Based on the provided search results, here is a comprehensive site audit checklist:
Domain Factors
Domain Name: Verify the domain name and its registration details.
Domain Age: Check the domain age and its impact on SEO.
Domain History: Review the domain’s history, including any previous owners or notable changes.
Other Domain Factors: Evaluate other domain-related factors, such as domain extensions, subdomains, and parked domains.
Page-Level Factors
E-A-T: Assess the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of the content creators.
Headlines: Review headlines for relevance, accuracy, and optimization.
Keyword Cannibalization: Identify and address potential keyword cannibalization issues.
User Engagement: Evaluate user engagement metrics, such as bounce rates and time on page.
Content Length: Assess the optimal content length for each page.
Content Factors
Schema Markup: Verify the presence and accuracy of schema markup.
Site Architecture: Review the site’s architecture and navigation.
Organic Click-Through Rate (CTR): Evaluate the CTR for each page.
Content Organization: Assess the organization and hierarchy of content.
Technical SEO Factors
Crawlability: Verify that the website is crawlable by search engines.
Indexing: Check the website’s indexing status and identify any issues.
Robots.txt: Review and optimize the robots.txt file.
Sitemaps: Verify the presence and accuracy of sitemaps.
Image Optimization: Evaluate image optimization, including file names, alt tags, and compression.
Website Updates: Monitor ongoing website changes and identify potential issues.
Link Profile Audit
Link Acquisition: Evaluate the quality and relevance of incoming links.
Link Disavowal: Identify and disavow toxic or spammy links.
Link Building: Assess the website’s link building strategy and opportunities.
On-Site Technical SEO Factors
Page Speed: Evaluate page speed and optimize for faster loading times.
Mobile-Friendliness: Verify mobile-friendliness and ensure a responsive design.
SSL Encryption: Check the presence and configuration of SSL encryption.
Additional Tips
Regular Website Audits: Schedule regular website audits to identify and address issues proactively.
Professional SEO Tools: Utilize professional SEO tools, such as Ahrefs or Semrush, to streamline the audit process.
By following this comprehensive site audit checklist, you’ll be able to identify and address various technical, content, and link-related issues, ultimately improving your website’s SEO and search engine rankings.
EXPLANATION OF TERMS USED AS IN VIDEO ABOVE;
My Site Audit Checklist explaining the following steps I will analyze this service is requested.
Robots.txt Explanation: A search engine bot views the Robot.txt file before crawling a site. It gives directives on how to crawl (or not crawl) the website. For one, it contains instructions about folders or pages to omit and other critical instructions. As a good practice, it should also link to the XML sitemap so the bot can find a list of the most important URLs.
XML sitemap Explanation: Live list of all the pages on the sites; best practice for Google to maintain a record of pages on the site.
HTTPS Explanation: For “secure” sites, Google Chrome shows if a site is “secure” or “https” with green lettering a lock image in the address bar.
Mobile Friendly Explanation: More than 50% of searches come from mobile and Google takes how the website looks on mobile into consideration.
Page Speed Explanation: Google has found searchers prefer fast websites. Page speed improvements can lead directly to improved visibility on Google.
SEO Tag Health Check Explanation: A series of “tags” should appear in the section of the website so that Google can properly “index” the website. These include: title, description, canonical, robots.
Crawling Explanation: Google crawls the web with bots, executing links. It’s important to code the site in a way to make the content accessible. Overuse of JavaScript, broke links, or requiring user action to reveal content are some of the ways that disrupt crawling.
Rendering Explanation: How Google displays the content on the site.
Indexing Explanation: Once Google crawls and discovers pages it stores them in its index.
On-Page Optimization Explanation: The extent that the site utilizes keywords in key on-page areas, like meta and header tags, and content. Keyword research is a prerequisite to this step so you know what you’re targeting.
Relevance Explanation: Supporting content on category pages help searchers learn more about the product and help choose the best available product for their needs. Consider the user experience of the person coming in from the targeted keywords.
Schema.org Explanation: Code that gives semantic meaning to the content, e.g. a telephone number, or a “product.” In certain instances Google uses this code to enrich a search listing with Star ratings, event info, etc.
Faceted Navigation Explanation: For catalog sites, how filter/sort functions are presented.
Accessibility Explanation: Alt images, text not images, progressive enhancement principles.
Authority Content Explanation: Content that helps build authority on the topic. Targeted “how to” “best” or “tips” content. Attract searchers during all phases of the “customer journey.” For catalog sites, how filter/sort functions are presented.
Accessibility Explanation: Alt images, text not images, progressive enhancement principles.
Authority Content Explanation: Content that helps build authority on the topic. Targeted “how to” “best” or “tips” content. Attract searchers during all phases of the “customer journey.”
Bounce rate is a metric used to measure the effectiveness of a website in terms of user engagement. It’s calculated by dividing the number of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page by the total number of visitors that arrive at your site. In other words, it shows you how many people “bounced” away from your website after viewing one page.
