Ellie Richards, Author at SiteProNews Breaking News, Technology News, and Social Media News Fri, 08 Dec 2023 23:34:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.9.10 5 Business Ideas with Almost Zero Investment https://www.sitepronews.com/2023/09/22/5-business-ideas-with-almost-zero-investment/ Fri, 22 Sep 2023 04:00:00 +0000 https://www.sitepronews.com/?p=131374 The goals of any business are to provide stakeholder value and generate profits. However, some business ideas (particularly those in industries with high entry barriers) may take a long time to achieve such objectives. As a result, it may be prudent to choose a business idea that requires little to no upfront investments. In this […]

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The goals of any business are to provide stakeholder value and generate profits. However, some business ideas (particularly those in industries with high entry barriers) may take a long time to achieve such objectives. As a result, it may be prudent to choose a business idea that requires little to no upfront investments. In this short guide, we have prepared five accessible business ideas in different industries. Highlighting that following a zero-investment business strategy is not just wishful thinking and you could quit your 9 to 5.

1. Selling Customised Clothing

At the first glance, selling clothing seems like a cost-intensive idea requiring business owners to accept inventory storage and management costs, logistics expenses and customer management costs. However, with the emergence of sites such as Threadless or RedBubble, all of these expenses can be simply outsourced to an external provider. All you need to do to receive profits is create a free account, upload several topical and unique designs, and manage your payout system.

You might think that coming up with new print designs would require you to be especially creative or be highly familiar with digital art. However, you can always use print or font templates to create quick mock-ups related to topical events such as the Christmas holidays. You won’t even be required to invest in purchasing software for producing digital art. While suites such as Photoshop are undoubtedly powerful and widespread, there exist free open source alternatives such as Krita and GIMP. Moreover, both of these tools come with easy-to-use help services and extensive digital documentation.

2. Writing Books

Until recently, writing and publishing books was considered a highly cost-intensive business for creative people with endless patience and tolerance for unusual working hours. With the emergence of websites such as Blurb, however, the rules of the game have changed significantly. In essence, Blurb works exactly like Threadless but for books. You delegate all the publishing and logistics costs to Blurb; all that is required is for you to upload a cool book design. Incidentally, you might not even have to write anything as Blurb can publish books consisting exclusively of visual imagery.

Using Blurb or similar websites does not necessarily require you to have a super-creative mindset. For example, if you dabble in photography, you may decide to publish a book of reference images for artists consisting of photos of different objects in different lighting setups. Depending on your interests, this may require some investments in the equipment or software required to create content for Blurb. Nonetheless, you should be able to quickly recoup these expenses and turn a solid profit within the first year of your business operations.

3. Sell Handcrafted Products

Continuing our theme of outsourcing logistics costs and sales management expenses to third-party providers, you may choose to use platforms such as Etsy to sell handmade goods. Sure, producing something handmade requires at least some sort of investment into raw materials such as paper, clay or cloth. However, these costs are minuscule compared to what you would be required to pay if you choose to keep all business activities (including logistics and inventory management) in-house rather than outsource them to external partners.

Of course, using Etsy or similar platforms reduces your profit margins. Nonetheless, such marketplaces offer several advantages going beyond purely financial considerations. Etsy, for example, includes a formal system for resolving buyer-vendor disputes, significantly decreasing the significance of reputational risks that face small-scale businesses. Furthermore, third-party marketplaces are easily integrated into nearly every widespread payment system on the planet, simplifying accounting and financial management. Outsourcing control over your operations may be a counterintuitive solution but it’s working great for Etsy’s multi-million user base.

4. Livestreaming

Livestreaming has been slowly but surely becoming a highly lucrative industry for those who can pull it off. The recent leaks from Twitch, one of the world-leading providers of livestreaming services, indicated that popular streamers were able to earn upwards of $4 million a year. If this sounds appealing, livestreaming is definitely something to consider.

While livestreaming requires few upfront investments (e.g., procuring a high-quality microphone or a web camera), it’s definitely not an easy job. When livestreaming, you’re required to produce high-quality content at all times without a lot of opportunities for breaks. Think of it as hosting a talk show for several hours straight. Sounds exhausting? Sure, but if you’re an extrovert and you’re an expert in your chosen field (which may range from video games to social sciences), becoming a live streamer may just be a thing for you.

5. Becoming a DIY Worker

Compared to other options on our list, becoming a DIY worker (or a handyman) can seem like the odd one out. However, the home repairs and improvement industry has been growing steadily in value within the past few years; presently the size of this market is approximately equal to $450 billion. If you’re not averse to manual labour, entering this sector might just be the thing to secure your long-term financial prospects.

In terms of up-front investments, you may be required to procure high-quality tools and equipment. Nonetheless, this issue can be resolved by turning to the second-hard market. Handyman tools typically have extremely long lives so even second-hand equipment may last upwards to 15-20 years. Before the rise of online education, the only way to attain DYI worker skills was to attain the relevant trade schools. As of right now, however, you can turn to online course aggregators that host highly informative video lessons for a fraction of the cost of traditional in-person education.

Starting a business post-pandemic may seem a bit scary. But if you play your cards right, you may create a highly profitable business with little financial risks. Creating your own business can also lead to attaining financial freedom and providing a great remedy to any anxieties related to money. We hope that the above list has demonstrated that you can effectively maximise profits while still being able to rely on an effective financial safety net.

