9 Prime Rules For Running A Successful Online Business

1 – Keep Your Website Design Simple and Well-Organized

People have a tendency to want to over-design their website in an effort to make it stand out or look cool. They may add flash animation, sound in the background, and load the site up with large graphics. This is a huge mistake, especially for business-oriented websites. It is much more important to make sure your design is organized in a way that visitors can easily find what they are looking for at a glance. Music blaring out is actually a pet peeve of many internet shoppers, especially if they are surfing at work as many do. You also want to make sure that the text is easy to read. Dark text on a simple light background is the safest way to go.
Apple.com is the perfect example of a well designed website. Apple.com has some of the best web designers in the world who develop their website, check them out and also other big company sites for ideas if need be.

2 – Respond To Your Visitors Promptly

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 weren’t diligent enough to follow through.

3 – Engage Your Visitors

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.
Set yourself up on a number of Social Media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or LinkedIn and conversate/share/inform your customers with high quality answers and content. Also make sure that you have a follow, Fan Page ‘Like” widget or a Pinterest badge on your website so that people can follow you through their favorite social media platform and stay in tune with your progress and updates.
Checkout Gary Vaynerchuk’s advice on growing your business using social media, Gary is an Ace! and definitely someone you should look up to in the Online Business world.

4 – Give Your Visitors a Reason To Come Back

Repeat visitors to your online business will increase sales for sure. You can give your visitors a reason to come back in many ways. For example, you can let them know that once a month you post a one-day only sale. Another example might be to write an article and let the readers know there will be a follow-up next month. Make the topic of the follow-up something that people really want to know.
Just adding quality content on a regular basis is a good way to get repeat visitors.

5 – Do Not Over-Sell To Your Visitors

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!

6 – Do Not Over Optimize Your Website

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.

7 – Do Not List Your Website In Bad Neighbourhoods

For a long time, it has been well-known that Google and other search engines look at how many links there are to a website as one important factor in determining how to rank that website in the search engine results. This has prompted online business owners to want to get as many links as they can. Sometimes they even pay for links in directories and blogs. However, in most cases, these paid links are sites that are known as bad neighborhoods by the search engines. In other words, they are spammy sites and having your website listed in them can actually hurt you, not help you!

8 – Maintain a High Quality Mailing List

Ask your visitors to sign up for your newsletter when they come to your online business site. Give them an incentive to do so such as a free report or free e-course on a topic related to your business. Having said this, respect your visitors and their time. Be sure not to send out your newsletter too often, perhaps once a month and occasionally send a special announcement. Also, make sure to put quality content in your newsletter and give your subscribers an easy way to opt out.

9 – Remember At The End Of The Day Your Customers Are STILL Real People

A lot of people forget this, they are not treating their customers as real human beings and are not putting themselves in the customers shoes. Customer service will always be around, that’s why we need to stay good at looking after our clients. If you can’t help them with their request, get back to them and let them know that you have exhausted every avenue to find a way and maybe even refer them onto someone who can help them. Even though you may not be able to help them at that very point in time, they WILL remember you went the extra mile for them and will tell their friends via word of mouth or by social media (which would be great promotion for you), either way, you can rest your head at night knowing that you are doing everything you can to hold a good name for your business and that every one that deals with you is satisfied.
This is how you secure yourself as the “go to guy in your industry”, and as time goes by and all these “short attention span, new comers” are so use to ONLY dealing with their customers over a keyboard and text conversation, they will be skimming over life long customers and potentially huge clients for the future.

Let's see your business on "London Stock Exchange"!!!

DWD Solutions
073 996 4696 / 079 822 4959
info@dwdsolutions.co.za
www.dwdsolutions.co.za

Choose the Best Design, for half the Price

How To Start an Online Business

There is a proven sequence of steps you can follow to guarantee your success when you're starting a small business online. I've seen thousands of people start and grow successful businesses by doing the following:

1. Find a need and fill it.
2. Write copy that sells.
3. Design and build an easy-to-use website.
4. Use search engines to drive traffic to your site.
5. Establish an expert reputation for yourself.
6. Follow up with your customers and subscribers with e-mail.
7. Increase your income through back-end sales and upselling.