What is a good bounce rate?
It depends on your industry, where your traffic comes from, and what type of page it lands on. According to HubSpot, the average bounce rate for most websites is anywhere from 26% to 70%. Moreover, the average bounce rate for a B2B website is 56%, while the average bounce rate for a B2C website is 45%.
However, it’s important to note that these figures vary by page type, with blog posts having a higher bounce rate of around 65% and ecommerce pages averaging 33%.
Data from Contentsquare seems to contradict SmartBugMedia’s 33%, as the latter found that the average bounce rate for ecommerce sites was 47%.
In any event, the reason a blog or news website might have a higher bounce rate is that visitors may have come to read a specific article and then leave. Conversely, an ecommerce website would want a lower bounce rate anyway since visitors are more likely to browse and make purchases on multiple pages.
As a general guideline, a bounce rate of 40% or lower is considered good, while a bounce rate of 55% or higher is considered high and may indicate that improvements are needed to engage visitors and encourage them to explore more of your website.
But it’s important to keep in mind that every website is unique, and there may be other factors that influence bounce rate.
It’s important to note that these benchmarks are just general guidelines and may not apply to every website. It’s also important to consider other factors, such as the quality of your website’s content and user experience, when evaluating your bounce rate.
Bounce rate vs. exit rate
It can be easy to get these two concepts confused. Exit rate is the percentage of people who leave a particular page after visiting any number of pages on a website. The bounce rate, on the other hand, is the percentage of people who land on a page and leave that same page without taking any further action.
That’s why it’s important to understand what type of content works best for your site and how people are interacting with it, so you can make the necessary changes to optimize your bounce rate.
How to find your bounce rates
To calculate your website’s bounce rate manually, you’ll need to know the total number of visitors who entered your website (also known as “entrances”) and the total number of visitors who bounced (i.e., left your website after viewing only one page).
Bounce Rate = (Total Number of Bounces / Total Number of Entrances) x 100
For example, if you had 1,000 visitors to your website, and 500 of them left after viewing only one page, your bounce rate would be:
Bounce Rate = (500 / 1,000) x 100 = 50%
So, in this case, your website’s bounce rate would be 50%.
Please note that bounce rate is just one metric to consider when evaluating your website’s performance. You should also look at other metrics, such as time on site, pages per session, and conversion rates, to get a more comprehensive understanding of how users are interacting with your website.
What does bounce rate reveal about your website/page?
The bounce rate can tell you a lot about how your page is performing. It reveals whether or not visitors are engaged with your content and if they view other pages on your website after landing on the initial page.
A low bounce rate is a sign that your page is doing its job in inspiring visitors to explore more pages on your website, while a high bounce rate indicates that something is off and needs to be adjusted.
It also provides some hints about the kind of content you’re offering: Is it relevant, interesting, or useful? Are there too many ads or pop-ups? Is the page load time too slow? Is the user experience design intuitive and aesthetically pleasing? All these things can affect how people interact with your site, so it’s important to look at what the bounce rate reveals about your website/page.
Remember, the bounce rate is only one aspect of many quantitative data points; thus, it’s essential to pair quantitative information with qualitative understanding from behavioral data platforms like Fullstory in order to get a comprehensive picture of your website’s performance. Customer analytics can provide deeper insights into user behavior, helping you interpret bounce rates in the context of overall customer journeys and interactions.
Understanding where and why people leave your website is key to optimizing your bounce rate. Analyzing how people interact with your website will help you understand what is and isn’t working so you can make the necessary adjustments to keep your visitors engaged and coming back for more.
There’s more than one reason why your bounce rate may be higher than you’d like it to be. Here are a few of the most common culprits:
Slow-to-load page
We’ve all been to websites that are agonizingly slow to load. It’s enough to make anyone hit the back button and look for a faster solution. And that’s precisely what most users do—they don’t stick around to suffer through slow loading times and bad user experience.
Misleading metadata
If the title tag and meta description of a page don’t accurately reflect the content, it might confuse visitors and lead them to click away in search of something more closely related to what they expected.
Blank page or technical error
It’s not unusual for websites to experience technical issues from time to time, including blank pages or server errors. Not only do these give your website a bad reputation, but they can also quickly reduce the number of visitors that stick around long enough to explore what you have to offer.
Under-optimized content
Low-quality content is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to high bounce rates. If your content is filled with spelling and grammar errors, overly long paragraphs, or irrelevant topics, readers won’t be inclined to stick around for long.
Poor UX
A website’s user experience (UX) is a huge factor when it comes to whether someone will stay on the page or not. If your website is filled with intrusive ads, annoying pop-ups, or auto-playing videos, chances are users won’t stick around to find out what else you have to offer.
The page isn’t mobile-friendly
With more and more people using mobile devices to access websites, it’s important that your site is optimized for these platforms. If your website isn’t optimized to look and work properly on mobile devices, then visitors will likely leave in search of a better user experience.
