 posted in business strategies
on 11 January 2007
by Andrew Lang
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Finding a niche on the net by careful research
There are a lot of things to consider before launching an online business - the most primary being the business model itself - what is the purpose of the website? What are the chances of this purpose being fulfilled?
If it's to sell running shoes, then that particular online market should be explored. Is it a viable market? Is it already saturated with competition? If so, are there any niches in the market that could be exploited?
Either you're incredibly lucky to find yourself with an untapped customer base on the net (highly unlikely) or you're going to need to carve out a niche in an already established market.
A lot of online businesses fail because they don't offer anything unique to the visitor - they're no different to their competition - same products, similar prices, similar promises of service - they're invisible.
A lot of ideas quite rightly don't materialize into websites - they may just not be feasible given the resources at hand, or the market may be too competitive for the seller to feel confident in entering.
Given there are practically an infinite number of ideas to choose from, it's no waste to turn down some ideas before they get to the drawing board - the main thing is to research each idea carefully first - what are the competition's strategies? (these are often obvious by visiting their websites). Do keyword searches on search engines that are relevant to the market you're considering entering. Start a Google Ads campaign and see how much these keywords cost per click. If they're expensive, the market is saturated. It doesn't mean it's a mistake to enter the market, but you should definitely find something unique to stand out from the crowd.
Even after formulating a robust business plan, it still needs to be executed professionally. And this is where web development comes into play (part #2 tomorrow).
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Having a blog / news section on your e-commerce website is a great way to help your website rank well in the search engines as well as encourage people to keep coming back to your site just to see what's new. Search engines love new content and will return to your site more frequently if they regularly find new content on your website.
There's plenty of free blogging software available, but it's very difficult, if not impossible, to give your e-commerce website a uniform look and feel as the blog section has a different design to your e-commerce pages. Not so with the puresilva e-commerce template, since we have written our own blog software that seamlessly integrates into your e-commerce shop.
Readers of your blog can also subscribe to it via an RSS feed so they can keep up-to-date with your news without even visiting your site! (this actually encourages them to visit your site since their RSS reader will have direct links to your site).
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