Gone are the days when starting up a business means finding the best location available or putting up different branches to increase your market reach. The increased internet consumption and adoption of smartphones have paved the way for online businesses popping up here and there. It is no brainer that anyone could find an opportunity online nowadays. In fact, you probably know someone who took advantage of these technological advances to make a living.
As an aspiring online entrepreneur, it can be overwhelming. You’ll eventually realize that there’s so much more work aside from getting photos and putting it out on the Internet. It’s now sinking in that you actually need more content than you anticipated.
Spare yourself from all that trouble, here are 5 content you should have when starting an online business:
Your ‘About’ Page
Imagine this, let’s say someone showed up your door and offers you furniture at a discounted price, but you have no idea where he came from or even his name. Would you grab the deal and hand over your money right away? Of course, that would be silly, right?
That same goes with your website, your Facebook page, or even your Instagram bio. You can’t expect people to hand you over their hard-earned money, without knowing who you or your business are.
This is where the ‘About’ page comes in handy. Here you can tell everything you wanted your customer to know. Treat it like your pitch. Don’t sell yourself short.
Here’s a tip: Keep it interesting and value-packed. Tell a story, your purpose, or share some behind the scenes. Help them get to know you on a personal level. Treat it as if you are introducing yourself to someone you are dying to be your friend.
Your Product Descriptions
You already got your audience all the way to the product page, don’t lose them by having bland product descriptions. While most would add the product dimensions, colours, and other important details of the product, those aren’t convincing enough. Tell them more and give them a well-rounded idea of how the product can be beneficial to them. How the product is used? How can the product make their life so much better? Why will they need it? Do not fail to answer these basic questions. These are important.
Here’s a tip: Do thorough research. What people are searching? What are their pain points? What are the keywords they use when they are searching for the product? Use all these data to craft your best-selling product description. Lastly, if the writing of your product description is not your best skill, don’t be shy to hire help.
Your Social Media Content
Once you started creating a Facebook page or Instagram account, NEVER set it up for ads or invite your friends to like your page without any posts. Once you got them on your page, take that opportunity to tell them what you are about and what they can expect from you. Otherwise, you’ll be buried down to the forgotten field. You might not even get that like or follow at all.
Your social media presence is the support group of your business. They help you get the word out and connect to your customers. It can be your one-man-team if you like to, your sales page, your advertising, and your customer service. So make sure you keep your platforms updated, rich in information, and worth engaging.
Here’s a tip: Like any other battles, planning ahead can help you win the war. Take a day to sit down and identify your content buckets. Fill those buckets and finalize the posts to your content calendar. There are scheduling tools available out there at minimal to zero cost, so you can just add everything the calendar and forget about it.
Also, don’t forget to make sure that you have visually appealing photos to go with your well-written captions.
Your Automated Responders
Whether it is messenger bots or email responders, we cannot deny that these automations are your money makers. A simple messenger flow with all your FAQs could save you time sitting down and answering it yourself. Getting all this information to your customer within a click of a finger can help you close the sale.
Trigger-based transactional emails can help you keep the customer engaged and buy more. These automation saves you time and money and enables you to make more money too. Anything that could be better than that?
Here’s a tip: As much as your automated responders are amazing. Customers can smell a copy and paste responses, or a bot talking. This can be a definite turn off. Sit down and perfect your responders, do not forget to put triggers and options that will direct to you in any case that your customer really needs to talk or chat to an actual warm-bodied human. Write your responders in a conversational tone, as if you are the one talking. And do not try to overly generalized everything, you might end up with a lot of automated responders but trying to tailor fit these based on certain triggers or issues can help you nail this!
Your Blogs
So you’re finally getting all your ducks in a row. But there’s a last piece of content that will put the cherry on top of the cake. These are your blogs. Your blogs shouldn’t be a hard sell, that is what your product descriptions are for. Instead, make use of your blogs to educate more and creating relevant content to your customers. If done right, your blogs can help position yourself as an industry leader and help you with your way up the search engines.
Here’s a tip: Start with crafting a blog and turn them to social media posts later on. This will help you save time. In terms of what to talk about, you can start with featuring reviews and testimonials, news or updates, partnerships, more stories, and the list goes on.
Starting an online business can be tougher than you imagine. Take some time to develop your content strategy and tailor-fit it to your business goals and customer needs. Getting these contents ready can help you get a strong foundation for your online business. Trust me, you’re going to need all of these, don’t wait until you need it on the last minute as chances are you’ll have crappy content. Once it is on the Internet, it will be hard to get it undone.
It will save you a lot of headaches if you put the right mechanisms in place. This guide is quite a mouthful, I know, but I’m confident that it will help you start off. Another quick tip too: you can check out more details on how to start a business including LLC Operating Agreement at LLC Formations. Cheers.
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Lyra Joy E. Almoite is a digital professional focusing on project management and social media management. She has helped CEOs, founders, company presidents, and business owners improve their process to scale and solidify their business branding through social media. Follow her on LinkedIn and website.