10. Know your audience
Before you sell anything you need to know who it is you’re trying to appeal to and who you want to sell your products to. Audience research enables you to target the perfect audience for your company in order to achieve the results you want.
9. Research your keywords
Deciding which keywords will be of significance to your business is one of the most important steps in creating a website. The right keywords play a huge role in SEO and if used correctly in your website content can increase the visibly of your website in search results and generate that all important traffic.
8. Create a landing page
Building a landing page is a good way to introduce people to your company before your website is officially launched. You could offer sneak peaks of your products, offer an email sign up option or even feature a countdown of how long until your website launches to drum up excitement around your website and overall your business.
7. Prepare a solid marketing strategy
Coming up with a marketing strategy is an important factor in how well your ecommerce store will perform upon launch. An effective marketing strategy allows your business to identify the best opportunities to succeed, without a marketing strategy your business would be lost under other, more organised businesses.
6. Invest in pay per click
Whilst not always a necessity, a Pay Per Click campaign is a great way to attract customers to your website once it has launch. Investing in a PPC campaign and setting it up for when your website launches, means that you’re advertising your website from the get go. You could truly capitalise from attracting customers from the beginning who might stay with your brand for years to come.
5. Prepare your social media
A social media presence can carry you quite far these days and building your brand on the likes of Facebook and Twitter before your website launches can be another way to attract potential customers. If you build up a follower list on social media, then you already have a group of people interested in your business who are likely to go to your website on launch day.
4. Create an email list
Offer a chance for potential customers to sign up for emails or a newsletter, you could do this via social media or through your landing page, either can help you get an idea of which people are interested in your company and help you generate email marketing campaigns to appeal to them.
3. Finalise launch promotions
Are you offering special promotions or a deal with your launch? If so then you need to make sure that everything is finalised and these offers are definitely happening. Through your email marketing campaign you can tell potential customers of these offers which will bring them to your store for the opening and hopefully make them want to return in the future.
2. Finalise your website
Along with finalising your promotions, it’s a good idea to make sure your website is up to date and ready to go. Make sure your copy makes sense and is optimised for search engines, check that your buttons all work and that there is nothing that can make your website look unprofessional.
Looking good? Then it’s time for…
1. Launch
You’ve done it! Everything you’ve been building up to for months it’s finally here. Don’t be concerned if there’s a few hiccups in the beginning, building a business is hard work and things can be stressfult but hopefully, if you’ve followed this guide you’ll be on the road to success in no time.