The Steps We Took To Start a Web-Based Business During COVID-19

We are independent musicians who primarily rely on our income and traffic from live performances, networking, and social media. Due to COVID-19 and social distancing, we were both forced and inspired to start our own publishing company for both music and books, as well as start doing shows online. In this article, we want to share the steps we took to start a web-based business and alivate our online presence while being quarantined.

Here are the steps at a glance:

• Fill a need based on what’s most important now
• Work from home at a low cost
• Write copy that’s most helpful and current
• Design and build an easy-to-use website 
• Establish a reputation as an expert in your field
• Drive traffic to your site 
• Follow up with your subscribers and increase your income

What’s involved with starting a web-based business during the times of uncertainty like the COVID-19 crisis? Here’s the step-by-step process:

FILL A NEED

What’s most important now? What solutions are people looking for right now? Whatever they are searching for on various search engines should give us a clue. Based on overwhelming evidence, the following are the 3 priorities:

1. Health & safety – Staying ahead of the virus through social distancing, masks, and safer-at-home measures are what’s most important. Creating a product, whether physical, creative, or informational, could fill an immediate need. These needs could range from making masks to providing fun diversions to keep ourselves sane through the quarantine. Music is our way to both keep ourselves and our fans sane.
2. Income stream – Due to worldwide closures across many industries, unemployment and lack of an income stream is a huge problem. Finding creative ways to make money has become a survival strategy. Helping others learn how to make money right now and/or providing means for them to do so could give you an edge. 
3. Staying connected – No less important than the above two is to not lose touch with our loved ones and/or what connects us to who we are, what’s most important to us, and to the universe at large. These connections can come in many forms—our families, our spirit or religion, and our creative outlets. Creating a business that helps us to stay connected in any of these ways could also be a godsend. 

WORK FROM HOME AT LOW COST

If life hands you a quarantine, start a web-based business from home. Our current situation has tied most of our hands to embrace the online format of doing business. Even if we’re just starting out, now is the time to use our limitations to our advantage. Here are some benefits of working from home:

• Low overhead. By working from home, not only are you not paying for office space but you can deduct a portion of utilities. To start a web-based business initially, won’t cost you much. As you grow your business and start getting income, you can start getting fancier with your needs. Read our How to Become Both a Music and Book Publisher article, the section on what it costs to start a publishing business to get an idea.
• More time to get things done. You have time to write a strong copy, build a website, establish your expert reputation, drive traffic to your website, and follow up with your subscribers (see below for more details). You also have time to try and fail many times over and then try again. You can also make a schedule that fits your needs and not your bosses. 
• No commute. Besides saving money on gas and the planet from air pollution, the commute can take a big toll time-wise and even emotionally. No traffic or road-rage or ragers to deal with. No need to get ready early to beat that traffic, decreasing the stress that comes with getting somewhere on time.

WRITE COPY THAT’S MOST HELPFUL AND CURRENT

What do people want and need to hear? Your web-based copy should revolve around the topics discussed most often at a time like this such as the health and safety, income stream, and staying connected. Once you establish your particular strength or interest, write a copy for your product or informational article in the following manner:

1. Create a compelling and concise title or headline.
2. Lead in with a few sentences to describe your product or article that solves the current problem and gives people confidence that your product is or you are right for the job.
3. Answer the question or provide testimonials from people who have used your product. 
4. Give readers a reason they should continue reading or buying by offering benefits to the user.
5. If you’re writing an informational article, create subheadings and provide further details with different formatting or pictures. You can look at the articles written here as examples. If you’re selling a product, make an offer while providing a strong guarantee.
6. Provide additional information by anticipating what the reader will ask next or create urgency for your product and ask for the sale.

DESIGN AND BUILD AN EASY-TO-USE WEBSITE

With so much information and products available in today’s internet world, you don’t want your website to bog your business down in any way. In fact, the attention span of most visitors is 5 to 10 seconds. Here are some things to keep in mind when building a website:

• Pick a theme that’s easy to read and navigate but still interesting.
• Choose easy to read fonts against the white background. 
• Make your pages and navigation clear and simple. Keep it consistent on every page.
• Follow directions your platform gives you for making your site more web-efficient.
• Only use audio or video if they enhance your message.
• Make subscribing easy on every page. 
• Make it easy to find your next or similar articles and/or the products you’re selling by putting them on the sidebar.
• Make checking-out customer-friendly with no more than two clicks. 

You can get help from our graphic designer to build and design a website that works.

ESTABLISH A REPUTATION AS AN EXPERT

The most effective way to establish an expert reputation is by providing information and/or products that people want and need. Here are some tips on how to do this effectively: 

• Give away free, valuable content. The more useful information you give away, the more likely people are going to trust you and come back to your site. Providing relevant information during the COVID-19 crisis can give your website an edge at this time. 
• Be an expert in your field. For instance, if you’re starting a publishing web-based business, then know everything about the publishing business. See our article on How to Become Both a Music and Book Publisher as an example.
• Make yourself an expert on other people’s sites, forums, and social networking sites that cater to your target market. 

DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE

With a web-based business, traffic to your online store or site is the most important aspect to growing your business. Here are the most effective ways available today:

• Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is the most known and easiest way to get people to your site. It allows you to get immediate traffic, test different headlines, keywords, and selling approaches, and distribute your best keywords throughout your site. 
• Provide valuable enough information with headings and subheadings that answer people’s most-searched-for questions. In the time of COVID-19, the headings adhering to the current world problem is likely to get more hits.
• Provide multiple services on your website that people find valuable such as a directory, a way to submit or be featured on your site, and buy a variety of products. If you have more than one aspect of your web-based business, then you will get more visitors. 
  Yes, we are primarily musicians, but with so many other great artists out there, we have to get creative on how to get people to come to our site. Writing these articles and featuring other artists are some of the ways that we’ve found to get more traffic.
• Share the link to your website across social networking sites, other people’s websites, and forums. 

FOLLOW UP WITH YOUR SUBSCRIBERS AND 
INCREASE YOUR INCOME

It’s easy to get so caught up with what we don’t have that we forget about what we do have. Our current fans, customers, followers, and friends are our best resource for starting and growing our web-based business. Here are the benefits of following up:

• Starting with warm leads is the best way to get your business going. Invite the people you know to visit your website and see what you’re offering. Grow with friends of friends. Word of mouth, in other words, is still the best way to reach far and wide online. 
• Staying connected with your established community is not only helpful in growing your business but helpful to your community in times of need like the COVID-19 pandemic. You know best what’s most needed in your particular community right now. By following up, you can let them know what you have to offer. 
• Your subscribers can become buyers. They are building a long-term relationship with you. By giving you their emails, they are asking more of what you’re selling, be it information or something to buy. Email marketing is direct, effective, and the cheapest form of reaching out to your existing fan base.

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