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How to Understand Your Conversion Rates and What They Mean for Your Website https://www.sitepronews.com/2020/07/23/how-to-understand-your-conversion-rates-and-what-they-mean-for-your-website/ Thu, 23 Jul 2020 04:00:55 +0000 https://www.sitepronews.com/?p=109119 What is a conversion rate? A conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who take action on an offer presented on the website. This action converts visitors into customers and holds huge importance for businesses to boost their returns. Depending on your website, the desired action on an offer can be signing up for […]

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What is a conversion rate?

A conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who take action on an offer presented on the website. This action converts visitors into customers and holds huge importance for businesses to boost their returns. Depending on your website, the desired action on an offer can be signing up for a trial, downloading an e-book, making a purchase, subscribing to a service, downloading an app, booking a demo, etc. One of the most common examples of conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who buy one or more products on an e-commerce website. Suppose an e-commerce website observes 100,000 visitors in a month out of which only 3,000 visitors purchased a minimum one item from the website. Here the conversion rate of the website would be 3%.

As conversion rate indicates the success of any business, it is important for marketers to offer lucrative web design with appealing offers to gain the attention of the potential audience. Website conversion rate is one of the most important metrics used to measure and improve any website’s performance. Usually, it is calculated by finding a percentage between the total number of defined conversions and the number of website visits. However, depending on the aim of a website and its business type, a conversion rate can also be calculated by using a segregated number of visits aimed at the targeted segment.

Different types of conversion rates

One of the best features of conversion rate is that marketers can use it specifically to measure and improve the desired data and examine any kind of website performance. Some examples of conversion rates that are commonly used by different businesses are as follows:

  • Overall conversion rate – measures the website performance in converting traffic from any source.
  • Marketing channel conversion rate – evaluates the rate at which traffic from different advertisement campaigns such as AdWords or Facebook Ads is likely to convert.
  • Campaign conversion rate – Based on the different campaigns used by a business, this conversion rate helps to analyse if the targeted campaigns have been successful in improving the desired outcomes.
  • Page-level conversion rate – used to evaluate which webpages perform better in converting traffic to leads.
  • Keyword conversion rate – This conversion rate analyses which keywords perform better than the other keywords. It also helps find out the most used keyword which the audience uses to discover a specific product or service.
  • Individual ad conversion rate – Based on the different types of ads, using an individual ad conversion rate, businesses can evaluate the types of ads which bring in more qualified traffic.

While these are some of the widely used conversion rates by different types of websites, a business can define their own conversion rate based on their analysis and areas of improvement. However, businesses who fail to use conversion rate are likely to lag behind as this is a critical metric for understanding the performance of every aspect of digital marketing. Moreover, instead of focusing on getting more clicks on a website or webpage, businesses must focus on encouraging website visitors to take action which is favourable for the business. 

How to track conversion events

Depending on a business and its goals, conversion events can be tracked by counting the number of website visitors who take the desired actions. Usually, there are two options used to track the conversion events: counting a specific visitor only once, regardless of the number of purchases made within a given timeframe or by counting each time a person makes a new purchase. However, to maintain consistency, after determining the appropriate rule, businesses must ensure to follow the same type of tracking method for counting the baseline number of visitors. Higher conversion rates indicate the remarkable performance of the website and also show how efficiently a website performs in developing its strategies and addressing its audience. 

Furthermore, conversion rates can vary considerably depending on the type of business, industry, products, services, traffic quality and the conversion action used for tracking. Thus, rather than judging your conversion rate based on someone else’s protocols, you must identify which events qualify towards good conversions rates for your business. Based on these events you can specifically design your marketing campaign. 

What do conversion rates mean for a website?

For websites, converting visitors into potential customers and potential customers into actual customers is not an easy task. It needs thorough planning and well-established strategies to bring leads to a website and convert them into customers. Conversion rate helps marketers understand the performance of a website and improvements which they can bring to make the most out of a website. A number of factors which often go unnoticed influence the conversion rate of a website. 

Thus, when a website is unable to generate enough clicks and conversions, it means that there are some loopholes in the marketing strategies and the website layout that need to be addressed. Some of the factors which greatly influence the conversion rate of websites are as follows:

Undefined goals

Websites who fail to define clear goals often fail to have a significant conversion rate. Depending on the type of your website, you must clearly define the actions you want your website visitors to take. Whether you are trying to sell a product or just want to capture the emails of your website visitors, keeping a clear goal will help you in analysing your conversion rate. However, if you have multiple goals then you can split your goals and create a strategy to prioritise and achieve all your goals.

Offer

For a good conversion rate, websites must ensure that they use an appealing way to offer their products and services to the customers. Since the internet is flooded with different products and services, it becomes difficult to offer something innovative and exceptional. Keep your target audience in mind, list the benefits of your products & services and tell visitors how your brand is different from your competitors.

User-friendly layout

Websites must ensure to provide a user-friendly layout which is easy for visitors to navigate. Encouraging visitors at every step of the sales funnel to reach the final stage can have a significant impact on your conversion rates. Additionally, having a responsive design that helps your website display properly on different screen sizes can significantly increase your conversion rate.

Quality of traffic

Although getting more traffic is a good thing, getting quality traffic which can easily be converted into leads can improve your conversion rates. Instead of wasting time and effort on irrelevant traffic, websites must focus on quality traffic and reduce the bounce rate. Your chances of converting visitors into customers are more likely to increase when a visitor is interested in your product or service. Thus, continuously keep a check on the quality of traffic to ensure a good conversion rate.

Conclusion

Conversion rate is an ever-evolving process and can work differently for different businesses. Thus, it’s important that websites understand which factors influence their conversion rates and which strategies will work best to improve their conversion rate. 

Moreover, focusing on your goals while upgrading your website as per the latest trends and adopting appropriate strategies will eventually help you in increasing your conversion rate.

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