Whether you dream of working from a tropical beach in the Maldives or from a cottage in Ireland, wouldn’t you dream of being able to work from wherever you want? Wouldn’t it be a dream for you and your family to be able to work from home with regular income? 20 years ago this idea would have seemed completely crazy, but today it is possible! With over 2.4 billion people on the internet, digital is the ideal market to make your dream come true.
Of course, you’re not going to leave your office tonight and never set foot there again. But you can start and build your online business, slowly, step by step, today! And even if you tell yourself you can’t code, build websites, or do graphic design, it’s still possible.
Many entrepreneurs have been able to grow an online business without being tech-savvy. And you can do the same by following the steps in this article!
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So know step by step how to start your online business today. Are you ready? let’s go !
1. Choose the Right CMS
It all starts with your website.
Building a website from scratch is very rare today. It would be too long and too complicated for the person whose job it is not! But there are many Content Management Systems (CMS) or Content Management Systems (CMS) in French. These CMSs allow you to manage your website, update it, publish articles, create landing pages, events or contact forms with complete peace of mind.
Know
Among CMS, one of the most famous is WordPress! This CMS alone manages over 60 million websites worldwide. It offers many plug-ins (free and paid) and a very large community of developers and designers.
If you need a freelancer to build your website, there are many web developers, graphic designers, web marketing and SEO consultants available on Codeur.com.
2. Create a website that looks like yours
Your website’s theme (or template) is a template that provides a predefined layout and standardizes the style of your entire site.
Think about it
There are many themes, for you to search and choose what you need, nothing could be easier, just search on your favorite search engine.
But there are three points to be checked before you start your search for the ideal theme! Define your site objectives:
- Do you want to sell a product or service? Is this an e-commerce site?
- Do you want a blog for your website?
- Do you only want to publish content for some of your users?
Your website is your business card. This is the first impression you leave and this first impression is very important for your online business. Weigh the pros and cons of each theme, whether paid or free, and take the time to choose the theme that suits you best so that you don’t have to change it.
If you need help building and setting up your website, post your project in just a few clicks and get a freelance quote!
3. Work on the 4 Pillars of Your Online Business
Now that you have the base of your online business, you have chosen your CMS as well as your theme for your site. Now you need to create 4 pillars, the four sections needed to start your online business.
you will need :
- from a home page
- from one landing page or multiple landing pages
- from a blog
- On the “Customer” page
Thanks to your home page, it should be clear to you what you’re offering in a matter of seconds. This is called your selling proposition.
Your landing page, or your landing pages, if you have several, is the perfect tool for gathering email addresses and other information about your prospects and customers.
Your blog allows you to regularly publish relevant content to improve your SEO on search engines and establish yourself with your goal as an expert.
Finally, your “Customer” page is no longer a page talking directly about you, but rather a page that talks about your customers and your partners, who support you or who have purchased a product or service from you. Service is purchased. These testimonials, these reviews, these positive comments make it possible to gain the trust of your prospects and new future customers.
4. Find the Right Plugins
Now that you have all the main pages of your website, you will need to focus on how to make it as self-sufficient and efficient as possible to sell it online.
How does your sales work? Are you an e-commerce store? Do you sell subscription services? Think about which operation will work best for your business.
Think about it
There are many WordPress plugins for this that can help you!
Here are the best plugins for each type of sales:
All these plug-ins are an incredible help to have your site as free as possible, But if you need more help, don’t hesitate to find the right freelancer at Codeur.com.
5. Set up an Email and Newsletter List
Your site is now self-sufficient to sell your products or services, and online payments are working as you wish. You need to attract your prospects to your site.
Publishing quality content optimized for SEO, or search engines, is a great way to be found by your prospects and future customers. But this is only the first step. For your online business to run smoothly, you need to build an email and newsletter mailing list.
our advice
MailChimp and AWeber are the most commonly used services when it comes to email marketing.
To retrieve your users’ email addresses, create a call to action that gives them the opportunity to subscribe to your newsletter. Creating a landing page allows you to deliver more accurate information to a given goal.
You can even set up free content, such as an eBook, to retrieve your prospects’ email addresses.
Need support writing your eBooks? Find the Right Freelancer on Codeur.com
our advice
If you don’t know where to start, collect your three most read articles, synthesize them, add a nice cover and some graphic images.
Infographics, white papers, tips and tricks are the most common types of content you can offer to your readers “for free” in exchange for their email address. This content should be relevant and should not cause frustration when uploaded.
6. Be present on social networks
On social networks, the competition is tough and regularly publishing content is not enough to be effective and promote your business online. Social networks allow you to expose your content to a wider audience. You increase the number of people who follow you and are loyal to you.
If you’re just starting out, you’re probably responsible for everything, including social media. But taking care of your social networks can quickly become a time-consuming activity. Try optimizing your content publishing, and discover our tools for automating social networks.
For example, here are two powerful tools that can help you with this task.
buffer
Buffer allows you to schedule your social media posts. This is how you can optimize your timing! As soon as you publish a new article on your blog, you may plan to share it on social networks, for example.
If you want to learn more about your followers’ active hours, check out our infographic on the best times to post on social media.
Hootsuite
Distributing your content and tracking your interactions on social media can be a real headache. Another important component on social networks is the day before. You need to monitor relevant conversations that pertain to your business or topics your business should participate in.
You can use a tool like Hootsuite for this.
With a separate column system, you’re able to keep track of your mentions, responses, saved searches for certain keywords relevant to your business, as well as the hashtags you follow.
7. Create Unique Scenes
You have the text! But now you need a picture. The two sets are more powerful and efficient.
Our brains love visual content and process images faster and easier than text. To better understand and share your posts, add images to your blog posts and social media shares. For example, consider showing your statistics by creating an infographic.
Don’t panic, even if you’re not a designer, simple tools can accompany you in your vision.
Example ? Here are some image creation tools!
May go
With a huge library of free resources like fonts, icons, layouts, icons and photos, you’ll love Canva.
Simply choose one or more items from their library and you’ll be able to create a unique scene in minutes by dragging and dropping content.
put it on
With Placeit, you simply upload your image or screenshot to one of the many mockups available and then upload your creation.
Finding great royalty-free photos to use at no cost sounds like an impossible task, but not at all! There are many other sites that offer high resolution photos every day.
Otherwise, for even more customization, contact a freelance graphic designer at Codeur.com!
Conclusion
Starting and growing your business online is not easier than starting a business in real life!
The main difference is that it is much more convenient. It is also much more economical as you will not need the office for some time, the investment is very moderate in the beginning. Most of the tools you can use are free (or low-cost), and many of them offer free trials so you can assess whether they might be a good investment for you.
So if you have something to sell, a product or service, go ahead and start your own business, now is the time to get started. Everything you will need to prepare for your future entrepreneurial journey is in your hands. follow the leader !
And don’t forget, if needed, there are many resources available on Codeur’s blog and many freelancers to help you start your online business on Codeur.com!