In 2018 alone, over 500 million American consumers used online marketplaces to buy products. That’s 80% of the population. Pretty crazy when you think about it.
If you’re looking to make some extra money online, you only have to do three things.
- Create a valuable product that people want
- Find a way to create a steady supply of traffic to your product or service
- Make money online
Choose A Niche
The first step to building a successful online store is to find a niche. This is the market segment or group of people you will be serving with your product or service. Think about your niche and what you can offer to them. Your niche should be a large enough group of people who have a common problem that you can solve. If you can solve their problem, you’ll be able to build a business around that.
For example, if your niche is men’s suits, you can start a business called Suitsupply.com. The idea is that you will provide a valuable product or service to people who need suits. People come back for more because you supply what they want. Your product is essentially a one-stop-shop for all their needs when it comes to suits. They don’t have to go somewhere else to get a suit. They come to your site because you meet their suit needs. What’s more is you can become a trusted resource for all their needs when it comes to suits. Think about the different types of men’s suits your site can provide. Clean, affordable, designer, classic, among others.
Niche finding tool: https://www.nichify.com/ (Premium)
Decide How You’ll Sell The Product
You can sell your product in many ways, including but not limited to:
- Downloadable eBook
- T-shirt Merchandising
- Suit Supplier
- E-commerce Store
Deciding how you’ll sell the product is more important than you think. You can’t sell all your products on one site simply because you want to make money online. The key is to find the right balance between the products you will be offering and the platforms you’ll use to sell them. You don’t want to flood your site with hundreds of different products or offer only digital downloads because people are choosing to avoid plastic shopping at all costs. Your product can be anything from a physical product to a service. Think about the products you love most and how you’ll be able to bring them to the table. The sooner you can start selling your product, the better. The more you can sell, the more you can make. There’s no rush.
Set Up A Website
The next step is to set up a website. Creating a business website is free on HubSpot. You can use their platform to easily set up a professional-looking website with all the basic features you need to start selling your product:
- Shop
- Blog
- Contact Form
- E-commerce
Your website will serve as the online storefront for your product. When a potential buyer goes to your website to learn more about your product or to purchase it, they’ll either (a) find what they’re looking for or (b) get caught up in all the content you have and become a client. When they become a client, you’ll have a chance to sell to them. You can’t afford to skimp out on content because you don’t have a website. A well-written blog post can do wonders when it comes to attracting potential customers to your site. The more you put in it, the more you’ll get back. Remember: content is king.
Use SEO To Your Advantage
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of getting traffic from online search engines like Google or Bing to your website.
Traffic from search engines gives you free, targeted advertising, whereas paid ads drive traffic to your site. You can use SEO to your advantage to maximize your return on investment (ROI) as fast as possible. Start by creating a strategy and sticking to it.
The main goal of your SEO strategy should be to get as many clicks as possible from as many different types of people as possible. Everyone has different reasons for going to a website, so you want to make sure that when a potential customer types in a search query that they have the best chance of finding your website.
To do this, you’ll want to focus on gaining backlinks – referring to the links that appear on other websites that are outranking you in the search results. The better your content, the more likely you are to gain some high-quality backlinks. If you want to make money online, SEO is essential because it can get you a whole lot of qualified traffic that is ready to buy your product.
Build A Brand
A brand is an intangible asset that represents a business or a product. It’s what differentiates your product from all the other products on the market. When you build a brand for your product, you are building the foundation for potential customers to trust you and your product. Your brand will be a combination of (a) your name, (b) your logo, and (c) your marketing material.
Your name is what people will use to find you online. When they enter your name in the search bar, they’ll see your logo and marketing material because that’s the information other sites will have when they link to you. If you want to make money online, you need to build a brand around a product that is valuable and that people want to buy.
To best build a brand, you need to have a clear idea of what it is you’re trying to achieve. Start by brainstorming a list of different ways your product can benefit your target audience. The more you can come up with, the better. Once you have a clear idea of the different benefits your product can offer, you can choose the right name and logo for your brand. Don’t just choose a name at random. It should be easy for people to remember and relate to. Your goal is to create a product that people will want to have in their homes and businesses.
Choosing a domain name for your website is very important. Make sure that it’s relevant to your brand and that it’s easy for people to remember. Ideally you’ll want to choose a.com domain. This is the most popular and trusted extension after.edu. Once you have your domain name and logo, you can start building your brand.
The main purpose of a business website is to drive traffic to your product or service. To build a successful business, you need to find a way to generate recurring revenue. After you do that, tying sales to leads and making money from your leads will be a piece of cake.