It has never been easier to pursue building your own online business, but there are some common pitfalls you want to avoid to shorten your road to success.

1. Determine your products and market.
These days nearly every form of product and service is being sold online with the ability to reach millions of potential customers all over the world. Before you start your online business, you need to decide exactly what you would like to offer to consumers. Ideally, your choice should be mainly based on your own interests so that your heart is in the business even if sales are slow in the beginning. You should also check the market to ensure that there is a demand for the products or services you intend to offer.

2. Develop your unique selling point.
The key to a business distinguishing itself apart from its competition is to have a unique selling point. Your unique selling point concentrates on the uniqueness of your business and how you will help your customers. Consider what is special about your business, as well as the needs of your customers, in order to develop a quality unique selling point.

3. Build your marketing strategy.
Prior to contacting any ecommerce hosting company or purchasing shopping cart software, it’s vital that you ask yourself how you will promote your new business. Depending on your targeted audience of potential customers, you may want to focus on advertising online more than offline. Online marketing can prove to be highly effective even with a tight budget. You should also factor in future costs for search engine optimization to ensure your site ranks high.

4. Research available shipping methods.
If you are selling an actual product then you will need to decide on which shipping methods you will use to fulfill orders. It’s important to choose shipping methods that are fast and reliable, whether you are maintaining an actual stock onsite or you have chosen to drop ship with a manufacturer or wholesaler.

5. Pick your domain name.
Selecting the domain name for your business is one of the most critical decisions that you must make when selling online. There are different ways to approach choosing a domain name. If your company name is not too lengthy, then one idea is to use it as the domain name. Another strategy is to use a phrase consisting of one or more core products you intend to sell so that when consumers search for this item your website naturally has a better opportunity of ranking at the top organically. Regardless of which method you use to select your domain name, make sure that you purchase it with a .com domain extension. It’s also useful to buy other top level domain extensions, such as .net, .org, .info, and others, to prevent anyone from trying to steal or ruin your brand.

6. Decide on an ecommerce hosting company.
Once you’ve chosen your domain name, it’s now time to pick an ecommerce website hosting company to use for hosting your online business. You’ll want to shop around and look for genuine review websites to find a reliable host that offers ecommerce hosting plans. Compare between companies to make sure you’re getting the best deal out there. You want to make sure that the company you decide on is able to handle websites that run on ecommerce platforms.

7. Select the ecommerce software for your online business.
After choosing an ecommerce hosting company, you now need to determine which software you will use to power your online business. There are a multitude of ecommerce solutions available, both free and paid, and you should research online and ask others to help decide which software is best for your store.

8. Get a professional design for your website.
Although the ecommerce software you have decided to use may work just fine out of the box, it may be necessary to have a design made for it to increase your online store’s uniqueness and personality. Based on the software you are using, you will have the option to choose from ready-made themes or hire someone for a completely custom design.

9. Locate a payment processor.
Before you can actually process any orders you will need to sign up with a payment processor. This is a company appointed by a merchant to deal with credit card transactions. Payment processors verify payments and help prevent fraudulent transactions. You will need to compare between different companies and look closely at the various fees that can be hidden at times.

10. Provide remarkable customer service.
Once your online store is up and ready to accept payments, the final point to keep in mind is to guarantee that you provide outstanding customer service. If your customers have a terrible experience shopping at your store then you should never expect them to return as they can easily shop from your competition that is only a click away. Consider whether or not you can provide a customer service telephone number, or at least an email service that responds promptly.

These are ten things that you should remember when starting your own ecommerce business so that you can be on your way towards success without any regrets.

-Using too many keywords is one of the number one mistakes that many Adwords users make.  You want to stay away from generic keywords, and stick only to keywords that directly pertain to your ad.  Otherwise you’ll have a lot of clicks from readers that were misled, that don’t amount to anything.

-Remember to use your relevant keywords in your ad title and description.  A big mistake is forgetting to do this, and then you have an ad that doesn’t seem to pertain to what a reader is currently surfing.  The whole point of Adwords is to hitch onto keywords on other sites for your ads.  Leaving those keywords out means that your ad is less likely to be noticed.

-Walk that fine line between clarity and keyword density.  Your keyword should be prevalent so that any searchers have no trouble running into your ad, but don’t overload your statements so that the keyword is senselessly repeated too many times.

-Always track your results, if one keyword set up isn’t working switch to a different one.  There’s no sense in continuing a campaign that hasn’t been fruitful.  That’s just beating a dead horse.  Instead, try different things if you’re not seeing the results you want.

As with any business venture, networking is key.  Tapping into the world, meeting others looking to form careers in the same area is key.  This will give you an in to what jobs are available, and what jobs are worth applying for.  Work from home forums or websites can be good resources.  Use them, because networking oftentimes determines how successful you become.

Also, know how to spot a scam.  This is especially important when starting out.  Most scams involve asking for money in order for an opportunity to provide you with work or resources.  Never give them anything, because more often than not these are scams.  You’ll pay money, and get nothing, or no job opportunities in return.  A legitimate employer is never going to ask you to pay money in order to secure an opportunity.

In your search, remember that patience is key.  You may find difficulty finding an opportunity at first, and it may take some time to form legitimate ones.  But as long as you’re diligent, eventually you’ll find something.  Once you find one job, you’re usually good to find a few more, easier than last time.
Remember that you’re going to make mistakes, but don’t let that stop you from soldiering on.   The difference between success and failure is the amount of effort you are willing to extend.