Step 1: Find a need and fill it

Most people who are just starting out make the mistake of looking for a product first, and a market second.
To boost your chances of success, start with a market. The trick is to find a group of people who are searching for a solution to a problem, but not finding many results. The internet makes this kind of market research easy:

• Visit online forums to see what questions people ask and what problems they're trying to solve.
• Do keyword research to find keywords that a lot of people are searching, but for which not many sites are competing.
• Check out your potential competitors by visiting their sites and taking note of what they're doing to fill the demand. Then you can use what you've learned and create a product for a market that already exists--and do it better than the competition.

Step 2: Write copy that sells

There's a proven sales copy formula that takes visitors through the selling process from the moment they arrive to the moment they make a purchase:

1. Arouse interest with a compelling headline.
2. Describe the problem your product solves.
3. Establish your credibility as a solver of this problem.
4. Add testimonials from people who have used your product.
5. Talk about the product and how it benefits the user.
6. Make an offer.
7. Make a strong guarantee.
8. Create urgency.
9. Ask for the sale.

Throughout your copy, you need to focus on how your product or service is uniquely able solve people's problems or make their lives better. Think like a customer and ask "What's in it for me?"

Step 3: Design and build your website

Once you've got your market and product, and you've nailed down your selling process, now you're ready for your small-business web design. Remember to keep it simple. You have fewer than five seconds to grab someone's attention--otherwise they're gone, never to be seen again. Some important tips to keep in mind:

• Choose one or two plain fonts on a white background.
• Make your navigation clear and simple, and the same on every page.
• Only use graphics, audio or video if they enhance your message.
• Include an opt-in offer so you can collect e-mail addresses.
• Make it easy to buy--no more than two clicks between potential customer and checkout.
• Your website is your online storefront, so make it customer-friendly.

Step 4: Use search engines to drive targeted buyers to your site

Pay-per-click advertising is the easiest way to get traffic to a brand-new site. It has two advantages over waiting for the traffic to come to you organically. First, PPC ads show up on the search pages immediately, and second, PPC ads allow you to test different keywords, as well as headlines, prices and selling approaches. Not only do you get immediate traffic, but you can also use PPC ads to discover your best, highest-converting keywords. Then you can distribute the keywords throughout your site in your copy and code, which will help your rankings in the organic search results.

Step 5: Establish an expert reputation for yourself

People use the internet to find information. Provide that information for free to other sites, and you'll see more traffic and better search engine rankings. The secret is to always include a link to your site with each tidbit of information.

• Give away free, expert content. Create articles, videos or any other content that people will find useful. Distribute that content through online article directories or social media sites.
• Include "send to a friend" links on valuable content on your website.
• Become an active expert in industry forums and social networking sites where your target market hangs out.

You'll reach new readers. But even better, every site that posts your content will link back to yours. Search engines love links from relevant sites and will reward you in the rankings.

Step 6: Use the power of e-mail marketing to turn visitors into buyers.

When you build an opt-in list, you're creating one of the most valuable assets of your online business. Your customers and subscribers have given you permission to send them e-mail. That means:

• You're giving them something they've asked for.
• You're developing lifetime relationships with them.
• The response is 100 percent measurable.
• E-mail marketing is cheaper and more effective than print, TV or radio because it's highly targeted.

Anyone who visits your site and opts in to your list is a very hot lead. And there's no better tool than e-mail for following up with those leads.

Step 7: Increase your income through back-end sales and upselling 

One of the most important internet marketing strategies is to develop every customer's lifetime value. At least 36 percent of people who have purchased from you once will buy from you again if you follow up with them. Closing that first sale is by far the most difficult part--not to mention the most expensive. So use back-end selling and upselling to get them to buy again:

• Offer products that complement their original purchase.
• Send out electronic loyalty coupons they can redeem on their next visit.
• Offer related products on your "Thank You" page after they purchase.

Reward your customers for their loyalty and they'll become even more loyal.
The internet changes so fast that one year online equals about five years in the real world. But the principles of how to start and grow a successful online business haven't changed at all. If you're just starting a small business online, stick to this sequence. If you've been online awhile, do a quick review and see if there's a step you're neglecting, or never got around to doing in the first place. You can't go wrong with the basics.
Hope this information will help to anyone who is willing to take that risk to open an Online Business, it's worth it.

Best Regards,
DWD Solutions
073-996-4696

DWD Solutions

DWD Solutions
073-996-4696
info@dwdsolutions.co.za