To coincide with the online publication of “How to Grow Your Small Business Rapidly Online” – a book providing advice on online business – HowTo.co.uk has prepared a helpful little guide to achieving success online…
‘This time next years we’ll be millionaires’: these days it all seems so possible, with many well documented start-ups soon selling their product to huge corporations for millions of dollars.
However, the vast majority of those starting business online are set to fail, and any quick internet search will suffice to demonstrate just how many social networking sites, for example, serve to land up just clogging up the internet super-highway.
Mistake 1: Misreading the Market
It’s no good setting up a site just to find that the competition has the market stitched up. It is rare that loyal customers will be pried away from an internet site, especially as they may rely it for convenience sake – changing to a new networking site may mean losing a lot of contacts. So, rule 1; don’t forget to do your market research.
Mistake 2: Inadequate Skills
You may have the best Idea in the world, but if you yourself lack the design and internet engineering skills, or if your team are not up to scratch then your product will, in the parlance used by the people who count, ‘suck’. The competition is fierce and if you do not provide a highly finished and skilled production, people will not be attracted to your site and you in turn will not be able to attract advertisers and/or subscribers
Mistake 3: Underestimating Workload
Well, it looks simple: bang up a site marketed to the right audience and wait for the visitors to come rolling in. Wrong! Websites need to be constantly updated is they are to sustain the attention of visitors.
Mistake 4: Jumping on the Bandwagon
The biggest mistake people make is in trying to emulate the sites that have made it big. This is never going to work for the very fact that technological advances and fashions change so fast. If you are going to have a successful site then you need to think what the next big thing might be in terms of content and design. The best way to do this is not by copying sites but by getting feedback from the street. Go and see what people are talking about, what they want from life, what they need from a website.
Mistake 5: Hoping for Too Much
We are told these days that if we think positively success will come, quickly and by the bucket load. Whilst it is true that positive thinking is essential if you are to thrive in the world of business, it is important not to forget the pitfalls. Positive thought and good intentions will not bring success on their own – if you are going to succeed you need to leave no stone unturned.
Mistake 6: Cheating
Google have very strict rules regarding what you can and can’t do to get your site top of the rankings. If you break rules you will incur the wrath of google and your rating will then drop severely, so check them out.
Mistake 7: Poor Editing
This comes down to skill to some extent, but you would not believe how many people do not adequately edit the content of their site. The fact is that people’s brains switch off and their wallets close as soon as they see a grammatical error, a spelling mistake, a factual error, a faulty link, and so on.
Mistake 8: Forgetting the Real World
Remember, ‘the real world’, the one you eat, sleep and breathe in…
If you want to get people looking at your site you need to engage people. Make links with the world outside the web; throw parties etc. whatever is appropriate to cater to the audience that you are looking to attract. Sites are easy to check out, and people will check them out if they’ve been shown a good time and have had a web address thrust in their hand on leaving.
Mistake 9: Not Offering Services for Free
Many of the best web start ups have prospered as a result of offering free access to clients and even advertisers (initially at least). Don’t get too greedy at the outset, and remember that the best way to generate traffic is to offer something, whether it be an application or a service.
Mistake 10: Giving up too soon
The thing to remember is that your first venture may not even work in the long term, but if you do not persevere you will not learn the valuable lessons needed to make things succeed next time! On the bright side, if you do persevere you may just succeed first time around!
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