There’s a lot to gain from moving your business online. With a strong web presence, you have access to a much larger audience, advanced marketing tools, and platforms like social media that can help you build strong relationships with your consumer base.
However, there’s also a lot of room for error when moving your business online. Fortunately, you can avoid the most common pitfalls with the right planning.
Here are the top ten tips for moving your business online.
1. Start With Your Website
If you don’t have one already, you’ll need a website. It will be the central component of your brand’s online presence—almost everyone encountering your company online will hit your site at one point or another. While other elements of your web presence—like social media accounts—are essential, having a robust and well-designed website is key to moving your offline business to the web.
If you have little experience with web design and development, it’s a good idea to outsource this step. One option is to hire a web designer and developer. You can also use a website builder—like Squarespace or Wix—to quickly design your site without needing to learn any code.
2. Build a Social Media Strategy
You’ll also want to build your social media presence as you develop your website. Start slowly — focus on just one or two significant platforms most relevant to your audience. Right now, the big three are Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and each has its distinct user base. Instagram’s users are much younger than Facebook users, for example. Twitter’s user base also skews younger, but not as much as Instagram — and it’s also not as widely used as other platforms.
These sites are not only the most popular but also have some of the best social media analytics platforms available.
Even if you feel you can tackle more than just one platform, starting small is a good idea — mainly if you haven’t run a social media page for a brand before. An abandoned or sparsely updated feed can give the impression you’re out of business or don’t care about communicating with customers. If the choice is between doing one social media platform well or a few poorly, then focusing on one will be the better option.
3. Plan for Maintenance
Have a plan for when your website goes down or if different elements break. You should also expect any high-tech features — like automated chatbots — to need tweaking even after your website has gone live.
You may be able to handle website maintenance yourself, and some web builders will provide a support line that connects you with technicians in case of downtime or glitches. However, hiring staff specifically for this task may be worth it.
Contracting your website’s maintenance can provide benefits like enhanced coding or extra monthly web development expertise.
Hiring maintenance staff is also a good idea if you lack experience with web design or technical know-how. Your team can ensure your online migration is as smooth as possible and also educate you on good data migration practices, like keeping a regularly maintained backup.
4. Find an E-commerce Platform
If you plan to move your storefront online, you will also need an e-commerce solution to sell your products on the web.
Ideally, you’ll have a storefront up and running simultaneously with your website and social media presence.
If you have little experience with web development, you should look for a solution that already exists rather than try to build your own or have one developed. E-commerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce can help you quickly create and implement an online storefront.
Gather Product Information
Once you’ve selected your e-commerce platform of choice, start gathering the information you need to build a successful online storefront. Collect information like names, descriptions, photos, and prices for all the services and products you offer, and start building your online catalog.
Having this data before your store goes live will ensure a smooth setup.
6. Have a Plan for Returns and Refunds
Going online can make your returns and refunds a little more complicated. Your new customers won’t be able to show up at your store and ask for them. You’ll need to plan how people can return items to you and be refunded or receive a replacement item.
Many e-commerce platforms and tools include features that make this part easy. If you decide to develop your own shopping platform, however, you’ll need to consider how you’ll manage this.
7. Learn the Basics of Online Marketing
Familiarize yourself with your ad campaign and social media marketing options, as well as common online marketing terms like conversion rate, SEO, and A/B testing.
If this is your first time using an online marketing platform, research and experiment with basic features. Once you’ve launched your web presence, could you consider testing a simple ad campaign?
8. Learn About Web Analytics
Before your website goes live, you should also learn how to use a web analytics platform like Google Analytics. These tools can help you track important information about your site — like how long visitors stick around, your bounce rate, and how long your page takes to load. All this information will be valuable in fine-tuning your web presence.
9. Work With Existing Tools
Unless you have extensive technical experience, you should generally avoid creating tools yourself. If you need something—like an e-commerce platform or digital chat window for your customer support team—someone has probably already designed it.
10. Regularly Test and Audit Your Web Presence
Once you’ve gone live, keep track of your analytics. Watch out for red flags — like high bounce rates or long loading times — that may suggest something is wrong with the design or tech behind your website.
You may also want to develop a regular maintenance schedule to ensure that all the tech keeping your website running is up-to-date and secure.
Moving Your Business to the Web
Moving your business online can give you access to a larger audience and a great range of digital tools. However, it can also be tricky to manage. To avoid some of the most common pitfalls, you should work with existing tools and learn the basics of online marketing. It’s always a good idea to hire a professional marketing agency. Done once, done right.