Many small businesses have been hit very hard by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, and have been forced to close their doors for an extended period of time. Recovery after this shutdown has not been swift, nor has it been comprehensive in nature, and that means a great many small businesses are either still hanging on by a thread, or have been forced out of business altogether.
Some business owners who recognized what was happening and reacted quickly to it, took their businesses online where they could be conducted remotely and safely. This is still a great idea if you want to survive the current pandemic, and to be well-positioned for any follow-up waves which might occur. It can not only be a game-changer, but it just might be your best bet for survival in a business landscape which is changing every day, and which is impacted constantly by events outside the confines of commerce.
Taking your business online
First, you’ll need to purchase a domain name from a website registrar, one that uniquely reflects your company and which can easily be remembered by potential customers. Then, you’ll need to build a website from which you can conduct your business, and for this step, you’ll probably want to engage the services of a professional web design and development company. You will, of course, have to decide exactly what to sell, whether that be services or products, and this might be a good time to consolidate them so that you are only dealing with the most profitable products and services.
You will, of course, have to fulfill any legal obligations connected with doing business in your area, including licensing if that’s necessary. You can probably use the same business name and structure as your brick-and-mortar store, and the same tax structure will probably suffice. One of the really crucial aspects of moving your business online will be the kind of content that you put on your website. It should be content which describes your company and its products, and which is compelling and informative enough to make visitors want to keep reading.
Then you’ll have to establish some kind of system for payments. If you have an e-commerce online store, you’ll need to have a checkout process and some method for handling payments by credit card and other forms of payment. You’ll need to set up shipping arrangements and apply charges depending on the destination of shipments. Lastly, you’ll have to announce your online move and try to reach the broadest possible segment of your target audience, so they can continue to find you in your new online situation.
Expanding beyond the local area
One of the great things about going online is that you’ll no longer be limited to handling local business only, and you can literally take orders from anywhere in the country, or even around the globe. You’ll have to be able to ship to all those places of course, but that should be manageable when your business has expanded to a larger platform. You can still retain your local appeal by engaging in local SEO practices, which will keep your business name before all the local audience, so you don’t lose any of your loyal local customers.
SEO for your business website
One of the most important factors about setting up your website is to work with the designers/developers to ensure that SEO is built right into the design of your site. It won’t matter if you have the best products in the world if no one can find you online. The way that searchers will find you online is by having sound SEO principles incorporated into the design.
This will allow Internet searchers to match search terms (keywords/phrases) matching users intentions. You want your website to be ranked highly in the search engine results page. When you start getting serious traffic to your website, it will simply be a matter of converting those visitors into paying customers, and your site content will have to be relevant enough to accomplish that. If you can manage to be authoritative, relevant, and trustworthy online, you’ll be well-positioned to survive this pandemic or any other one which happens to come along.
Lorelei Garnes