Remember—Google uses mobile data to determine search rankings, so mobile usability is more important than ever before.
Asking for too much
On certain pages, you may be asking visitors to do more than just read the content—like signing up for an account or filling out a form. If the page is asking for too much information or requires too many steps, then visitors may leave before taking any action; they’ll have perceived too much cost before perceiving value.
Understanding and optimizing your website’s bounce rate can help you maintain a healthy level of engagement with your visitors. So keep an eye on your analytics (Fullstory, Google Analytics, etc.) to make sure that your bounce rates are in line with what you expect from your website. With the right adjustments, you can keep visitors engaged and coming back for more.
How to lower your bounce rates
Improve page load speed
As mentioned earlier, page load speed has a major effect on bounce rate. If your pages have slow loading speed, visitors are likely to get frustrated and leave the site before they’ve had the chance to explore further. To improve page load time, focus on optimizing images, minifying CSS and JavaScript files, leveraging caching technologies, and compressing files.
The “Site Performance” report in Semrush’s Site Audit tool can help you get an overview of your website’s speed metrics, so you can see what improvements need to be made. And with a few simple changes, you’ll be well on your way to lowering those pesky bounce rates.
Optimize your mobile user experience
With more than half of online traffic now coming from mobile devices, if you want your website to be successful, it must stay functional on phones and tablets. Google’s Mobile Friendly Test is an easy way to double-check how your site looks on the go.
To run a quick assessment, simply right-click anywhere on the page you would like to analyze and select “Inspect” from the menu that appears—this will give you instant insight into what needs improvement!
The Mobile Friendly Test will also give you some tips on how to improve your website for mobile users, such as increasing font sizes and tap targets, reducing plugins and adverts, or enabling a responsive design.
By optimizing your mobile user experience, you’ll be able to give your visitors a more enjoyable and engaging experience—one that won’t end after viewing just one page.
Purposefully use internal links
Another way you can keep visitors engaged and reduce your bounce rate is by using internal links. Internal links are hyperlinks that direct users to other pages on the same website, as opposed to external links, which take them to a different website.
Using internal links can prevent visitors from bouncing away from your pages because it encourages them to click through and explore more of your content. A great way to do this is by adding a “related posts” section at the end of your articles, which will give users an additional opportunity to click through and read more posts that may be relevant to their interests.
Not only are internal links great for keeping visitors engaged, but they’re also crucial for SEO success. This is because they help Google find and understand all of the pages on your site, as well as help it figure out which pages are most important.
Make your content easy to read
This may sound like an obvious necessity, but it gets overlooked more than it should. It’s important to make sure your content is easy to read and understand. This means writing clear, concise sentences that are broken up into short paragraphs, and using headings and subheadings to break up long sections of text.
Additionally, you should use visuals like images and videos whenever appropriate since they can help keep readers engaged with your content and break up long blocks of text. You can use a photo editor to enhance the quality of your images, making them more appealing and professional.
Ultimately, the goal is to make sure your site visitors aren’t overwhelmed with too much information at once and are able to easily consume it.
Using readability calculators are a great way to start understanding how easy or hard your text is to read.
Satisfy search intent
Search intent is a crucial factor when it comes to decreasing your bounce rate. When someone searches for something in Google, they have a particular goal or intention in mind. If you can satisfy that goal quickly and accurately, they’ll be more likely to stay on your page—and even explore other pages within your website.
To accomplish this, start by conducting SERP (search engine results page) analysis. This will help you understand the kind of content that Google has already identified as relevant to the searcher’s keyword—and how you can create better content than what’s already out there (this will also help you in your international SEO rankings and search results)
Additionally, make sure your page titles and meta descriptions accurately reflect the content on each page so that users are less likely to “bounce” away in disappointment.
Use a table of contents
If you have long-form content on your website, adding a table of contents can be a great way to keep visitors engaged and reduce bounce rate. A table of contents allows readers to quickly identify the topics that are most relevant to them—and click directly to the sections they’re interested in. Plus, it gives readers an idea of what to expect, so they’re more likely to stay on the page.
Use interactive content
Interactive content is an excellent way to increase user engagement and decrease bounce rate. By creating interactive quizzes, polls, surveys, or games, you can keep users interested in your content—and encourage them to explore more pages on your website.
Show your credibility
Being credible is a key way to build trust with your visitors. Showcase customer reviews, ratings, and other social proof that shows how reliable you are. This will help make visitors feel more comfortable engaging with your website—and more likely to stick around.
Keep your blog full of fresh content
Creating and regularly updating content on your blog is a great way to keep visitors engaged. Post new content every week or two, and make sure it’s interesting and relevant to what your users are searching for.
Do some A/B testing
Running A/B tests on different elements of your website, such as page layout and design, headline copy, or even the color of a button, can help you figure out what works best for your audience.
Attract the right visitors
You want the right people visiting your website—people who are likely to buy or invest in you. Make sure your content aligns with their interests and the medium they came from, and that you’re targeting the right audience.