Make sure your resume is properly up to date.  The last thing anybody wants to see is an old resume that you’ve been using for a few years.  That shows no initiative, a lack of effort, and will reflect poorly on your work ethic.  You definitely don’t want a potential boss counting strikes against you before you even have a chance to interview.

Keep your resume professional.  While I always stress making your resume unique and tailored to each job that you apply for, don’t step out of the professional mold.  Keep your font generic and readable, and stick to the standard resume format.  Just tailor the information to each job that you apply for.  That’s the best way to make a great impression.

Don’t send your resume without a cover letter.  The cover letter is the standard starting point of any application, and a resume sent without one is incomplete.  The resume only serves as a list of professional accomplishments and goals, the cover letter is where you put these into perspective with your personality.  The cover letter sells you, and shows that you are the best employee for the job.  Take advantage of the opportunity.

Finally, make your objective statement absolutely clear.  You have to have a clear cut idea of what you intend to give, and get from the job you are applying to get.  This is extremely important to a potential employer, so you want the statement to be as clear and understandable as possible.  You wouldn’t want someone tripping over the first, and most vital part of your resume.

Thinking about what a hiring manager considers, your career objective says to them whether you fit in at that corporation, or not.  You want your career objectives to immediately follow your contact information on your resume.  Having your career objectives first up in your information points out what you want, and what you want to contribute immediately.  This way if you write your objectives effectively, you’ve already got the interviewer’s attention, and more importantly their interest.

The biggest key to writing your career objectives, is to tailor them to each position you apply for.  Writing a generic objective that doesn’t apply to that company directly shows a lack of attention to detail.  Or worse, too little commitment to even think about that company specifically when writing your resume.  Tailor those objective statements to fit that company.  Your career goals that you hope to get from them should apply to that job specifically.  The same with what you give to that job opportunity.  Make sure they have a slant towards that job specifically.

Competition for jobs gets all the more fierce when faced with a recession, so avoid some of the common objective pitfalls.  This means avoiding commonly used phrases that will make your resume seem generic.  Avoid terms like “opportunity for advancement” when applying for a job.  Of course that’s what you want, that’s the whole point.  Don’t waste an interviewer’s time by telling them something they already know.  Instead, use the space for something more unique, and more important.

Don’t fall into the bad eating pitfalls that can occur when working long hours at your job.  Many people turn to drugs like caffeine, or just bad eating habits in general, such as opting for fast food instead of something nutritious.  This is the first step to failing at your ability to perform well when working long days.  Caffeine leads to crashing, which is what you do not want after you’ve already been working a typically long day, and need to dig deep to keep going.  That’s the same effect eating fast food instead of nutritious food will have.

Eating healthy is key to surviving those shifts, so take the time to keep your fruit and vegetable intake high.  That will make all the difference, and drinking water instead of caffeine, coupled with good nutritional habits will provide for all the energy you would need.

If you happen to be working more to complete a big project, or to achieve a big bonus for your paycheck, keep both of these goals in mind.  When you’re feeling down, or just dragged around from the length of your shift, remember your reasons.  Think about your goals, the project you want done, or the money you want to make, and that should help you push on through.

Finally, find a good relaxation technique, and take some time for yourself for that activity.  Whether it be listening to some calming music for a few minutes, taking a break, etc.  Make time for that relaxation, as it will influence everything you do.  The more you can get rid of some stress when you’re feeling stressed, the better you’ll perform, and you’ll feel better too.

-Try keeping a list of achievements as you accomplish them, as that always comes in handy later.  This way you have detailed evidence for why you’ve been a good employee this term.  Having the facts to back up your claims is always a very important thing to have on your side.

-With that great list of achievements you’ve been keeping, now you can make use of it in the actual writing of your review.  On almost any personal review you’ll notice many categories seem very redundant, almost as if they’re asking for the same information multiple times.  Take that list of achievements and decide which fits into each category the best.  Have a copy of your job description on hand so that you can better distribute them into the right categories.

-Try to find a comfortable middle ground when you rate your actual performance level.  You don’t want to show that you feel you’re a perfect employee.  Otherwise your boss will feel you believe you’ve hit your peak.  In which case if your boss doesn’t agree, you almost make yourself expendable by looking like an employee that’s given all they have to offer.  Don’t mark yourself too high or too low.  This way if you’re one of the top employees you show that you feel you have room for growth, so that you can become even better.

-Firstly, organize everything.  Don’t just make sure that your work environment is well organized and neat, but make sure that your day follows suit.  Set aside time for phone calls and checking your email so that you don’t get bogged down trying to keep up with both, as either could end up dominating your day and interfering with how much actual work you are able to get done for that day.

-Secondly, don’t fall into the work distraction pitfalls.  These include mostly bringing in aspects of your personal life to work.  Such as browsing the internet, making personal calls, having a non-work related conversation with coworkers.  All of these are huge time wasters and will significantly cut into how much work you are able to complete each day.

-Thirdly, try using one single planner for all of your daily goals and activities.  This way you’re never confused or having to check more than one place to keep yourself organized.

-Fourthly, figure out your work strengths and weaknesses, and be completely honest in your self assessment.  This way you can focus on your strengths in a clinch to get work done and done well, and also be aware of your weaknesses so that they do not dominate your performances.  By pointing out your weaknesses you can become a more complete and better worker.

-Finally, know when to take a break.  It’s unhealthy for your body to sit down for long periods of time, as it constricts blood flow to different parts of the body.  Every 60-90 minutes you should be taking a quick 5-10 minute break where you stand up and take a few steps, either to walk away from your desk for a moment or to just walk around your office.  Your mind and body will feel much better, and in the end you’ll get more work done because of that.