Do You Have What It Takes To Set Up Your Own E-commerce Website?

Do You Have What It Takes To Set Up Your Own E-commerce Website?

by | Jan 21, 2018 | E-commerce, Web Design

The world of e-commerce is exciting and filled with possibilities. You?ll have read many success stories about people who?ve made their fortune with an online store and perhaps even felt inspired to give it a go. If you?ve always wanted to work for yourself, e-commerce could be a great option, a venture that allows you to call the shots and reap the rewards. It sounds great, but it?s not exactly easy. Think you?ve got what it takes to make it big in e-commerce? Take a look at the following before you dive in.

Getting started

Getting set up with an e-commerce website isn?t as simple as just having an idea and building a website. It has to be a great idea and an outstanding website to stand any chance of success. This 7 part guide on how to get started in e-commerce explains the step-by-step processes you need to go through to build a successful online store. You?ll need to do a lot of research and testing to find out if people even want to buy your product. The initial research is worth it, however, to make sure you don?t invest a lot of time and money into something that won?t pay off.

You?re going to need help

An e-commerce business has a lot happening behind the scenes. Not only does someone need to manage orders and deal with queries, but there are also people responsible for the website maintenance, marketing, finance and other areas. This may all sound like something you can do yourself, but you?ll soon find that it takes a team to get this working. To get a team in place, you might need to source investment or take out a business loan - something that could be a gamble if your venture doesn?t take off.

It could be a long time before you see any profit

There?s a misconception that the money to be made online is instant, and sadly this couldn?t be further from the truth. Your success depends on many different things, and you could go months or even years without seeing real profit. Many people have to retain their income from elsewhere to get by during the launch phase of an e-commerce venture, so don?t think about quitting the day job just yet. There are many mistakes that people make with e-commerce at the beginning, so if you make sure that all bases are covered before you begin - you could see a profit sooner than expected.E-commerce is a great money-maker if you know how to play it, and could be the start of a profitable new adventure for you. At the heart of every great e-commerce venture is a fantastic website, and there are a lot of elements you need to make sure your website is a success. Do your research, ask others how it?s done and make sure you know what you?re doing before you throw yourself into the world of e-commerce.
Marketing Trends To Make Your Mark In 2018

Marketing Trends To Make Your Mark In 2018

by | Jan 10, 2018 | Business, Marketing, Web Design

January might mean the time to be making new resolutions personally, but it may also be time for businesses to do the same. One resolution all businesses should pin to their office wall is revisiting and refreshing their current marketing strategy. To continue to grow as a thriving business in today?s busy modern world, keeping track of the newest trends can make the difference between making that 1000th sale or missing out altogether. Below are a few trends that are key to watch out for this upcoming year: ?Hello Siri, Alexa, and GoogleVoice-activated search is becoming increasingly popular in 2018, especially with the introduction of devices such as the Google Home Hub and the Amazon Echo to our homes. These devices have revolutionized the home by allowing consumers set alarms, play music and order shopping using their voice alone. The smart technology means marketers now have the power to create a specialized copy using advanced keywords to help consumers find even more services and products related to their voice command. ????Smartphone TrafficAs millennials become the focus more of marketing in 2018, it?s safe to say traffic sources are currently to be found primarily from smartphones, rather than desktop computers, as they grew up with the power of the internet at their hands. Traffic from smartphones is predicted to continue to rise in 2018, meaning creating engaging, yet concise, copy that?s small-screen friendly is key. Your current content on-site and your search engine optimization strategy may need to be revisited to allow your consumers to read your copy easier on the small screen. It?s time to move away from chunks of paragraphs, each heavy with keywords, and instead craft content people can read and view on the go. This could mean turning more towards videography and infographics, rather than text-centered articles. ?Social Media and Live VideosTapping into social media isn?t a new idea or a new trend, but it?s arguably one of the fastest growing marketing platforms for the digital age. Nearly 800 million users log on and post to Instagram every month. Social media channels are ideal for sharing a variety of rich-media posts, including videography. Live Videos came into their own in 2017, but in 2018, the trend continues to grow. They provide real-time engagement with visitors to your social media channels, with Facebook and Instagram being the ones to watch regarding Live Videos. They can target potential audiences as consumers chose to watch a Live Stream and continue to scroll past advertisements. ??Augmented and Virtual Reality The popularity of smartphone game Pok?mon Go was able to show marketers that there is a channel waiting to be tapped into for their next step in their strategy. Pok?mon Go was one of the first that used AR content to create an immersive game by tracking the users? locations and time-zone to adapt their experience. Augmented Reality offers consumers the opportunity to experience immersive story-telling from their favorite brands, and it?s one to watch in 2018.
Life Hacks: Changing Your Career Path

