Are you starting or running your own online business? Perhaps you are a vendor (or want to be) through the Homesteaders Co-op? This post is the first in a series of posts all about the basics of an online business. In this post I (Daron from @wildhomesteading) will help you understand why it is important to have your own email list and your own site for your online business.

I will add if you are just causally selling a few products and don’t plan on really doing much with it in the long run then you can just use STEEM and other sites. But if you are serious about running your own online business you should have your own site and your own email list.

Let’s start with focusing on why you need your own site for your online business.

Why Having Your Own Site is Important

A snapshot of the homepage for my business

There are so many options these days for creating your own online presence. You could make an account on any number of social media sites, you can create an account on STEEM, there are other micro-blog sites like Medium, and of course there are sites like YouTube and Amazon.

Plus, you can be a vendor on the Homesteaders Co-op which is awesome!

Each of these can provide you an opportunity to reach potential customers and make sales. So why do you need to have your own site? I mean making your own site can be challenging and is generally not free (though it can be setup cheaply).

Why not just use sites like STEEM or Medium?

The biggest reason is that you don’t own any of these sites. One day the rules could change and your successful business could no longer work. Plus, visitors to the sites don’t really get to know your business and its brand.

They will likely just see your site as one of many on whatever service you are using. It will also be harder to rank on search engines like google for keywords related to your business if you rely on one of these services.

But if you own your site then you have a lot more control over it. The rules can’t change on you overnight and visitors to your site will start to recognize your own brand. Plus, you can focus your site and the content on it around keywords that are important to your business.

Overtime which sites are popular will change. Right now there is talk about breaking up some of the big companies like Facebook and Amazon. Remember MySpace? What if you built up a presence on one specific site and then it was broken up or lost out to the competition? If your audience and all your content is on that site it will be very hard to move to a new one.

But if you have your own site and say Facebook is broken up or your audience stops using it then you can fairly easily switch to a different site—say STEEM! Your content is on your site so you can start posting it to the new site and your audience already knows to follow you through your own site so you will loose fewer of them in the transition.

A great option is to create a site on Wordpress and host it through one of several hosting services. This will give you full control over your site to set it up and run it the way you want.

You still have the option to create accounts on STEEM, Facebook, YouTube, Medium, etc. But these are not your core site but instead are places for you to reach your target audience and engage with them in order to get them back to your site.

But once someone visits your site how do you get them to come back? There are many ways but a core piece of the puzzle is your email list.

Why Your Online Business Needs an Email List

My email list growth since starting my business a bit over 6 months ago.

There are a ton of sites on the internet and starting a new online business can be very difficult. How do you stand out? And if someone comes to your site how do you get them to come back?

Providing great content alone is often not enough since most visitors are visiting for one specific purpose. Perhaps your site can help them out but once they get what they need they are likely off to watch whatever video is trending and may very well forget about your site.

When you buy something on Amazon how often do you pay attention to the vendor that is actually selling the product? Or do you just think hey I’m buying this from Amazon? Many of the products are actually sold by online companies (vendors) but rarely do we notice.

So having your own site helps people to recognize your business brand but then you have to get people to come back to your site. This is where the email list comes in.

When someone visits your site you want to give them the option to sign up to your email list. Most people won’t signup but between 3 and 10% will. Overtime, this will let you build up a community that like what you offer and will come back to your site.

These people are also the most likely to buy your products.

Mailchimp is generally the option people start with for their email service provider. But there are many others like the one I use called Convertkit.

Without an email list you will struggle to build your online business. It really is core to running a successful online business. But I will add most emails you send out can simple provide awesome content. They don’t have to be promotions. But those emails will let you build your community which is the most important part of your online business.

Creating a Resilient Online Business

Make sure you build a solid foundation for your online business just like you would for a new structure on your homestead.

Once you have your email list then even if your site goes down (through hacking, or issues with your service provider) you still have the ability to contact the most loyal members of your community. Your business is resilient. As a homesteader I’m sure you can understand why this is important. We all want our homesteads to be resilient to shocks but we also need to make sure your online business is resilient too.

Your email list can follow you between sites, between services, etc. It makes it possible to restart your business if the worst happens.

But you also need your own site to direct people to.

Both of these together will let you run a resilient online business that can give you the freedom to live the homesteading life you have always dreamed of.

I hope you have enjoyed this first post in my new series about the basics of an online business. I hope these posts can help the vendors with @homesteaderscoop but these tips should help anyone with their own online business or anyone thinking about starting their own online business.

I will be contributing to @homesteaderscoop on a weekly basis moving forward. Every Wednesday I will make a post either in the business series or about homesteading. Next week will be about homesteading.

Thank you and see you next week!

---

First image on post used with permission from Pixabay

---

Follow me for more posts all about homesteading, working with nature, and growing your own food: @wildhomesteading

And check out my blog - www.wildhomesteading.com for weekly in-depth posts on working with nature to grow your own food and start/build your homestead.

---

Our Free, Community Marketplace

Shop with pride: Our vendors are committed to sustainability for a healthier planet. As a Co-operative we are community run. And unlike other marketplaces our vendors are not charged fees or commissions. Vendors: Learn more

Support Our Alternative Economy

• Purchase handmade products and ethical services at homesteaderscoop.com
• Join the conversation in our Discord chat room
• Donate to our Fundition crowd-funding project; Help us keep our marketplace FREE!
• Delegate Steem Power: 10 | 20 | 50 | 100 | 200 | 500 | 1000

Logo design by FireFly Creations - illustrator & artist available for commission