Content Strategy | Entrepreneur

How to Start an Online Business Now – Your Year 1 Online Business Roadmap

HEY THERE!

I’m Hailey – content strategist and founder here at Your Content Empire where we help you create more profitable, purposeful and productive content — and hopefully enjoy yourself more while doing it too. Learn more about me here >>

Let’s Connect

Prefer to watch instead?

In this post, I’m walking you through how to start and grow your business from scratch in one year by walking you through an organized and clear 12-month roadmap.

Month 1: The Set-Up

Okay, you’ve decided to jump in (yay, you!!). Month one is the time to lean into that get-started excitement and ride that momentum as you begin bringing all your ideas together in one plan (a business plan, that is).

Priority #1 – Create a Simple Business Plan

Here are a few things your business plan should include:

Your business name
Your website domain and social media handles
Your legal setup (LLC, sole proprietorship, etc.)
Your vision and values
Your first offer
Your ideal client or customer
Your positioning and peers in the industry
Your start-up and anticipated monthly budget
Your profit plan
Your time budget (start-up and ideal ongoing)
Register your business and business name

Priority #2 – Create a simple brand and website

I see so many new business owners go way too far out of pocket creating and designing the “perfect” branding and website. But so much can change in your business within the first year and what you like at the beginning will likely look completely different by the end of the year. So I recommend bootstrapping your branding (you can customize templates) and with so many easy-to-use website tools and templates out there you can DIY a website to get you started easily.

Here’s your simple branding checklist:

A logo – choose a text-based logo by customizing a template from Canva or CreativeMarket to get you started
A color palette – 1 main color, 2 accent colors, 1 dark neutral (for text) and 1 light neutral for backgrounds (again you can find something on Canva to customize)
Fonts – 1 body font (easy to read), 1 header font, 1 accent font (optional)

Then create your simple website:

Find a template for an easy drag-and-drop builder (like Wix, WordPress Divi, WordPress elementor, LeadPages, SquareSpace, etc.)
Sign up for a domain and hosting
Set up your website
Install your template
Set up a homepage (begin with a page template and customize)
Set up an offer page (begin with a page template and customize)
Set up an about page (begin with a page template and customize)
Set up a contact page (begin with a page template and customize)
Set up a blog page (begin with a page template and customize)

Priority #3 – Set Up Accounts

Finally, set up your brand accounts:

Set up social media accounts with your brand names (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.)
Set up your email address with your domain
Set up a free Google Drive account
Forward your email address to your free Google account (you can also sign up for a Google for Work account but it isn’t needed at this point)
Sign up for a free MailerLite account and confirm your sending email address
Install Google analytics on your website

For the most part, these priorities can be completed in a weekend each and can be done fairly affordably. I estimate you’ll spend between $100-$400 on this phase depending on where you live and the templates you choose.

The one thing I do recommend “splurging” on is a P.O. box since you have to have your mailing address at the bottom of your emails and I personally don’t like having my actual address all over the interwebs. It’s up to you!

Month 2: Become Offer-ssed

Month two is all about creating your first offer and getting it ready to sell like hotcakes.

If you already have your offer, great—focus on getting it sale-ready. If you don’t have an offer yet, some easy offers to start with are:

A simple productized service – design a simple service package that delivers a specific result (i.e. setting up an optimized Pinterest account, creating a lifestyle-specific meal plan) and as you deliver it, create templates and shortcuts to help you deliver a consistent result in less time.

Ongoing or service packages – design a simple hourly packages (i.e. 5 hours a month of website support, weekly coaching package) that you can systemize and streamline overtime or use as you develop other offers.
A digital product (courses, kits, templates) – create a small digital product that helps people achieve a specific result for themselves. Check out my digital product series here (part 1 and part 2) on how to come up with a topic and create your first product.

After you dive headfirst into creating your offer and completing it, it’s time to get it ready to sell. At this stage, you’ll want to focus on getting ready to sell by creating your…

Sales messaging
Purchase flow
Salespage or work with me page]

Check out part 3 of my digital product series on how to create an offer docket for your offer messaging, your purchase flow and salespage here.

Month 3: Keep It Sales System Simple

In month three, I recommend putting together a really simple evergreen sales funnel that you can use to start building an interest list and then inviting them to buy or sign up for your offer.

Before you start, map out what your sales process looks like to get an idea of where you’re going to get in front of perfect-fit customers or clients (you might need to do a bit of marketing research), what types of questions do they have or small problems you can solve with a simple PDF freebie and what is your point-of-sale (this will be the call to action for your follow-up emails).

Here’s a mini action plan (although you’ll want to customize this based on the sales system map):

Creating a simple offer-aligned freebie
Write 2-3 emails for delivering the freebie and nurturing them with valuable related information
Write 3-4 sales emails introducing your offer, showcasing how and why it works and inviting them to sign up or buy

The final action step for this month is to write your first blog post. One of the things that makes this approach different from most content marketing advice out there is that we’re starting with viewing your content as long-term assets right from the get-go.

And so your first year will involve writing a new blog post every month to promote and grow your audience. But after you’ve finished writing 12 blog posts, you can technically quit creating new content and just rotate through the posts you’ve already done (unless you’re inspired to create someone or are launching another offer that requires its own content suite).

So here’s your monthly content action plan:

Write blog post #1. It should be at least 1000 words and help walk your potential customers through how to achieve a goal related to your offer. If you’re finding it difficult to think of a topic, consider what information could prime the reader for your offer.

Month 4: Getting in The Show-Up Habit

No one can buy your offer if they don’t know it exists.

That’s why getting in the habit of showing up and talking about your business and connecting on topics related to your offer online is so important from month four and beyond.