How to Establish An Online Store in 2021: Everything You Need To Know

How to Establish An Online Store in 2021: Everything You Need To Know

So you want to start an online store? As the digital marketing industry continues to evolve, it’s more important than ever for businesses to find a way to stay relevant. This is why so many people are turning towards e-commerce platforms as a way of reaching their target market and establishing themselves in the digital space.

In this blog post, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about starting your own online store in 2021!

Establishing your brand

The first thing that you need to do when you want to establish your brand online is decide on a name. Your domain should be something that’s easy-to-remember and catchy, as this will ensure people remember it when they’re browsing the web!

You have 2 options, one is to create a brand name, that doesn’t have a clear meaning and is original. The other option, which will work for some and not for others, is to use your own name as the brand, or a combination of valid words.

This all depends on what you’re looking to get out of your store – if it’s a personal project or just something that feels like an extracurricular activity. There’s a variation of advice on how to best achieve this. You can literally hit Google and you’ll get 100s of results, for example this post here is an ideal step-by-step guide. You’ll need to find all the information you can and make an informed decision.

Creating a website, and linking to social media accounts

Now that we have our name settled, and we bought a domain, let’s focus on developing an eye-catching logo for our site. You can either use a free logo maker or pay for a more professional one – it all depends on your budget.

The next step is to develop the website itself. If you have no previous experience with web design whatsoever, this may seem like quite the task!

However, there are many sites that will allow you to create an online store without any prior knowledge.

The best and most popular choice today is WordPress. WordPress allows you to create custom templates, and modify them as necessary.

This will drastically reduce your need for graphic design skills, while still allowing you to have a very personalized website. It comes with all of the features that an online store would require – like inventory management tools.

Linking social media accounts will help you to grow your online presence.

Setting up your online store (with payment options)

To do that, you will need to install a third-party plugin that will allow you to accept payments, manage inventory, and list products.

There are many options for payment plugins, but the most popular one right now is WooCommerce. This also comes with all of the features that an online store would require – like inventory and pricing management tools.

Digital marketing and advertising (including SEO)

Digital marketing, is the most important marketing strategy for an online store, in order to promote the business and generate sales.

  • Facebook advertising is a great way of reaching out to potential customers as it enables you to target your audience by age, location, or interests.
  • LinkedIn Advertising will allow you to connect with professionals who are interested in what you have on offer (if they are in your industry).
  • Twitter advertising is a great way to reach out to potential customers, as it enables you to target them by age, location, and interests.
  • Pinterest Advertising will allow you to connect with people who are interested in what you have on offer (if they are in your industry) or maybe looking for inspiration.

But except for the platforms mentioned above, you have to focus on SEO for your website.

This will help to make it rank higher on search engines and get organic traffic from people who are looking for solutions in the same niche. The SEO should be focused on keywords that relate to what you offer.

The SEO world is may be very complicated, and if you don’t what you are doing, or you don’t have enough experience, 2 things can happen:

  1. You will get no results
  2. You can harm your brand

We highly suggest speaking with a professional digital marketing agency, that can support you in every way. There’s options of agencies that provide you with detailed reporting, for example Big Surf Digital are known for testing and measuring all of their work which is ideal when you’re investing in your own business and need help.

The important thing is to understand the visitor persona and know what they expect from your website. Create content for them based on their needs and wants – this will increase conversion rates as well as increases the trust of customers towards your company.

Building an email list for future marketing opportunities

The last step is to build an email list. Email campaigns are often the most profitable digital marketing tool, as they allow you to target people that have already shown interest in your products or services.

Building an email list can also be a difficult task but there’s opportunities for you to set up email collection points during your sales journey and get your target audience collected in a list ready to be mailed.

Email lists are beneficial, but you’ll also want to start planning ahead for email series and other elements such as seasonal opportunities and deals. This all comes under your email marketing strategies.

Conclusion

In 2021 there are many ways that you can establish an online store. I hope this article helped you understand the process and pointed out some of the most important steps.

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