The Business Initiative @Business was developed by my need, to have a second point of presence online! Its function is to provide an extra platform for the messages I’d like to convey to the community I serve! It is another “outlet“ for plugging in my creative flows in directions I haven’t yet fully explored. And yet, as I developed it, bit-by-bit, I realized, that it was something completely different from the “thing“ I had envisioned!
The “Why?” Clause!
The Business Initiative @Business is the second point of my online presence and the one related the most to the things I work with!
The reasons for why I needed a new point of online presence and its development process have been covered in different posts (please check them here and here!).
The last step that concludes this series is the how of developing this new site! I feel that without that section this series would be incomplete!
So check out the 10 Moves I have done for developing a successful online presence!
10 Moves for a Successful Online Presence
In order to develop a new online presence in the form of a new site you need certain key elements, that will guide you and direct you to develop a quality “product”. In other terms, you platform doesn’t only need to have a great “engine” (I have selected the WordPress for many reasons, but basically because it is a platform I use for many years and I know it fairly well!) but also needs to have a great “frame and body” as well as an excellent “paint job” (for the analogy I am grateful to the guys in StudioPress (not an affiliate link) site! Thank you all very much).
All these elements are integrated together to provide a seamless and transparent browsing experience to the user! In my design book, the basic steps you need to develop a new WordPress site are:
- Set your goals, metrics, and objectives for the new site. The new site should stand for something! Not a general something, but a specific something! To do the investment of developing a new site, it means, that you should reach “something“! The actual monetary ROI does not play any part at this point, but it has a major role in every action you have to take in the future! It is a business after all!
- Get your Domain Name. It is important to have the right name for your site and for your niche market! Some people say that is not important, but the name is all inclusive of everything you have to do in the future (it is part of your brand after all) and you should take a specific care of choosing it! You have to contemplate it, think about it and select it with utmost care! It’s money after all! For domains names, I generally use GoDaddy (affiliate link)!
- Get Hosting. Important but not conclusive! A hosting provider is something you should take care of it when you select it, but at the end of the day, is something you have nothing to do with it! There are many providers you can choose from. Check the features interested you most: price, speed, security, etc. and select the one covers your requirements. For hosting, I use the GoDaddy (affiliate link) because it provides European-based presence, is inexpensive and have support 24×7!
- Develop/commission a logo. A logo is the main, most single, element of your brand! You should choose it carefully, or commission it to someone who has the experience and you are trusting! I use different designers for some of my designs and logos, but in this case, I preferred to designed it in-house (yep, the logo is designed by me and for now I think I am going to keep it for a while.) For a more professional approach you can choose services as the 99designs and the designContest.
- Get a theme can support you at your goals. A theme is a very important asset to your toolbox because it provides a constant “look-and-feel“ of the content you want to share at your site! The theme also provides more capabilities to the author, when enhancing the basic WordPress functionality with extra features, like social media buttons, sharing options, etc. In this site, I have used a professional responsive theme, the ProStyler Theme, which covers all my basic blogging and online business needs (for now)!
- Get the basic plugins for the “up & running“ of your site! The plugins are essential for any WordPress-based site because they enhancing its main capabilities with many new features. They also integrate seamlessly with third-party services as the Disqus for integrating comments and the Akismet for basic comments spamming control, are! Such basic plugins for a new site are:
- Develop your basic pages. Every site should have some content! Any new site should at least have some pages with content which will describe the why, how, what, etc., of the particular site! These pages are not only the ID of the site, are also the initiation of a vivid communication of readers with the author! These pages are basic to the startup of any online activity and contribute to a maximum degree to the effective launch of your site! Such, basic, pages might be the:
- “Start here“ Page
- “About“ Page
- “Subscribe“ Page, and, of course,
- “Contact“ Page (to be found and communicate with)
Of course, you should include any other page(s) provides value to your message, to your business and to your site (i.e. work with me, consulting, pro bono offers, etc.)!
- Develop and post content which will provide value to your audience! When you start a new blog (or a new online presence), you should continue at a steady pace and rhythm to provide value to your audience! Remember, you are there because you want to provide value more than else to people want to hear you. So continue to do it in a professional and a consistent way!
- Promote your work. The basic parameter to your successful online presence is the promotion of your work. You should provide excellent and valuable content and should promote it in any way you can in order many people benefited from your work. If you will not do it yourself, no one would realize that you have developed something of value! Sometimes, in this section, you may need some extra help by people with more experience to the social media game and systems to organize better your efforts (as the Hubspot CRM is, for instance)!
- Select the basic marketing procedures and how you are going to implement them! Dependent on the profile of your site, your message, and your business, you should choose carefully the channels and the means which will use for the promotion of your new “online presence“. A careful planning is in order! Some media and channels might be good, others may not. You should plan carefully your marketing activities in relation to your goals and should choose only the best ones which will serve you best your case! In this step, some marketing-specific systems (like CRM, marketing automation, and email marketing systems) might help you organize and coordinate your activities. Such systems may be the HubSpot CRM, the Zoho, the Insightly, the Infusionsoft, the Act-On platform, etc.
Question: Do you have a successful online presence or not? Do you think the online presence is a core component of your online success or not? How do you define the online presence? Please comment, here!