As a small business, developing an effective, robust and engaging online presence is more than putting up a blog or a website. Many isssues come into play. Find below some of the questions/issues that you have to consider before starting the development of your online presence. It is important to emphasize that here we are talking of the minimalist approach to implementation. For instance you do not necessarily have to create a massive backup infrastructure for your small business – you could use a good and free backup tool to backup your data to a free cloud storage area like Dropbox. If you already have a presence, how does it fare against the list below?

Your small business

• What is the nature of your business?
• What role does IT play in your business?
• How do you want to render your presence online?
• How sort of investment do you intend to make in your online presence – in time, money, personnel

 

Online Customers

• What is the scope of your market? It is local, regional or global? Is it a mix of these?
• Do you have a brick-and-mortar presence?
• Where are your current customers?
• What type or kind of customer are you expecting to find online?
• What sort of interactions are you expecting to have online?
• Do you have an estimate of the number of possible online transactions?
• Do you know where to find customers online?
• How will you engage them?
• How will you retain them?

 

Marketing

• What sort of marketing do you intend to do online?
• Will your online marketing complement your brick-and-mortar component? Will it be standalone?
• What sort of mobile marketing do you intend to undertake?
• Will you develop a business specific app?
• Will you be involved in any joint venture? What type?

 

Product and services

• How well do you understand your business in the context of online delivery
• Which of your products and services will you be offering online?
• Which of your processes and procedures can be rendered online?

 

Online income

• What sort of income do you expect from your online presence?
• Is this going to be transference of brick-and-mortar transactions?

 

Online Infrastructure

• Will you build a website?
• Will you run a blog?
• Will you run a forum or support group for your online business?
• Do you intend to compile a customer list?
• How do you intend to monetise such a list?

 

Social Media

• What sort of social media will you be involved in?
• Facebook?
• Instagram
• YouTube?
• Twitter?
• Google+?
• Etc.

 

Small Business Branding

• Do you intend branding your business?
• What will you be branding anyway?
• How do you intend to achieve this?
• Do you already have a unique name or image for your product or service?

 

Security

• Have you considered the security implications of being online?
• How are you going to protect against hacking and other online intrusions and dangers?
• What sort of security strategies are you going to put in place to protect your online business?
• Have you considered a Disaster Recovery Plan? It is more than insurance – when disaster strikes you will be glad you did.
• Updates to your online systems

 

Backups

• Tracking and Reporting
• Will you be compiling data about your online presence?
• How are you going to analyse the data?
• How are you going to use the data to enhance your business online

 

Communication

• How are you going to engage with your customers?
• How are you going to engage with your suppliers?
• Will you automate your email communications?
• How are you going to handle feedback, complaints, requests and suggestions?
• Will you use a helpdesk? What kind?

 

Administration and Support

• How are you going to manage your online presence?
• Will you employ an administrator or support person?
• Will your online presence be developed and maintained in-house or outsourced?
• Do you really know what questions to ask of developers and suppliers?

 

Challenges

• Have you considered growth of your business?
• Have you considered the difficulties involved in building a successful online presence?
• As your development proceeds or matures many more issues will pop up – what strategies will you use to manage such issues?