The Key Points of Successful Online Business
Starting an online business is not a simple thing, though there is
the 3U rule bearing the following three simple points, which should be
obeyed to make your online business successful: Unique Offer, Unique
Service, and Unique Design. As you can see, Design is not the first, as
Offer and Service go before it.
Make a Unique Offer
After researching your competitors, you may feel rather confused, as
there are so many of them and each one states that he is the best in
the field. Don't despair. The information you gather is necessary only
to help you build your offer. You should not use it to build a case
against yourself! Simply, you need all the information you can get. A
competitor's website is not the only source of information. Try to find
out what his customers think about him. Do not trust testimonials; try
some posts on forums, where you will get real testimonials! Find your
competitor's weaknesses and try your best to avoid them. His weaknesses
should become your strong points. Your offer, however, is not the only
thing to make your customers return. Your service should be unique as
well.
Provide a Unique Service
The key point of Unique Service is constant feedback. Find out who your
clients are and what they like or dislike about your service. This is
the information for improving your service.
Do a little research on how your competitors work. Competitor
monitoring is the best way to be up on what's new on the market. You
shouldn't miss anything about them: who their customers are and why
they stay with your competitor, details about their affiliate programs,
who their partners are, where they get traffic, etc. - any kind of
information that may be useful.
However, competitors are not the only source of ideas for improving
your services. Try to study how hosting companies work. They have been
in the business from the very beginning, so their experience will be of
great use to any newbie to online business.
Create a Unique Design
One of the problems which rise before a newbie is the creation of a
front office or website, which is almost the same thing as a front
office on the Web. This is not a big problem.
Online business is not limited to website design. While having a unique
website design is good, it will not make your brand unique. The real
question is how can you make your brand
unique?
There are several ways to solve this problem. But first you must
understand that as the process of site development is rather
complicated, it usually requires a team consisting of a project
manager, designer, coder, and programmer. And you need only go to any
one of them to begin your project. The only thing that may hamper you
is the budget, as it usually costs $1000-$3000 to develop a really good
website.
Very often money becomes a real problem for newbies to online business,
as their budgets are not equal to the cost of website development. They
should pay for not only hosting but also domain registration, an
advertising campaign, etc. But this not a dead-end situation; there's a
solution that a newbie can afford - website templates. A ready-made
design is the only thing you need. Simply convert it into your website
by filling in the content. Though you may assume that using a website
template will dilute your brand to nothing, as you won't be the only
one with this template, it is not the case. The number of downloads,
which is usually displayed on a website templates provider's site, is
not the real number of the sites which have been built on the template.
How can it be so? Do website templates providers knowingly lower the
number of downloads to stimulate purchases? The answer is no, as
reliable providers regularly update databases with new templates. The
problem is, the moment you put your site online is the moment it can be
ripped off by anybody! Besides, the largest templates providers, such
as Template Monster, Cool Home Pages, OSWD and others, constantly suffer from piracy.
Therefore, unique design is virtually impossible because anything can
be copied or stolen and used with slight alterations. Even custom web
design is not safe from intellectual parasitism and predation.
Which is preferable? Should you choose a Web Design Company or use
ready-made templates? It's up to you to decide, though using templates
is not as frightful as it is considered to be. It greatly saves your
money. Remember that Unique Design is not the synonym for Unique Brand.
To stand out from your competitors, you should obey the 3U rule, which
will deliver you the best and cheapest advertising - word of mouth
advertising.
About the Author
James Berg
(james@templatemonster.com)
www.TemplateMonster.com
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