Competition is fierce when it comes to businesses on the Internet. If you are planning on starting an online business in the near future, there are some important things that you will need to keep in mind. First of all, you will need to take the time to iron out all of the details about your business before it goes live. In other words, your business should no longer be a work in progress by the time the public has access to your site. The same thing goes for your site. You will need a site that operates flawlessly if you are going to stay one step ahead of the competition. Any missteps on your part concerning your business model or your site could be devastating. Nowadays, people have very short attention spans. If your site is not up to snuff, people will move on to one of your competitor’s sites. Here is what an online business needs to stay competitive.
1. Mobile friendly
With hundreds of millions of people accessing the Internet on their tablets and smartphones, one of the most important things to do is make sure that you design your site to be friendly to all of these mobile users. Years ago, this was not something that web designers had to concern themselves with. However, there are many people who only go online through their mobile device. This means that if your site does not accommodate these people, they will be doing their shopping elsewhere. This is bad news for you and great news for your competitors.
2. WordPress
With the use of an open source framework, WordPress is a content management system that has proven to be very cost effective since it was first created years ago. The popularity of WordPress has exploded to the point that it is now being used in almost 60 million websites. Each day around the world, roughly 100,000 new websites go live that use WordPress. That speaks volumes about what a great tool this is for any online business to use. In order to use it to its full potential, you will need to hire the services of a company that specializes in custom WordPress development. You can find a company like this by searching online, or by using some of the many online review websites and message boards that are at your disposal. Because WordPress can be used with bolt on plugins and template designs, many companies find it to be a cheaper way to create an attractive website with great functionality.
3. A dependable merchant services provider
Your merchant services provider is critical to how well your site performs. Unfortunately, too many companies overlook their merchant services, realizing far too late that the provider they have hired to handle these services is incompetent. This is why you must take some time to carefully look at many of the merchant service providers. Examine their track records to find out with ones are the most reliable, and which ones to avoid like the plague. If you know any people who already have an online business up and running, find out what merchant services provider they use. How long have they been using that company? Are they satisfied with the performance of the company? Have their been any glitches or downtime in their service? These questions will help you to make your decision.
Kidal Delonix is a contributor to Mr. Hoffman's blog. The views and opinions are entirely his/her own and may not reflect Mr Hoffman's views.
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