Include a clear call-to-action
Make sure your call-to-action stands out and that visitors know what you want them to do. You can use eye-catching buttons or text links or even videos and images to help people take the next step.
Use visuals to captivate quicker
People are more likely to stay on a website longer if they find the content visually attractive. Incorporate visuals like videos, infographics, and images into your page designs to give visitors something to look at and draw their attention away from the immediate desire to exit your website.
This article was sourced from: The Full Story Team – written on March 23, 2023
You’ve thought about it every year. You’ve gone over countless online business ideas in your head and imagined what your life would be like if you could quit your job and generate money on the internet.
You could travel the world with ease, create a comfortable lifestyle for yourself and your family, and achieve financial freedom. You could finally escape the constraints of the 9-5 lifestyle and own your time completely.
But then, what happens? Usually, you spend some time considering the ideas but ultimately resort back to your comfort zone.
The steady income of your secure job, the ease of having somebody else tell you what to do every day (instead of trying to figure it out from scratch), and the consistent schedule.
You tell yourself, “You know what? This year is a little too crazy. I’ll start that online business next year!”
But “next year” never comes.
We’re here to tell you that 2022 is the year you should start your online business. There’s more opportunity than ever, and you should take advantage!
To help you get started, We’re going to lay out 27 online business ideas. Read through them, see which you connect with, and start doing your research. Then get started with one, it’s that simple!
27 “Easy to Start” Online Business Ideas
Here is our list of 27 online business ideas for 2022.
1. Start a Blog and Monetize it
We talk a lot about how to start a blog on this website, and for good reason.
In 2022, it’s easier to start a blog than ever before, and your blog can also be a big potential source of income (if you know how to monetize it).
Keep in mind that you don’t just start a blog and expect the money to roll in. You need to create content consistently, and it also needs to be content that educates, informs, or entertains people. In other words, it needs to capture their interest in some way.
What’s more, you need to sell something through the blog. This can be ad space, products, digital products, sponsored posts, coaching, ebooks, etc.
But if you’re willing to put in the work and you’re in it for the long haul, blogging can be extremely profitable (some bloggers make $50k per month or more).Here are some resourcesto help you get started with your first blog:
Affiliate marketing is basically the process of earning a commission by promoting somebody else’s product.
There are two main ways most people do affiliate marketing:
Information products. You promote products like ebooks, membership sites, video series, etc. This type of affiliate marketing can earn you up to 50% or more in commission, has relatively low barriers to entry, and it’s easy to find products to promote.
Amazon partners. Many affiliate marketers have success with Amazon. There are literally millions of products to choose from, and it can be quite profitable. For more information, you can check out the Amazon Associates Program.
Quick side note: Before you start affiliate marketing, it helps to have at least a basic knowledge of SEO and copywriting (more on each of these later).
That being said, you can read a few copywriting books and look through the beginner’s guide to SEO from Moz to help you get started.Further reading:
Here’s the plus side: if you try to go the route of affiliate marketing, the best affiliate marketers are focused on 3 main niches; dating, weight loss, and making money online. You would have to compete with the best of the best, and it’s not easy.
With the e-commerce route, in many markets, you’ll be competing against old-school business people who may or may not have any internet marketing experience. Many of them have glitchy, out-of-date websites, which leaves you a lot of room for improvement, and you can capitalize on their shortcomings.
It’s still not easy by any means. It requires hard work, and you need to stand out amongst the hundreds of thousands of e-commerce websites and online stores. But by filling a unique niche and executing the right marketing techniques, you can make your e-commerce store a profitable success.
Here are some tips to help you get started with your e-commerce store:
Find a profitable market. Brainstorm some ideas, do keyword research, and try to get as specific as possible. For example, there is probably a lot of competition for selling surfboards. But if you narrow it down to surfboard racks, you may have a better chance of standing out in the market.
Ask yourself, “Is the product expensive?” There are costs associated with manufacturing, distribution, reselling, etc. If your product isn’t expensive (at least $50 or more), there may be no profit left by the time you sell the product.
Ask yourself, “Is the product in a growth market?” If your market has already passed its peak (i.e., the VCR market) and is on the downslope, you probably don’t want to get involved. Instead, you want to get into an industry that’s on the upswing – that’s where you’ll have the most profit and growth potential.
Consider building a Shopify store. Shopify is a system built for e-commerce. With some basic web knowledge, you can set up a good-looking store very quickly, with a low-cost investment and with no coding needed. Shopify has a 30-day free trial too, so you can get started without spending a dime.
Here are some additional resources for creating a successful online store:
Have you ever thought of writing a book, but didn’t know where to get started? All the publishing nonsense, editing, and formatting, marketing, etc.?
With Amazon, you can self-publish a book fairly easily, and really make money from it. There are some simple and inexpensive guides to help you write your book AND have it generate consistent income.
