Step 1 - Incubation on Web

  Incubation on Web for Small Business

  Step 1:  Incubation on Web

Incubation on the web starts with creation of right web address for your business.
Traditional businesses and companies always had the trouble in understanding where to start, when it comes to promoting their business using the power of Internet - especially now in the age of Social Media and mobile & tablets. How much should i spent online? and more importantly where to start?

If you are an entrepreneur and are looking to spend every penny wisely towards promoting your business using the power of Internet, below is a ready reckoner that can act as a step-by-step process to take your company from Incubation on Web to WoW on cloud. 

Where to Start? 

        Get a Free Listing on top online directories portals
       The smartest way to get noticed on the Internet for almost free is to get listed with top online business directories. Start with a free listing as we are just in the first week of Incubation on Web.
     
        Decision to be taken is, whether to get listed with b2c directories or with b2b directories?

        If you want retail or end customers to reach you, get listed with b2c, but if you are into buying or selling wholesale, get listed with a b2b directory so that, other businesses can find you.

        [B2B/B2C is nothing but a short and sweet name given for Businesses trying to find other Businesses or End customers]
       

1st Week - What do i need to get listed? 

1. All you need is a valid email ID to add your company on few trusted portals, .
2. A business Email on your own domain, will surely add more credibility. but let us not get into all directions right way, so use your personal email id and get listed if you don't have business email. 
3. Enter relevant and valid data, with correct address about your firm. You may not get the time and energy to correct the mess created from wrong data entry :)

Remember to get started with a free-listing alone(don't pay for the listing during the stage I of Incubation), as we are in the first week of Incubation stage. 

    Where to get my company listed?

1. To know the best b2b websites in the world, search 'B2B portal' in google and click on the first few entries, and click on Join Free to Add your company. For B2C, you can get your company listed with Google Places and Yahoo Local.
2. In India, B2C portals like JustDial and Sulekha are considered to be having strong presence in cities. But a paid listing with these portals are very expensive, and i don't recommend going ahead with paid listing, we can look at paid listing at later stages.To get started with a B2C listing, you can get your company listed with Google Places and Yahoo Local, cheap and easy and it does work too.
3. Top few companies that i found in the search for global B2B portal are www.toboc.com and www.alibaba.com (For more info on choosing the right B2B directories, please click here
4. Remember that, the description/Business Information that you type in while adding your company and more importantly, the words present in the description are used by Google or other search engines to reach your company, so do spent quality time in writing the right description, it will be worth the time spent, guaranteed. 
5. As a next step, Add the products/services that you intend to provide on your Public profile, here again be careful while adding the information about the product/service, the clearer the better and the more detailed the better. Better to even indicate the service timings or minimum order etc.

2nd week - Get Business Email; Add more details about Company and your Products/Services;

1. Yes, getting a business email is part of Internet Incubation Stage. I am not prompting you to have a website of your own yet, but a business email on your own domain. Domain costs are below 10$ per year, so it is cheap, no excuses :)
2. Add the new business email to directories selected in week-one.
3. Please do make it a habit to login to your b2b and b2c accounts once every 2 days, respond to inquiries if any received, an active profile is more credible in the eyes of your customers.
4. Watch your business email Inbox and ensure there are no issues/disapproval related to the content that you have posted.
5. Subscribe to Trade Alerts, Read help articles on How to Sell or Buy online or How to Promote your company itself.
6. View the community forums, and understand what other companies are upto, and how they achieved success.
7. Track Number of visitors coming to visit your profile, most website builders and b2b portals, do provide this feature
8. Remember, you may not find many inquiries yet, as you have just done a basic free listing and your profile is still fresh in the world. it takes time for the world to start trusting your company online.
9. Keep logging into your business account with the b2b and b2c portals, and update and improve the profile description and product description. Add more product details and post more images. You can also add a small video- that is shot using your mobile/camera.
10. Ensure information-and phone # details are accurate.
11. Last but not the least, it is very important to be honest and what you write about your company. 

Never try to become over-smart and try to push incorrect content/images. Online directories, Internet users of the world and search engines like Google can be very harsh to a company whom they think are not trust worthy. To sum up, honesty pays in the long run-don't aim for short terms gains.

3rd week - Aim more 'Discover-ability' on the Internet

By third week, in the Internet Incubation stage, you should be working on some more clever ideas to make your Company more 'Discoverable' on the Internet - Remember, even from your locality, there could be probably tens and thousands of companies offering the same or similar services and products, that you are offering, so you have to do some real good work to come on top of Google Search.

1. Quality content: Expert help is available from professionals who can write quality content (Content Writers who can write the content using the keywords that your visitors or customers are likely to Search in Google to reach a business like yours) that can attract quality visitors to your profile and products that you have listed 'online'. 
2. Towards this, start spending money wisely for business promotion online; Golden thumb rule - Start small, but have multiples channels of promotion, monitor the number of on-line visitors from each channel and make Incremental investments  for the channels that work.
3. My recommendation is Not To sign up with SEO Service companies at the Stage 1 of Internet Incubation, you are not really ready yet to understand the Value/Non-Value! that they could bring. So, to start small, check and find if the b2b portal that you have registered in week 1 allows, a one month- or pay as you go subscriptions for SEO services, do not commit the whole amount for an entire year subscription upfront, pay only for a month or two, as you are eager to measure the progress.

Wondering what is SEO? don't worry, let me try to explain that quickly -Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Services, is now specialized field of work with experts who knows what content, keywords and digital content is more likely to found by search engines like Google. Since, you may not have in-house SEO experts, better to rely on SEO experts.

       After 3rd week, make a note of  'which page of Google Search' your company/product is appearing, for a given text (keywords) that mentioned in your company or product description. Don't worry if the results are not good yet, when we move to Step 2 we will do this measurement again!