Moving your business online? Get strategic.

Your business was doing just fine in its physical premises, but you’ve decided its time for phase two. An online presence.

It makes sense, lower operating costs and a 24/7 global market. But its not as simple as wix would have you believe. Before you sign up for your 30 day trial, you need to get a plan in place. What exactly do you want your website to do? Brand awareness, sales, knowledge sharing, building a community. It your website all about generating revenue or building a reputation? These decisions will impact the type of website you design, where you chose to host it and all the links into those all important social media platforms.

Do you want your website sales to out perform your existing high-street sales? Or for it to act as a top up? Will you be selling online at all? Answering this will help you plan out your budgets.

If you want your website to drive more traffic to your store, then make sure its interactive. Customer generated comments are more convincing promotions than any advert you could come up with. Also people will need a way to easily chat with you. All of this might mean opting for a Facebook page, rather than all bells and whistles website is the way to go.

Would you like to be able to send people content about sales and special offers? Then you need to get their email addresses. You’ll need to offer something in exchange for their information tho. You should decide if you’ll be regularly creating content that people will look forward to, if not then don’t get fixated on creating a mailing list.

Then you’ve got to think about what your audience want. Profile who you want to be visiting your website, their age, hobbies and where they’re likely to spend their online time. Are they using a mobile devise to browser, tablet, laptop or desktop? Again this determines how your website should be set up so it looks best on the devise your visitors are using.

If you think this feels like a lot of work, it isn’t. It’s just about having a plan before you act and start spending your hard earned money which is the key to sustainable business growth.