Here’s the secret sauce: If you can launch your book and get a few hundred sales in the first week, Amazon will take over and start promoting it for you. This way you can make some real money from it. It’s actually easier than it sounds, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
Here are a few tips for writing a book:
Validate the book by giving a survey to friends, an email list, and/or survey sites like PickFu. By validating your idea before you write the book, you’ll improve the odds of people willing to buy your book (and you’re not wasting your time by writing it.)
Create an outline and stick to it if possible.
Set aside at least 30 minutes to an hour each day to write.
Once the book is written and formatted, you can head over to KDP.amazon.com. Log in with your Amazon account, then under “Create a New Title”, select “Kindle eBook.”
Here’s a good strategy for your book’s launch week (to get 100+ sales):
Post a book excerpt on a relevant subreddit and link it to your book page at the end.
Post 1-2 guest posts during the launch week that link back to your book page.
Blast your email list multiple times.
By the end of the week, hopefully, your book has eclipsed the top 5,000 or 10,000 overall paid ranking. From there, raise the price to $2.99, and continue raising the price $1 at a time every few days until it stops selling (then, lower it back by a dollar). This will tell you the optimal price for your book.
(Here’s a case study of a book that used this strategy to launch successfully and consistently bring in $3-$4K a month in profit.)
5. Create a Digital Product or Course
Creating a digital product or course is similar to writing an ebook. You’re monetizing your expertise by teaching it to the others.
That being said, you don’t have the benefit of Amazon promoting your course. You have to do the promoting yourself through your own website, your email lists, and possibly through affiliate partnerships. You also need to create a compelling sales page that will convince visitors to buy from you.
If you don’t already have an audience, it might be better to self-publish on Amazon first. That way, you can validate your course idea, grow your email list (just make sure to have an email opt-in at the front and back of the book), and more or less create a rough draft of the course (since it will probably be similar to the book).Here are some additional resources to help you with an online course creation:
TheRiseToTheTop.com – David Siteman Garland’s website that’s helped thousands of entrepreneurs launch profitable online courses.
Monetize Your Expertise Podcast – Helpful episodes by online course expert Grant Weherley to help you start your fist online course.
6. Become a YouTuber
Videos are becoming more and more popular. From Instagram and Snapchat Stories to Facebook Live video, videos will only continue to grow. If you’ve always loved the thought of being behind the camera, now is the time you can take advantage.
Whether it be starting a vlog and getting ad revenue/selling products to your audience, or building a YouTube channel to drive more traffic to your website – 2022 is a great time to get started.
Not only will making YouTube videos help you tell better stories and provide more valuable content to your audience – it can also help you get profitable speaking opportunities.
The best part is, you don’t even need to go out and buy an expensive new camera – as long as you have a smartphone with a quality camera lens, you can start filming your first video right now!
It helps to have some coding knowledge, but it’s not an absolute necessity. There are plenty of software developers looking to collaborate with people on app creation.
Word of caution: the app market is saturated right now, so make sure you validate your app and do your research before investing lots of money in your idea.Here are some resources to help you in the app development process:
Facebook continues to expand and grow. Therefore businesses are spending more on Facebook ads. But here’s the problem: a lot of old school businesses don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to Facebook ads. Even newer companies don’t have the time it takes to learn the ins and outs so that they get the most return on their Facebook ads investment.
Consequently, they’re looking for Facebook ad specialists to step in and do it for them. Luckily, this is something you can learn fairly quickly. Once you do, you can reach out to businesses and offer to help create profitable Facebook ads.Here are some Facebook Ad resources you can learn from:
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) refers to getting a website to rank higher for certain “search terms” in search engines like Google. When a website ranks higher, it gets more relevant traffic and in turn, can make more revenue.
This is another highly valued skill in the internet marketing world. That being said, it can be a bit difficult because Google is always changing its algorithms. With it, some of the rules of search change. You always have to be on the leading edge, learning, and testing new strategies.
If you can master SEO, companies will always be willing to pay you for your help.
10. Become a Copywriter
Copywriting is the art and science of strategically delivering words (whether written or spoken) that get people to take some form of action. It can range from anything to sales pages, to email marketing, to even quality blog content.
If you have a natural inclination and passion for writing, copywriting may be your ticket to earning online income.
It’s a great way to achieve freedom in your life. Not only does copywriting allow you to work remotely, but it also allows you to control your schedule. Plus, learning the skill itself will help you in many areas of online business (i.e. building a blog, affiliate marketing, etc. – when you can write in a compelling way, all of these become much easier!)
11. Skype Coaching
Do you have an expertise that you’d like to help people with? Then Skype coaching may be a potential option for you. Basically, you hop on Skype and provide assistance to your coaching clients. This can come in the form of daily, weekly, or monthly calls.
There are Skype coaches for just about everything – life coaches, health coaches, dating coaches, etc.
Note: It’s much easier to market your coaching services when you also have a blog on your coaching topic.