Life Hacks: Changing Your Career Path

by | Jan 10, 2018 | Business

Changing your career can be a daunting prospect to many people, but there are a couple of life hacks that can help you to make the change seamlessly, and with as little stress as possible. There are some risky way and less risky ways to change your career, and knowing how to go about the change is always really important. Follow these ideas and you will have your new job in no time.So many people are dissatisfied with their job, feel undervalued or underpaid, or perhaps just want to try something that has a bit more impact on the world. Whatever your reasoning, there has never been a better era in which to learn new skills, and try something new. There are lots of ways to find a new career that you love, so soak up some of these great ideas, have an open mind, and be prepared to find yourself a new career.To Quit or not?Whether to quit your day job or not is up to you, and depends on what kind of person you are. Some people find it really beneficial and liberating to quit their current job and use that adrenalin to throw themselves into the job search. This can be fantastic if you don?t have dependents or have some money saved up in the bank.For many though, they are unsure about what they want to try next, or how long it could take to find another income in their new line of work. Taking your time with it, and having an idea can be good before you make any decisions. You can apply, and try out other fields while still having your current job. Being smart, and not rash, can really pay off.Educate YourselfGoing back to school can be a great way to get a taste of the new field you are looking to go into, and looks really good to employers too. If you are changing career, you have loads of experience working, and a qualification on top of that lets them know you are serious. Why not check out your nearest supply chain management masters, nursing course, or law conversion course.There are plenty of courses out there for any field, so see if there are any that are applicable to you. Many courses also offer a hand on experience with work placements working in actual businesses. This looks great to employers and can give you a taste of what it is like working in the new career you want to try. Adding qualifications to your CV is never going to hurt, and you can get a taste of what it?s like working in the new career your thinking of going into.There are loads of ways you can get into a new career, from doing internships, gaining new qualifications, to just asking around. Whatever you do, and whatever you want to go into, there has never been a better time to change careers. Information and opportunities are easily accessible online, and many people change their career many times throughout their lives.
The Greatest Website in the World Is Still Not Good Enough Without These Five Elements

The Greatest Website in the World Is Still Not Good Enough Without These Five Elements

by | Jan 9, 2018 | Guest Post, Web Design

We all know what a great website has. It has an aesthetically pleasing landing page that draws your visitor in. It?s a site that has user design in mind and is easy and simple to use. It is a website with great content, stunning visuals, and perhaps even a few videos. Today, great websites are powerful, clean, and modern, but that?s not all. There is so much more to a great website than what is on the page. That is why the greatest-looking website in the world will still not be good enough if it doesn?t have these five elements:
  1. A Strong Team
A website simply wouldn?t exist without someone behind it. Similarly, a great website won?t exist nor could it run without a great team. That is why you should focus on other areas of your business, aside from just the business aspects. Hire HR advisory services to ensure that your entire business is optimized and ready, creating a greater business value.
  1. A Focus on SEO
If your website does not have a focus on SEO, then you might as well stop now. Having a website that cannot be found is a website that has minimal organic reach. This means that you will likely have to continue to pay advertising costs to get new people onto your site, only without any guarantee that they will buy from your site, subscribe, or do anything other than click on and off.
  1. A Focus on Security
Though it might seem like your website is secure, there?s a chance that your website is un-secure, putting both you, your business and your customers at risk. That?s because hackers can access your simple security protocols and can either completely lock you out, hijack your computer, and so much more. They will then either sell the information you have, like names, emails, and passwords, or they will blackmail you. Avoid this by increasing your security, keeping your website updated, and using the appropriate software to keep your hardware and even the cloud secure.
  1. Organized and Backed-Up Data
If you want your website to be a success, you need to have your data backed up. The better you organize and categorize your data that is on your website, the better you?ll be able to protect your company and your content. Do this, and you at least have a backup option if your website goes down, is hacked, or damaged. Similarly, having this organized and backed-up data will provide better customer service.
  1. The Human Element
Customer service should always be at the top of every single company?s focuses because without great customer service you have no customers. Even great products can suffer if the service offered by your company fails, which is why it?s important to keep a human element to your website. Contact information, respond to comments and even have a pop-up chat that people can use to get real answers from real people.A website is your global doorway to your company, no matter how big or small it is. To have a truly successful website, however, you need to make sure your company is running smoothly because a great company has a website that reflects it.
How to NOT analyze your Website?s Performance

How to NOT analyze your Website?s Performance

by | Jan 8, 2018 | Web Design

Analyzing your website performance is a must for anyone who relies on their website for business. However, not all metrics should be added to your dashboard, here are some metrics that definitely might be avoided. Bounce Rate. Bounce rate shows how many people only visit that one page before exiting a site. While it may have been useful at some point, today it is irrelevant. Think of landing pages which only have one page and their purpose is to generate form submits. And what about websites that are only one page long, those get bounce rates at 100%. Therefore, this metric should not be paid much attention to. Time on site ? Most people believe the longer someone stays on the site the better. However, that is not always the case. Some of the best customers are the ones that interacted the least amount of time as they were ready to buy and did not waste time. Active Users - ?Active users? metric shows you how many unique users visited your website within a day, week or month. This metric is useless unless you compare it to the previous day, week, month. However, that also holds a problem as it does not account for seasonality factor. For example, if you were to compare last week of the year versus mid-week in January you will get very different results due to the holidays. These are just a few metrics that should be avoided when building your dashboard. The other pitfall to avoid is to look at data sources separately. You will not get a full picture by looking only at Google Analytics or Facebook Ad Performance, or your email marketing performance. However, if you combine all sources you will be able to see the whole picture. For example, combining Facebook Ads and Google AdWords will allow you to see what percentage of marketing spent goes where it will also allow you to compare cost per conversion across multiple sources and across campaigns. There are different ways to analyze your data and there is no universal solution that fits all. Thus, it is advisable to build a custom dashboard that fits your business needs. Start your dashboard build out by asking yourself what data you need to see first, then figure out where the data lives and what metrics you are going to use to answer your question.