So you want to launch your business online (great idea!). You have no time and there is WAY too much information floating around out there. Here are the only 10 things you need to do to have an online presence by the end of this week – I guarantee it. Ready?
10. Claim Your Domain
While I absolutely hated the naming the company part way back when by the time you trip over this post I hope you’ve at least got that far. For what it’s worth you can always change it later so just start with something that you think may work. Once you’re ready head to Name Cheap to claim your domain (i.e. where you will live online) and see what’s available and book it. Whatever you do don’t get sucked into paying for some extended term because its costly; just get the minimum 1 year term for now.
9. Claim Your Name on Social
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, You Tube, Vimeo, Linked In, Periscope …. you absolutely don’t have to do them all and take it from me, you’ll be overwhelmed in no time! While you can take all the time in the world figure out how to pick which platforms to use it makes NO difference at this point in time so go and “claim your name” on every one you are even remotely considering to prevent someone else from doing so.
Tips:
- Make them all the same for consistency so people can easily find you
- Avoid characters when at all possible i.e. * _ – /
- Keep it short
- Decide on a hashtag / # to use across all channels
- Facebook won’t let you change your PAGE name to Facebook.com/companyxyz until you have 25 fans – invite family & friends and tell them you’re starting a new page and can’t personalize your name until you get to 25 and ask them to help.
8. Choose Your Platform
The biggest decision you have to make to get to launched within the week is what platform you will use to power your site (think of this as your backend). If you are looking for recommendations there are only two places we would send you:
- WordPress whose ecommerce arm is called Woocommerce
- Shopify.
There are bit of a different beast but both can accommodate an unlimited number of products if you decide you want to sell things online down the road.
7. Launch Your Landing Page
And now that you’ve got the platform that will power your website forget about it — for now. You don’t have time and still have a lot to do to be live within the week. While you get organized however wouldn’t it be nice to people what your business is and collect emails of people who would potentially be interested in whatever you have to offer. Brilliant right?! A simple “pre-launch” landing page does the trick with little to no info; think of it as a pre-teaser for whats to come. Here’s a good example (click it to find out what to write!)
So how do you do that? Head to the plugin sections in wordpress or shopify and search for things like landing pages, lead pages, etc and install one – for free. Take 10 minutes and just get something up there. Seriously, don’t worry about how pretty it is at this point!
6. Build Your Profile
While you may not be using your profile yet, it doesn’t mean people are finding you. I know you’ve been there, clicking on profiles that have no info, and it’s an immediate turn off. It’s incredibly important to do the very least which is tell people who you are. Pick a cover photo, write a bio and then copy it across every social platform you just set up – again for consistency. Here’s ours:
5. Install Google Analytics
In a physical store you see customers face to face and can ask opinions, questions etc. Online you’re basically driven blind! While you may think analytics are WAY over your head at this point, when it comes time to build out your sight or figure out what to do next you will thank your lucky stars you can make decisions off data instead of what you think. Both (and any other) platforms work with Google Analytics (which is free) and gives you valuable insight into your visitors and customers. For now create your account, connect it to your store and activate it. A quick google search will tell you how to do that for each platform.
4. Set Your SEO
Help people find you. Keyword research is an important part of search engine optimization (SEO) as choosing the right keywords helps Google and other search engines understand what your ecommerce site is about which increases the chance search engines will list your site in the search results when potential customers are looking for the products/services you provide. You don’t need a super long list, 5 or 10 is fine, but when you have them enter them into Page Title and SEO areas in the backend of your platform. Shopify wrote a great article for beginners choosing keywords that’s worth a read.
3. Build Your List
It’s great to collect emails but you to have means by which to email them – that has tracking so you can learn from your past. The no. 1 rule is to find an email provider that works/integrates with the platform you choose and your landing page to make your life easy. We highly recommend Madmimi and it’s free to get started (not to mention beyond reasonable once your list grows!). Once you’ve decided what platform you are going to use set up a new list and build your template. Remember to continue with the design, wording and coloring from your landing page/social sites for consistency.
2. Build Thy Community
This is insanely time-intensive and becomes addictive. Hold yourself back and limit yourself to 25 per channel for now, then dedicate some time each day to continue to build your community. Building followers is incredibly difficult in the beginning. A few follow tips:
- Follow people you know
- Follow people in the same space as your business
- Follow your competition
Once you get to 25 reward yourself by posting. It can be as simple as a tweet that says “We’re live on Twitter and couldn’t be more excited #day1down. If you’re on visual channels like Facebook or Instagram take a picture and post with it. Remember to include the # /hashtag you came up with back in step, and if your business has a local component definitely tag your city, state, neighborhood too.
1. Celebrate
Whether you realized it or not you just mastered the most important thing when taking a business online: actually doing it! I continually say ‘you are your own worst enemy’ because as a fellow time-starved business owner you want your launch to be perfect, when in reality it never is. It’s taken me YEARS to figure out that no one cares whether your site is blue or purple, or it has 10 pages rather than 1. There will always be sites that are better than yours and tons that are worse. What’s important is that you actually have one – that’s live and has a way to collect emails. If people can find you online you not only look like you’re part of the modern world, but are on your way to building a relationship with people that want to hear from you and will hopefully buy from you at some date in the future.
Congratulations on making it thus far
Leave A Comment