12. Buy and Flip Domains
You’ve probably heard of people who buy and “flip” real estate, right? They buy a house for a relatively good price, fix it up a little bit, and then resell it for a nice profit.
It’s the same idea for buying and flipping domains. Whether it’s your own domain, or whether you’re looking to buy somebody else’s site and flip it, this can be a good source of online income.
You can use resources like Empire Flippers to both buy and sell your domains.
13. Start a Podcast
A podcast can be a great revenue generator.
As you grow your podcast, you can offer paid sponsorships and sell your own products and services. Through the podcast, you’ll be able to earn the trust of your listeners, which makes them that much more likely to buy what you have to offer.
14. Dropshipping
Dropshipping is when you create an online store to sell other people’s products (i.e you don’t do any of the manufacturing or shipping). Then, you get a commission for each sale.
The benefit here is that you don’t have to risk buying up stock in a product and losing money if it doesn’t sell. The entry barrier is lower and you don’t have to invest nearly as much to get started.
If you’d like to learn how to dropship, Drop Ship Lifestyle is one of the best resources to help you get started.
15. Freelance Pay Per Click Consulting
(These are PPC ads)
You ever saw those sponsored ads at the top of your Google search results? That’s Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising in action.
It’s a form of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Put simply, it’s a way of buying visits on your site.
If you can master this skill, you can offer the service to other businesses.
16. Sell Products on eBay
Sure it’s a bit old school, but people are still making lots of money on eBay. To start selling, you can do something simple like head to a local clothing store and buy some clothing on sale.
Then, you can list it on eBay for a higher price, and if it sells, you can reinvest the profit in more clothing and continue making more profit.
It requires some strategy and planning but is surely a profitable way of online business.
17. Become a Web Developer
A web developer is someone who knows how to build a website from the bottom up. In order to do this, you need to learn coding, which will take time and hard work. But if you’re willing to put in the effort, it can pay quite well.Here are some tips for learning to code and getting started with web development.
18. Invest Your Time in Graphic Design
Ever saw a beautiful sales page or a website design that really jumps out at you? That’s all due to a graphic designer.
Graphic designers are basically visual communicators. They design web pages, sales pages, logos, and really anything else that needs to look sharp.
To be a great graphic designer, you don’t need to be great at drawing, you don’t need a college degree, and you don’t need to buy a fancy expensive computer. But you do need to be a visual thinker, you do need to specialize in something, and you definitely need a portfolio.
19. Build Niche Sites
The idea behind a niche website is to target a specific niche (for example, a specific kind of photography), rank on Google for the keywords related to that niche, and then turn that traffic into earnings through affiliate offers or through selling your own products.
A lot of research goes into this – you should be ready for a bit of workload. If you create a good niche site, it can bring you an extra $500 a month or more.For further reading, check out this post from Sean Ogle:How to Build a Niche Site that Brings in $500 a Month
20. Start a Consulting Business
Do you have tons of knowledge in a specific field? Then you may have what it takes to be a highly paid online consultant.
As a consultant, you simply must apply the knowledge, skills, and experience you have in a specific field to help clients solve a problem or issue they have in that field.For further reading, check out this post from USA Today:How to Become a Highly Paid Consultant
21. Start a Paid Private Facebook Group
A paid private Facebook group provides you with the chance to create a highly engaged community.
It gives you a place to deliver your content, allows your community members to interact with each other, allows you to limit access to qualified members, and also allows you to moderate and control the group.
Note: If you already have a website and an email list, it’s easier to create a paid private Facebook group, but it’s not an absolute necessity.
22. Assist with Lead Generation
Businesses are always on the lookout for ways to create new leads. Leads, after all, are the lifeblood of businesses.
When you assist with lead generation, you basically play the matchmaker. You connect business with the leads for whom they can solve the problems.
23. Instagram Sponsorships
Do you love taking photos and dream of building up a great Instagram following? As you grow your following, more sponsorship opportunities will become available. For example, if your account is focused on fitness, you may be able to sponsor products like protein powder, supplements, etc.
24. Create SaaS (Software as a Service)
Google Apps, Dropbox, Leadpages – these are all SAAS.
SAAS is any kind of online software that you pay to get access to.
For this, you first must brainstorm/find an online service that people are willing to pay for on an ongoing basis. Once you create it, the challenge is to maintain it, which is not an easy task. That being said, it can be quite profitable if you can make it work.
25. Technical Writing
Ever wondered who wrote the instruction manual for that new TV? That’s the job of technical writers.
If you have a love for writing and like the technical side of things, then you may have what it takes to be a technical writer.
In 2022, starting an online store is easier than ever.
A few decades ago, creating a website wasn’t an easy task, especially for someone who wasn’t tech-savvy and didn’t know how to code. Nowadays, however, anyone with a computer and internet connection can launch an eCommerce business within a matter of minutes, all thanks to modern tools and website builders.
