5 Key Steps to Successfully Take Your Business Online

There are multiple benefits in store for brands looking to bring their business online. With a digital presence, brands boost brand awareness, gain more customers, and increase revenues. But despite these benefits, some are still hesitant to make that digital leap.

And we can't blame them. Thinking about building an online presence can be intimidating, especially if you don't know where to start.

That’s why we’ve come up with these five essential steps that will help make your online transition a smooth sailing process.

How to Build a Solid Online Presence in 5 Steps

Step 1: Register your domain name

Your domain name is your brand's unique online identity Make sure it's brandable and is easy to remember.

You can also opt for country-specific and industry-specific domains, bringing you closer to your target audience. And they’re the best alternatives if your ideal .com domain is already taken. For example, if you’re planning to run an online store, you can register a .store or .shop domain name.

READ: 5 Ways a Branded Domain Name Can Help You Grow Your Business

Your domain name is what your customers use to find you online. Here are five tips to help you choose a domain that sticks:

• Keep it short
• Make it easy to pronounce
• Place a keyword that reflects your website
• Easy to type
• Get a creative Top-level Domain (TLD)

Step 2: Secure the right hosting plan

For users to access your website seamlessly, you need to get a reliable web hosting service that guarantees very minimal downtime and fast speeds.

Web hosting providers offer different hosting solutions that let you store your website's content, files, and images on a server.

How to choose the right web hosting solution for your business? It all boils down to your current web needs. Get to know these three common types of web hosting to help you get started:

Shared Hosting

This type of web hosting serves as a great "starting point" for non-complex websites. It's an affordable plan since you're not the only one occupying the hosting server. It’s also excellent for websites that are still handling less traffic.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated Hosting works best for content-heavy and high-traffic websites because you get a hosting server all to yourself. Well-established brands purchase this to avoid server downtime

VPS Hosting

VPS or Virtual Private Server Hosting acts as the middle ground between shared and dedicated hosting. It resembles shared hosting since you're sharing a server with multiple users. But through the process of virtualisation, resources like bandwidth, disk space, and ram are dedicated to your website — allowing you to handle traffic spikes. It's a powerful and affordable hosting solution.

Step 3: Build a website

Having a website lets you market your business online effectively. It’s your customer’s touchpoint when they want to know more about your brand and products/services. With a website, you can experience better brand awareness, competitor advantage, and growth opportunities.

So, how do you build one? Besides hiring a web designer, you can build websites with a website builder or a powerful content management system like WordPress.

Website Builder

No technical know-how about building a website? No problem. With a website builder, you can drag-and-drop your way into creating a visually appealing and fully functional business website – all in minutes.

WordPress

WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) that helps brands create content-heavy websites. It regularly releases new features and allows you to safely make site changes without impacting the live page through WordPress Staging. And with over 54,000+ plugins, the platform gives you more versatility in building your dream website.

Web Designer/Agency

If you have the budget, upscale your website's overall look by hiring a web designer or agency. These are creative professionals who work hand-in-hand with you in conceptualising and designing your website from scratch.

Step 4: Create website copy that sells

Your website content plays a pivotal role in turning users into loyal customers. That's why it's crucial to create valuable content.

Here are a few tips to write an effective content for your website:

• Highlight the benefits of your products/services
• Stick to your brand and customer voice
• Write like a human being
• Structure your content with headings and subheadings
• Make compelling CTAs

Make use of every page you have on your website to inform customers who you are, what you do, and what they can experience from trusting your products.

Step 5: Get found online

Your products or services are ready. Your website is in place. Now, it’s time to launch your business to the world and market your online brand. 

Here are a few tools and services you can use to make your business discoverable on the web. 

Traffic Booster 

For your website to appear on search results, search engines need to crawl and index your site pages with the help of several SEO techniques. However, this process can take a while. 

Submitting your website using Traffic Booster reduces the waiting time and lists your website to more than 80 search engines simultaneously.

Business Directory 

An easy way to get found online is by listing your business on online directories. These are business listing platforms that provide customers with information about your business, such as contact details, products or services, and online reviews. 

But with hundreds of directories out there, listing your business on each one of them can be time-consuming. With Vodien’s Business Directory, you can list your business on over 30 popular directories in one click and update your information in real time.

Simple SEO 

Simple SEO is an easy-to-use tool that helps you optimise your website so it ranks on Google’s first page. It runs a health check on your website and generates a customised action plan to make your site search engine-friendly. 

READ: 5 SEO Challenges Brands Face (+How to Overcome Them)

Managed SEO 

No time for SEO? Get a dedicated team to handle all aspects of your SEO, including determining relevant keywords, performing an in-depth audit, and creating and implementing a tailored campaign for you. 

With Managed SEO, you can focus on running your business while the experts work on ranking your website higher.

Email Marketing 

Studies show that email marketing has an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent. It all comes down to delivering highly targeted, compelling, and relevant emails.  

Vodien’s Email Marketing tool lets you create personalised, branded emails with a feature-packed drag-and-drag platform and a wide selection of pre-made email templates you can customise.

Your Online Success Starts Today

Digital transformation is no longer a luxury but a necessity for every business out there. It’s now a crucial factor for business growth and success. And it starts with building a solid digital foundation. Get started with the steps above or talk to our experts today.