How to Set up a Business Online (And Make It Successful)

If you’re a budding entrepreneur seeking advice on how to set up a business online, follow these pointers to ensure success during the early stages.
When setting up a business, making the right decisions during the earliest stages of development is crucial for long-term success. For potential business owners, these early steps will serve as a blueprint upon which your company will grow and scale. You have to build a secure foundation today, as anything short of solid and substantial will pave the way for a shaky future, leaving you and your business vulnerable. 
By the end of 2018, there were 5.7 million private sector businesses in the UK. That’s a 63% increase in the number of businesses since the millennium. So in order to stand out from the saturated crowd, you need to make sure the premise of your business is unique and sustainable. 

Find Your Market First

It’s often said that an innovative and effective product is one that solves a problem customers never knew they had. But the mistake most budding entrepreneurs make is that they look for a product first and the market second. 
If you’ve decided you want to set up a business online but have not yet identified an industry, you should carry out relevant research to determine the most viable niche:

  • Monitor online forums to see what questions customers are posing and what problems they’re trying to solve. 
  • Do some keyword research and pinpoint the queries that online companies are not aggressively competing for but a lot of users are searching.
  • Visit competitors’ websites to see what they’re doing. Don’t just look at what they’re doing right but also identify where they could improve. Take inspiration from their most successful products and see how you can answer the same customer problems with a product of your own or improve on any of their failed products. 

Design a Quality Website

 Your website will be the face of your online company, so you shouldn’t cut corners with this step. You need to design and build a quality website that engages prospects and is easy to navigate. It’s important to seek the services of an established and reputable company that can help you build a website that’s designed to make the journey to purchase as easy as possible for your visitor. Your website should have:

  • A consistent style and tone: aim to be friendly, encouraging and authoritative 
  • Easy-to-navigate pages, especially on key sales pages
  • Effective and relevant graphics and media to enhance your message/services
  • An “opt-in” offer that allows you to build a database of email addresses — these are warm leads who specifically want to hear from you, so you don’t want to neglect your email marketing strategy!

Direct Traffic to Your Website

After you set up your business website, you need to start driving visitors to it. There are two main ways you can do this:

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Pay per click (PPC) is the quickest and easiest way to drive traffic to a new website. One of the main advantages of PPC advertising is that your ads can appear at the top of the search results almost immediately, giving you great visibility. It’s important to note that you’ll be paying for every click through to your website, so it’s vital that you are targeting the right keywords and experimenting with your headlines and ad and website copy to make sure you’re targeting the right audience.

Organic Traffic   

Organic traffic is traffic coming to your website via search engines, such as Google. If you don’t have the budget to invest in paid advertising, developing an effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy is a way to attract traffic without it costing you a penny — many websites accept high-quality guest posts that you can use to demonstrate your expertise and earn a valuable link to your site. However, this method takes time — expect to wait at least six months (or longer, if you’re in a competitive industry) before you start to see tangible results.

Write Captivating Sales Copy

The copy on your website, whether it’s the content on your sales pages or blog posts, should be consistent, engaging and persuasive. Follow these tips for writing effective sales copy:

  • Write a compelling headline
  • Describe the problem that your product solves
  • Succinctly outline how your product will solve this problem
  • Showcase your company’s credibility/pedigree for solving this problem — do you have testimonials, or are you suitably qualified to offer a service?
  • Make your offer enticing
  • Make a credible guarantee
  • Create a sense of urgency or scarcity to encourage users to take action now
  • Include an engaging and friendly call to action (CTA) — this is the one step you want your visitor to take after landing on your website. You might want them to “buy now” or “book a free consultation”. 

Use Email Marketing for Conversions

Opt-in lists are made up of prospects who have explicitly given you permission to send them an email. This means that you can, and should, send them content — it’s what they’ve asked for! The key advantages of email marketing are:

  • A potential lifetime relationship with prospects
  • The prospect/customer response is easily measurable
  • It’s highly targeted, unlike conventional marketing such as TV and radio, etc. 

Remember, anyone who visits your site and opts into your list is a hot lead — perhaps an email or two away from becoming a paying customer. You have a unique opportunity to engage with them, as you’re landing directly in their inboxes. Experiment with your subject lines and consider offering email-exclusive offers to encourage them to become a client or buy a new product.

Take Advantage of Upselling

When you set up your business, you should always remember the importance of upselling. At least 36 percent of customers who have bought one of your products are likely to buy again if you follow up with them. Use back-end selling and upselling by offering products that complement original purchases, send out loyalty e-coupons that can be redeemed on customers’ subsequent visits to your website and offer related products on your post-purchase page. Try not to see this from the perspective of earning more money in your business — instead, constantly brainstorm new ways you can provide additional value and the additional revenue will come.

Formations Companies Will Help You

When you’re researching how to set up your business, it can quickly become overwhelming. Thankfully, professional formations companies exist to ease the inevitable stress and pressures of setting up your company by providing expert advice and an array of services, including, registering a company and ongoing support once you’re up and running.

For expert advice on how to set up your business online, contact Mint Formations today.

Want to register your UK limited company today?


Raj co-founded Mint Formations with business partner Andy Tree in 2017. Mint formations is established to nurture small UK businesses and enable exciting new opportunities for quick growth. As a successful entrepreneur, Raj knows how to start and run a business. He currently resides as a board member of seven successful companies across the world. He is best known for founding Integra Global Solutions, specialists in robotics, automation, and business process optimisation.

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