However, you have to decide on a couple of things before setting up your webshop; matters like what you’re going to sell, how to handle shipping and payments, and most importantly what marketing strategies to use.
Follow our step-by-step online store building guide and you learn how to start an eCommerce website quickly from scratch.Table of Contents
The first step that’s an absolute must-do is to pick your niche. As it’s often defined, a niche is a specific piece of a broader market.
Sorry if this sounds a bit too dictionary-like. Let’s break it down into simpler terms. Basically, when picking your niche, you have to decide:
What do you want to sell?
Who are you going to sell it to?
Why would they buy it?
These three questions may seem fairly obvious, but they’re actually far from.
Defining your ideal customer base and figuring out why they would buy from you will make your job much easier later on. The main mistake that people make is going too broadly in the hope that the bigger the potential market is, the more likely they are to get good sales. This is not correct.
If your target customer base is simply “people who breathe” then you’re going to have a hard time positioning your product in the market, promoting it, and explaining what’s so valuable about it.
Overall, focusing on one niche is better than going all over.
It’s best to start in an area that you already have a personal interest in, expert knowledge about, or passion for. It’s really hard to operate in a field that you know nothing about.
So, begin with your interests, navigate from there. Define who your ideal customer is, and what makes them want to buy the products that you want to offer.
A good starting point is to look at what your competition in the niche is doing. See how they position their products, who their customers are. Learn from that and build upon other people’s experiences.
2. Choose Between Dropshipping and Selling Your Own Products
Let’s start from the beginning by explaining two popular eCommerce scenarios:
Scenario no.1 is the traditional way of running an online store. In this model:
(1) you get products from the supplier or create them yourself → (2) you offer those products to customers via your website → (3) the customer buys the product → (4) you send the product to them
Here’s the dropshipping model:
(1) you start by listing the products on your website → (2) the customer buys the product → (3) the supplier sends the product directly to the customer
The main benefit of the dropshipping model is that you don’t have to hold any inventory yourself. This means that there’s no cost involved in making the products or storing them. In fact, everything you sell is pure profit since you only have to pay the supplier after you receive an order from your customer.
In the traditional model, you have to shell out money upfront to either obtain products from the supplier or get them created. You must do that before you can ever start selling them.
On the other hand, dropshipping won’t be for you if the products you want to sell are of your own production or need to be customized/personalized before they can be sold.
Overall, if you can, opt for dropshipping – and especially if it’s your first attempt to start an online store. Dropshipping is a great way to test the waters and validate that the products you want to sell are indeed something that customers will want to buy. Then, later on, you can expand and start offering your own products as well.
3. Choose the Exact Products to Sell
One of the great things about dropshipping is that there’s an abundance of different products to choose from in nearly every niche.
This is excellent news for businesses that are just getting started and don’t want to invest in their own product development. The overall steps are:
Research your niche. Examine what sort of products your competitors are selling, and what their best-selling products are.
Go to content sites on the web to find what type of challenges, products, or things in general your target audience reads about.
Go to niche-related forums and see what your customers talk about.
Search on Google with keywords most relevant to your niche.
Go to Amazon and do similar research. See what products sell well.
With all this research, you can now go to some popular markets and start looking for specific products you can sell.
The biggest market of this kind is AliExpress. It’s a regular eCommerce marketplace by most standards, but it also allows you to establish relationships with merchants and offer their products as a dropshipper. Go there and look for products that are in tune with the research you’ve done, and also seem like something interesting-enough for your customer base to enjoy.
We recommend getting started with between 10-50 products. This will give you more than enough stuff to make your store complete and also not overwhelm you with what’s going on as you work with the store on a daily basis.
When you’re putting together a list of products, keep the following things in mind:
Make sure that the product is available for shipping in locations where your target audience is. Also, the lower the shipping costs, the better.
Check the shipping times and make sure they don’t exceed what you would consider acceptable (we leave deciding what’s acceptable and what isn’t to your judgment).
If possible, avoid brand name products (you don’t want to depend on being able to sell Adidas sneakers, for instance).
It’s a common practice for dropshipping stores to set their margins at around the 50% mark. Meaning, when looking for products to sell, focus on the ones that are half the price compared to what you want to sell them for.
As we mentioned earlier, having a list of 10-50 products is suitable for a start. We’ll use that list later on when importing the products to your actual online store.
4. Come Up With a Business Name and Register a Domain Name
Choosing a domain name for your store is undoubtedly the most fun part of the whole endeavor. People love to name things. Especially businesses.
However. The name you end up with can have a lot of significance for your future success and ability to market the business effectively. Here are the things to keep in mind when brainstorming a business name:
Pick a Name That’s Easy to Pronounce
Imagine yourself talking to someone over the phone and needing to mention the name of your store. Do you have to spell it out for the other person to understand?
If you do, the name is too complex. Go for something simple and easy to pronounce on the first go.
Pick a Name That’s Easy to Memorize
This relates to the previous point, somewhat. Apart from being easy to pronounce, your name also needs to be easy to memorize.
