Write a business plan

Writing a business plan is always a good idea to explain out what you want your ecommerce site to accomplish and how are you going to accomplish it. This plan needs to be very detailed, laying out exactly what your site will offer, to whom you’ll offer it, and how it will be accomplished. You can find examples of similar plans for what you’re doing online by doing a Google search for “writing business plans” and your niche.

There are a variety of places you can go to find sample business plans. Here are a few resources for business plan information, templates, and samples.

Free Business Plan Resources:

• Innovateur Free Business Plan Templates & Models
  
• Entrepreneur.com Business Plans
• SBA Small Business Planner
• My Own Business Sample Plans
• Bplans Sample Plans by Category
  
• Business Plans and Marketing Strategy

Other Business Plan Resources:

• ePlanit
• PlanWare
  

It is also a great idea to run a few final drafts past a focus group consisting of few close trusted family members, friends, or associates (make sure to block out any sensitive information related to your business.) It is best to find some people who are representative of your target audience so you can get the most helpful, targeted feedback possible on the plan’s strengths, weaknesses, grammar, content, and tone.

Improve your writing, improve your marketing!

Like it or not, the biggest part of marketing is writing. To submit an article, press release, advertisement, or any type of content to go on another site, first you need to write it, and it better be good to be effective. A lot of entrepreneurs get really hung up when it comes to writing articles to promote their websites, because they lack confidence in their writing skills. To make the process as easy as possible, I think it’s a good idea to break the writing process up into a few steps. Not only will this help you write better articles, but it will help you plan out your time so everything gets done on a time table that’s manageable for you.

1. Browse through other articles for examples

Basically, our goal here is to write some short informational pieces to post online. You won’t be writing term papers or a master’s thesis, so don’t stress about it too much. Start by going to a site like www.ezinearticles.com or www.articledashboard.com and find a category and subcategory that relates to your business, and start reading. Although they will definitely vary in quality, all of the articles posted on these sites have been accepted by Ezine or Article Dashboard, so you know they meet the minimum standards for approval.

Not only will reading other articles help you keep informed, but it will also help you feel more comfortable in writing. As humans, we’re natural imitators. We learn to talk from our parents, we learn to write after we know how to read. With my background in studying English, I heard a lot of statistics that the best writers are people who read a lot. I used to teach English as a Second Language, and one thing I would always tell my students is to watch a lot of English T.V. or movies to help them with their conversational skills. They would feel a lot more comfortable with speaking when they’d hear English spoken a lot. The same goes with the connection between reading and writing. If you’re reading a lot of articles from people who are good at what you want to do, you’ll feel a lot more comfortable writing those types of articles over time. Plus, you’ll learn a lot and have the satisfaction that comes with that knowledge!

2. Brainstorm topics to explore later

If you do this now, then every time you need to decide on a new topic to write about the work will be done already. Find the keyword phrases with a high demand and low competition and copy them to your list. Go to http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com and (results over 10) and Google (results under 3 million) if you need help determining this. For each keyword phrase, try to come up with a few ideas of specific spins on that topic you could write an article about.

From there, expand the list by thinking of subjects people in your niche may look up online. For example, if you run a landscaping website, think of various projects your customers may be working on. Think of the tools they use, what they should look for before buying a new tool or accessory, and what the popular trends have been in landscaping over the last few years. Think of recommendations you would make on what they should be doing at different points throughout the year to get a particular result. Use your experience in the industry, or your own questions about the products or projects to come up with ideas.

Keep or save your list someplace where you’ll remember it. That way each time you want to write an article, you can pick a topic immediately and run with it.

3. Focus on ONE keyword

Keep this ONE keyword in mind as you write your article and be specific . . . eventually you can write articles on dozens of topics, but for now, keep focused. Only use relevant content to that main keyword. Just as you did in the content for your website, you’ll want to use the main keyword phrase in the article itself while making the content flow. Try to get your keyword density up to about 5-7%, while using the phrase in different parts of your sentences (beginning, middle, end) so everything doesn’t sound the same.

4. Make an Outline

What items do I want to talk about? If I’m discussing the benefits of a particular product for my garden, what benefits are there?

5. Think of an attention-grabbing intro (Make it interesting so people will read on)

5. Start writing!

Let it flow! You can come back later and rearrange things and to fix your grammar. If you struggle with this, try to think like you’re explaining something to a friend face to face.

6. Then, go back and do your editing

If you don’t feel comfortable with your writing, pick up a grammar guide at a local bookstore or do some searches online. Always run your article through a spell check and grammar check to make sure things are right.

7. Put the most important information towards the top

Not everyone will have the patience to make it all the way through your article.

8. Keep the length to about 400-700 words

Although most submission site only require at least 250 words. 500 words is about a page, so that’s not that long. If you’re up to 700-900, you may as well split it up into two articles to get more out of it.