How to build your brand and start selling
Establishing a company and running your own business isn't easy and requires a lot of work and dedication. Before you list your brand and start operating, there are a number of things you need to set up and be prepared for.
In this article, we will go through some of the most necessary steps you should go through. Of course, every business is different and needs a different approach, but the aspects that we will be covering in this article are applicable to many business types.
Start by naming and presenting your brand
Name your brand and start working on its identity as soon as possible. This will allow your business to gain recognition fast while also sticking with your customers, which will then earn you recognizability.
Think of a memorable name
The name of your brand should be easy to remember. This is one really important decision you have to make because you don't want to spend time imposing a brand name only to then decide to change it due to poor performance and difficulties that your customers may face when trying to find you.
There are websites that you can use to help you with word combinations that could potentially generate a catchy brand name.
Additionally, you also need to make sure that the domain name is free as well as whether there are any social media pages that already exist with that name. There are many websites that can help you check which social networks are available to be registered with the chosen name.
Get a recognizable logo
After deciding on the name you will have to think about the visual presentation of your brand. You have to start working on the logo design as well as the color palettes behind your brand.
The logo and the name are the first things people will see when learning about your company for the first time so they must not only be memorable, but also instantly recognizable. This will get you exposure and ensure better customer growth.
General brand book & guide
After choosing the name and creating the logo, it is time to start working on your brand book. This is essentially a guide that each company with good visual presence and communication has.
The Brand book should include:
- Logo variations
- Color palettes
- Fonts
- Images that can be used and media kit
- Examples of images that shouldn't be used
When a decision is made in advance for each of the listed elements, the visual communication of the brand will be much cleaner.
People who work for you like content creators and graphic designers will have a guide to follow and server as reference, saving them time and effort in the process of creating visuals for your corporate images.
Choose your web hosting solution
After you have chosen the name, created the logo and decided on all visual elements of your brand, it is time to create your website.
Before you start building a site, you need to make another very important decision - choosing your web hosting provider. Then, you’d need to evaluate your options and choose the best hosting plan that will be the most suitable for your business.
Usually, your most common options would be to either go for shared hosting or a VPS server. There is also a third alternative - dedicated servers, which are useful for large ecommerce websites and sites with a lot of traffic.
Shared hosting - great for beginners
Shared hosting is one of the most popular choices for small businesses that are just starting their venture. However, there are both advantages and disadvantages to this hosting type.
The biggest positive of this kind of web hosting is that it is extremely cheap, making this hosting option highly sought after.
The greatest drawback, on the other hand, is that each server has a limited number of resources that must be shared amongst each and every website that is hosted on the server. This can result in your website being starved in terms of resources such as CPU power, RAM and storage, which ultimately reflect in poor performance for your website.
Overall, shared hosting plans are generally suitable for small websites such as personal blogs, portfolios, local stores and other website types that don’t expect to get a lot of traffic.
VPS - an optimal solution
The term VPS stands for Virtual Private Server - a powerful tool for not only tech-oriented companies, but also any other business.
The VPS service allows you to get your own virtual machine instance without having to buy your own physical server. If you are looking for a way to expand your business and accommodate a lot of traffic, consider getting a VPS for your website or application. VPS servers are also highly scalable, allowing you to buy extra resources when needed as well as to not pay for anything that you are not using.
You can also check out our VPS server plans and get the best performance for your website!
Dedicated instances - perfect for high-traffic websites
You've probably heard of the term VDS before. VDS stands for Virtual Dedicated Server. This is a server whose resources are not shared, but are rather reserved for only 1 website or application.
The most practical use for such a cloud solution are:
- Online shops with a huge amount of daily visitors and orders
- Large databases
- Applications that do a lot of calculations
- Heavy, interactive websites
- Media websites
You can check our VDS plans for one of the most reliable solutions on the market to power your website. The service we offer is based on KVM virtualization, which provides better isolation between users.
Start building the website - CMS or a custom solution?
Building a website is a process that takes time, effort and of course - money. Before choosing on what platform to create your online business, decide what kind of features you will need.
Do some research on what options the different platforms can offer in terms of building up your website at a later point. Even if you need basic functionalities at the moment, in the future you may need to expand. This may lead to the need for migration from one platform to another, which can suspend your business until everything is transferred, which is not desirable.
WordPress - the most popular CMS
WP is one of the most popular content management systems which you can use to build a website. More than 70% of the websites worldwide are built using WordPress. Why is that you may ask?
The system has a very easy-to-navigate dashboard used to add different elements to the websites. It is open-source which means that the source code is public and has a very active and helpful community.
Another positive side of the WP CMS is that users without prior technical experience can use it to build and support websites based on the platform.
Joomla - a viable substitution
Joomla is another popular open-source content management system that can be used for building websites and apps.
It has a powerful application framework that is used by developers to build sophisticated add-ons that can further extend the power of Joomla into a virtually unlimited number of directions.
Custom website - the best option
Getting a custom website can be quite a difficult process if you are going to be doing this by yourself as you need to be quite fluent when it comes to web technologies, design and optimization.
Because of this, you would most likely need to find yourself a team that will be able to build the custom website for you, which while expensive, will result in better overall design, more functionalities and better performance when it comes to search engines.
Visual presentation of your products or services
Having a good, desirable product isn’t enough to sell it. This is why it is crucial to think about how you are going to be presenting your products.
Photographs - old but reliable
When selling an item, the photographs of the product are of significantly high importance. People need to have enough visual material from which to decide if they want to buy a certain product.
Pictures must be of good quality, the product has to be shown from each angle, with some product photos having a clean background.
Video - great on the go
Videos are getting more and more popular lately. Such content is easy to consume and shows much more than the product description along with a few photos of the items which you want to offer to your potential customers.
This kind of content can positively influence your visitors and convert them into buyers. While it isn't easy or cheap to create professional videos, because they require a good camera and professional software for video editing, videos can definitely be beneficial.
Graphic design - express your products
Graphic design has always been an integral part of any company’s branding. It includes all printable and digital materials that one brand can propagate. It can make your social channels more lively and attract more attention to the company’s products.
Because of this, make sure to invest some time into creating a number of different promotional materials in order to advertise your business online.
Legal requirements
The creation of a business is always associated with a lot of documentation related to its legalization and payment procedures that allow customers to make convenient transactions, add shipping details and other administrative needs that have to be organized.
Accounting
Opening a company requires an accountant or at least someone who will keep track of all the company’s invoices, orders and payments.
These documents should look similar, so the branding of the company will be recognized.
Payment methods - offer alternatives
When your company starts to operate it's important to have at least two easy payment methods, so your customers will be able to pay via online transfers or cash.
We for example offer our customers to pay for their servers using Bitcoin and Litecoin. This doesn’t only provide them with an alternative, but also protects their privacy with these being just some examples of the advantages of paying with Bitcoin.
Shipping methods
If operating with physical products, you must have a number of different shipping methods. You either need to work with the local post office or start collaborating with some private logistic companies.
Your customers should be able to receive their newly purchased goods as fast and as secure as possible.
Craft your terms and conditions
Another necessary thing that your business must have is a terms and conditions section, located on your website or in any contract that you create.
You must conduct some careful research on the different legislation that your business will have to oblige by and then set some rules that your visitors will need to follow in order to keep everything legitimate and legal.
Overall, creating and imposing a new business on the market isn't an easy task but if you invest time, effort and some funds, you can definitely get your business up and running. Start small - you don’t have to immediately create a giant company.