You can achieve this in a couple of ways. Going with a completely made-up word as your name is one solution (think “Google”). Alternatively, you can put together two words that do have real meanings but create something original when put next to each other (think “Face-book”).
Pick a Name That’s Brandable
Your name should be original enough so that people won’t mistake it for any other similar business.
For example, if you want to name your pizzeria “Pizza Den” but there’s another business in town called “Pizza Pan” then it’s not a good name.
Pick a Name That’s Short(ish)
Not longer than a combination of 2-3 words. Any longer and it’s going to be harder to remember and less brandable.
Don’t Use Any Special Characters Or Numbers
Also forget about dots, underscores, dashes, etc.
Pick a Name That is Available as a .com Domain
The .com is the most popular and most important domain name extension of the bunch. If you’re brainstorming a name, don’t go for something that doesn’t have a .com domain available.
Best Domain Name Generators – Still stuck with choosing a domain name? Check out this article of the best 15 domain name generators that can help you out.
Finally, it’s time to build an actual online store.
Here’s the best part: you can do it all on your own, there’s no professional help needed, and you don’t have to sacrifice the quality of the final outcome. Your online store is going to be just as functional and just as good-looking as if it was built by a pro.
To make that happen, we’re recommending using WooCommerce.
Note: Before you can start building your online store with WooCommerce, you first need to create a website. For this check out our step-by-step tutorial on how to build a website with WordPress.
The last piece of the puzzle when attempting to start an online store is accepting payments from customers.
By default, WooCommerce allows you to accept payments via PayPal. You don’t need to do much in order to enable this payment system either. You likely already took care of it during the initial WooCommerce setup.
That said, you can choose a different payment system, or even use a couple of alternative systems at the same time. One of the reasons for this might be that some of your customers will prefer specific payment methods over others. So the more of them you have integrated into your store, the more sales you’ll get.
Two of the most popular additional payment methods for WooCommerce are Stripe and Square. These are particularly good choices if you want to accept credit cards (which you surely do).
Both Stripe and Square are free to get started with. However, like with every payment method, there are additional fees imposed on every transaction made (it’s the same with PayPal), so just be aware of that.
Getting a new payment method installed in your eCommerce store is simple. Those payment systems are all delivered as WordPress plugins, so you can install them the same way you installed WooCommerce.
After that, each payment system comes with its own setup procedure. Most of the time, though, all you have to do is sign up for an account and verify your details.
7. Start Marketing Your Online Store
There are many different things you can do to get the word out about your store, but we’re going to focus on just four here – the four that are the most likely to work in 2022 and going forward.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a relatively new way to promote your store. Most of it is done on Instagram.
The way it works is this:
Find people popular in your niche or recognizable for whatever reason.
Reach out to them and ask what their rates are for promoting products like yours. Also, pay attention to the size of their following and ask about the number of engagements they get under similar posts.
Agree on a run of two or three promotional posts, and send them your products.
Paid Ads
Paid ads basically don’t ever fail. If there’s a market for something, and you target that market with ads, you will get some sales.
The most popular platform for advertising your products is Google AdWords. Getting started with them is relatively easy, and Google has its own guides to take you through the initial steps.
Social Media Marketing
While Instagram certainly is the most on-trend social media network of today, this doesn’t mean that it’s the only place where you should promote your store.
Online store ASOS on Instagram
In fact, you should be present in all the places where your customers are likely to hang out. This, in the modern-day, means most of the popular social media networks. Or, at the very minimum, the top ones like Facebook, Twitter, and optionally Pinterest (if your customers use it).
Your approach to all these networks will be similar, but the goals and the way you construct your messages will be different.
The first thing you should do is research what your competition is doing and how they go about promoting their stores. Take note of their strategies and tactics, and see what you can adapt to your situation. Chiefly, pay attention to:
the type of messages they post
the posting frequency
how often they promote their products directly
what’s their general voice and how their messages make you feel
Next, set your own goals as to what you want to achieve through social media.
Most commonly, those goals should be building brand awareness among customers, and only occasionally promoting your products, and trying to generate direct sales. If you push your stuff too much, you’ll alienate people quickly.
The next step is setting a publication calendar in place and preparing some social media posts in advance. You can then publish those posts with the help of tools like Buffer.
Content Marketing and SEO
Nowadays, content marketing and SEO are the most effective methods to promote any website (including eCommerce stores).
The idea behind content marketing is simple: you give people insights on topics related to your business and thus generate interest in what you have to offer.
For example, if your store sells winter socks, then you can offer people advice on things like how to pick ski socks. You can deliver that advice in the form of a simple blog post. As people read your content, they also get introduced to your store and the socks that you have in your catalog.
The same principle can be adapted to any market or niche. Find out what people want to know and then create content that delivers that info to them.
When doing so, optimize your content so that it’s more discoverable via Google. It’s reported that Google is responsible for 94% of total organic traffic on the web.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
