The primary objective of any business is to generate revenue. You don’t need to obtain a diploma to know this.

But what are the essentials needed when you’ve had an epiphany and wish to bring an idea to fruition?

Where does one start when wanting to develop a website that’s intended to sell products or services online? While this may seem like a mundane question to some, there is still boat loads of people out there in this big wide world struggling to pinpoint how to jump on board.

The following points are the foundation of what the essentials are to start an online business.

Product
If your offer is unique, fabulous as you won’t need to do too much research seems you’ll have little to no competitors. But this is not something commonly found. Most online businesses have competitors biting at their heels constantly. Therefore, in-depth research of your product or service offer needs to be done. Use keywords to seek out your potential competitors and know what you are up against before leaping into the deep end with no floatation device.

Domain
Coming up with an intuitive and unique domain name is one of the most challenging steps when creating an online entity because the options available with the dot com extension are “slim pickings”. This therefore means you must think outside the box to enable your business to have a fighting chance. Keep in mind, the domain you choose doesn’t have to involve a real word as so many have proven over the years such as “Google, Twitter, Amazon, Reddit etc”.

Hosting
All websites online require hosting. Whether you’re going to go with a platform service that makes both the site development and hosting all inclusive or you’ve got a development team ready to create your site from scratch, a hosting provider is the foundation of ALL websites and a necessity.

Website Development
If you’re opted to build your own website from the ground up, then both front and backend development is needed. Doing this requires enough resources to pull the project together and ensure that things are done in a timely, yet professional manner. Alternatively, there are many premade templates out there which that are cost effective and efficient when first starting out.

Payment Processing
If you’re just starting out with a minimal budget, a 3rd party processor is likely to be the optimal solution for you. Using a 3rd party processor relieves you of the responsibility to acquire your own merchant account and gateway but comes at a much higher cost. When kick starting your business, this is the suggested way to get going. But be advised, in the grand scheme of things, you will want to have more control over the generation of sales for your business and having your own merchant account gives you far more control at drastically less cost therefore bringing your profit margins higher. 

Traffic Generation
Regardless of what your product or service is, your website holds no value if you’ve not got traffic being driven to it. There are numerous means to generate traffic with the primary leader being SEO (search engine optimization).
Other options include but are not limited to social media marketing, paid banner and video advertising, email marketing, article or blog submissions, YouTube channel and more.
Depending on your line of business will determine how you should approach your marketing efforts to generate traffic to your site.

Whether you have business experience or are just starting out, the things mentioned within are the essentials needed to start your online business.