We live in a time when the online presence becomes more and more present. Regardless of what business you are engaged in, moving online will be a great way of promotion. Especially considering that the covid pandemic has reduced the mobility of a vast number of people, finding ways of broadening the audience using all means, in particular online presence, is a winning strategy. So, let’s break down the process of moving your business online in Europe.
First steps
The first thing you have to consider is actually the strategy of transition. Transitioning online is not the easiest, but it will become much easier if you break it down into a few more simple steps. To begin with, this may include:
Take care of your site
There are many ways of being present online nowadays. You can use social media, channels, and groups in messengers like Telegram, etc. to communicate with your potential customers and keep them updated about products and services you offer, organize meetings via Zoom, Discord, Google meet, etc., send newsletters on emails. All this depends on the type of your business, your strategy, and the services you offer. However, the best thing to coordinate your actions online is to have a solid base you can always link your clients to, that provides them with a handy interface that can give them everything they might need from you. This something is a website.
Building a website is not an easy task and consists of numerous steps, so let’s have a closer look at them.
Budget
To start something you have to realize what your possibilities are in the first place. The more money you invest in your project, the more impressive your project can become in the end. Eventually, you can create an impressive project without a very flexible budget, but you have to estimate it first anyway in order to make it clear which possibilities are available to you.
Creating or renovating your website
If you are interested in how to move your business online, you probably, haven’t got a website yet or it has to be renovated. There are many types of websites and many ways of creating them. Which one you choose depends on your needs and your budget.
You might need a simple landing page to attract your potential customers, give them a quick review of the services you offer, and, probably, invite them to some event or place, or get their email to start sending them newsletters.
You might need a web blog to provide your customers with regular updates in form of informative articles.
You might need an e-commerce website to sell goods and services.
You might need a streaming service to let your customers consume media that is hosted on your website.
You might need something else that combines elements of the above-mentioned web solutions.
You have to make up your mind about how you are going to create your website. If you are looking for a cheaper and simpler solution, good for simpler sites like blogs or landings then you might want to use one of the available site builders like Squarespace or Wix. If you need something more complex and sophisticated, you might want to hire a web designer.
You should keep in mind that this option is expensive and time-consuming, so you should prepare yourself well, planning the numerous aspects of your project as well as your budget.
Hosting solution
One of the key components of creating a successful website is finding the right hosting solution for it. Hosting is the service offering hardware that is running all day every day to provide the uninterrupted operation of your website. There are different hosting solutions, all with their specificity and particularities making them better or worse for particular clients. Selecting the hosting solutions depends on the type of website that is to be hosted, the capacities that it requires, the security requirements of the customer, and, of course, their budget.
Hosting is that is to say the physical base of your site, and this base has to steady and correspond to the form of your site. Let’s have a closer look at the hosting solutions that are usually offered by hosting providers.
Shared hosting
Shared hosting means that you share the resources with numerous other customers on one single “paternal” server. Sharing resources presupposes a kind of anarchy, as there is not much control over who gets what, and if numerous customers need many resources at the same time, the general performance of sites on the shared hosting may sink down. That’s why shared hosting is usually considered a low-budget hosting solution for sites with lower requirements regarding performance and security, which suits businesses that only start their online presence. More advanced businesses are recommended to opt for a more safe hosting solution.
Dedicated server
A dedicated server, on the contrary, is an entire physical machine that is handed to the client. This one provides you with the maximum power a server can possibly give, stable and secure operation, and flexibility regarding the management of your server, installing operating systems, apps, etc. The only disadvantage is the costs, which are also the highest among available server options. Anyway, if you have enough financial resources and an ambitious project, then we highly recommend you to check out HostZealot’s dedicated server in Europe (more information by the link).
VPS
A Virtual Private Server is a kind of compromise between a dedicated server and shared hosting. Like shared hosting, it provides the customer only with a part of the capacities of one physical machine, but at the same time, these resources are dedicated with the help of virtualization technology, that provides you with dedicated-server-like advantages – stable and reliable performance, your own operating system and IP. It is of course not so potent as a dedicated server, but it’s much cheaper, which makes it the best option for most smaller and mid-size companies.
Conclusion
Transitioning online may be an important step for many modern businesses. We hope that this guide made things a bit clearer for you. Stay tuned!