Ever since COVID has hit the world, entrepreneurs have been struggling to cope with its palpable financial constraints. While many people might have dropped the idea of pursuing their business ideas, some are still striving to survive and thrive in the new normal environment. According to a recent report by LinkedIn, it has witnessed 10 percent growth in members with the title ‘founders’ or ‘co-founder’ on their profiles.
On the occasion of World Entrepreneurs’ Day, GoDaddy is sharing some tips, to help boost this growing entrepreneurial zeal among Indians and help them navigate challenges as they move along their digital business journeys.
- Creating and visualizing a domain name
Choosing the right domain name is the first step in building a unique online identity for your business in today’s fast evolving digital world. A website’s domain name has a direct impact on search engine optimization (SEO), so be sure to keep it short, easy to remember and corresponding to your business or products/services that you offer. Having a good hosting provider can also help guide you to the perfect domain name for your business. An appropriate domain name extension is also critical to online success. A good option is .in or .co.in as it helps describe your business is located in India or locally in the region. You can also chose you domain extension (TLDs) based on what your business does, for example, if you have a commercial business you can use, .com, .co or .biz, if you run an organization, .org, or .net. Other TLDs include .edu for educational sites, .gov for government use, .in, .uk etc for country codes.
- Building an online store
With change in consumer behavior and increase in the number of digital buyers every day, the possibilities of selling products online have become endless. Without the need for advanced technical skills or coding knowledge, ecommerce website builders today have made the process of setting up an online store much faster and convenient for new entrants. Get a website with an online store that’s simple to set up, looks great and lets you sell anything, anywhere. Companies like GoDaddy offer an all-in-one Websites + Marketing solution that includes a wide selection of easy-to-use DIY website designs and built in marketing tools to help your business go live and get found in all the right places in a matter of minutes. If you’re looking to customize everything down to the pixel, GoDaddy also offers WordPress website coupled with an online store powered by WooCommerce, giving you endless possibilities for growth. From payments to product displays, you can customize virtually everything.
- Marketing on a budget
When starting a business, it is extremely important to set aside a small budget for marketing. It can help promote your brand and help people to learn about your business and its products and services. Early stage business owners often neglect this and keep no resources for marketing. They can consider some affordable and easy ways including email marketing, loyalty programs, and content marketing, among others, to help reach potential customers in today’s competitive market. Adding to this, social media marketing can also be one of the most viable solutions for startups to promote their business. Keeping this in mind, GoDaddy has made it easy for first time digital entrepreneurs to integrate their business website and social media seamlessly and create an integrated, holistic customer experience across channels. If you’re a beginner, a non-designer and not technologically proficient, with GoDaddy studio, you can prioritize visual social media content and can create impactful posts through thousands of customizable templates.
- Preparing against security vulnerabilities
For an emerging entrepreneur looking to start a business online, website security should be of utmost importance to maintain customer trust and to ensure smooth business operations. Consider investing in the right security solutions for your business and maintaining regular automatic backups and encryption solutions for important files and sensitive data. You can also start by training your employees about all the security solutions you have/are planning to deploy.
For small ventures, protecting against these threats may seem intimidating. GoDaddy has addressed this by introducing a simplified Website Security suite that provides comprehensive security tools, including SSL certificates, website backup and restore, firewall, malware scanner and CDN among others to help protect small business websites.
- Hiring a website professional
Identifying your strengths and weakness and seeking aid in areas where you need assistance, can help you be more focused on your business goals. Many entrepreneurs do not realize the importance of building and maintaining a user-friendly website and what it can do to help the growth of their online venture. If you feel you do not have the time or the expertise to get started creating your own website, you might want to consider hiring a web professional with the right technical and web development skills to successfully build and manage your online business. Website developers and designers are available on contractual basis and can give early age businesses the flexibility needed to maintain steady cash flow. Another important thing to keep in mind is the tools used by your hired web professional, to help deliver tasks in a stipulated timeframe. Platforms like GoDaddy are dedicated to support the developer and designer community with its all new Hub experience to help them take advantage of site and client management tools, product discounts, priority support and educational, all in one place.
