting you in frame whereby you are competing immediately, and can be budgeted to fit your financial restrictions rather than relying on external marketing company costs. A long term view for advertising should always include an SEO (search engine optimisation) plan, this aids you to appear on natural search in Google and although time consuming is seen by many as a cost effective mean to advertising as once an SEO campaign has matured high traffic results can be obtained therefore cutting costs on other marketing techniques.