You are aiming to start an online business in 2024 and you are looking for essential tools to start with, in this article, I have brought you essential tools that will help you stay online without spending much on bills.
Starting an online business is the dream of any entrepreneur but it takes time to understand which tools to effectively use without running out of budget while boosting your business and in this article, I have got you covered.
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If you are planning to start an online business, this article is for you but before, strictly this article is prepared for those who are patient to see results and to those starting an online business with the use of an e-commerce website or mobile applications, if you are looking at selling on social media tools, then here is your article (Things to consider before starting to selling on your social media channels)
A professional website designer.
Before going into the market, you will need to hire someone experienced in website design and mobile applications. Hiring the right designer will help you create a website and a mobile application that will resonate with your brand. Remember a good-looking website is a fundamental cornerstone for your business to thrive. Your website or mobile application should be user-friendly, easy to understand and should be able to load faster with good keywords and SEO optimization so it can rank well in the Google search engine, this will help you get covered online without spending much in the Google ads.
If you are not willing to hire a professional website designer, there are budget-friendly tools you can use to design your own e-commerce website store like WordPress which powers more than 45% of the websites in the world, you can use Canva Drop and Builder. Those tools have templates that you can easily customize but they will come with an extra cost of subscriptions especially Canva website builder which can turn out to be more expensive and is why I do recommend you hire a website designer.
If you are looking for a professional website designer, then I do recommend considering AppNomu because of the elegant website design skills they possess and you will get your website at an affordable price.
A reliable Hosting provider
After you have created your wonderful website, you will need a hosting provider to keep your website running and functional. A reliable hosting provider should be able to work under your budget while providing you with good resources like Unlimited emails, unlimited Free SSL certificates, Unlimited Bandwidth and enough support anytime you need.
AppNomu powers more than 20,000 website ever and have not reported any downtime in the year 2024, you can read about their review here
If you are looking for a reliable hosting provider, then you can consider AppNomu which powers more than 20,000 websites and domains, and you will never experience any downtime. The most interesting part, you get everything unlimited at the cheapest cost in the market. If you are new to hosting, I do recommend you read the article, (things you need to consider before choosing a reliable hosting provider)
A Communication tool
You need to stay in touch with your clients with reminders, product updates, promotions and campaigns and for any online business, communication is the key. Under our recommendation, we recommend Bulk SMS because they are faster, more reliable and have a higher open rate compared to other tools. Using SMS Bulk tools will come with a lot of benefits like automating communication, scheduling communication and even when you need to authenticate your user if you require them to sign up, still, you can still use these tools to provide OTP for logins, reset passwords and register and at AppNomu, you get this service at a reduced cost and even when you are a beginner, you get helped with all the integrations you need to put your business on the next level.
AppNomu since 2021, have sent more than 7 Millions Messages across 15 different countries. You can leverage sending Bulk SMS messages to AppNomu at as low as UGX27 per SMS in Uganda on all telecom networks. Subscribe to our Bulk SMS
Still, you can also be in a position to get transactional SMS service through automation. Powering your business with a professional communication tool will boost your customer engagement and will help you retain more clients.
Email Marketing tools
Being online means being in touch with your clients all the time, Yes you can stick to SMS marketing tools but emails are essential too, your clients need to be reminded about their orders, and you need to send them content, product promotions and other useful information right in their inbox.
I would recommend you either use Mailchimp or Brevo. Simply because these tools have a free version you can use and they do support more contacts even in the free version. If you are looking for more customization option, then Brevo is the best alternative. You get more templates even in the free version compared to Mailchimp, these tools are user-friendly and they do not require any technical knowledge to set them or deploy them. All you need is to claim your free account and integrate them with your own custom email address which you can use as the sender address for an improved email delivery.
Payment processors
Selling online through your website or Mobile application, you will need a payment processor to process your payments. A reliable payment processor should be in a position to process payments in your local market supporting the payment methods of your clients. And should be a processor that settles your payments on time. Stripe is the most secure payment processor. Unfortunately, it does not work in most countries so it is essential to check if Stripe supports your country and your type of business. Another payment processor can be PayPal but for most African businesses, PayPal does not work Therefore I do recommend Flutterwave.
With Flutterwave, you can have card payments, mobile money payments, Google Pay and all other supported payment methods. You get all your settlement in 24 hours. It is better you read their terms and conditions before you onboard. This will help you make an informed decision and to understand if your business or business type is supported.
We’re providing free Flutterwave Payment integration to any client of AppNomu who have built his Website or Mobile Application with us, and if your project is being hosted with us. Contact our support team with your project name or ID and we will reach out to you.
Analytic tools (Google Analytics and Google Search Console)
You have now your business running through your website or your own mobile application, it is good you set up your analytic tools. In this article, I recommend using the Google Analytics tool simply because it is free to use and easy to integrate with any type of website or website platform you are using. You can easily use the Google Analytics tag on your website and in your mobile application to understand your website traffic, the source of your traffic and where you need to improve. Google search console will also help you submit your website sitemap to the Google search engine for indexing and crawling your content so your business store/website can easily be found.
If you are new to these tools and your website is designed with us, you can request this service free of charge by contacting our support team.
You must give your business the best analytic tools so you can understand your performance. If you are not a client of AppNomu yet and you need to have this service, you can cheaply get this service at $135
Accounting tool.
Now that you have started seeing sales in your business, you need an accounting tool that can easily be integrated into your sales panel so you can easily fetch records from your business. I recommend using Zoho book because of the pricing and support even local integrations through API with your own website. Another common tool you can use is Quickbooks for your online accounting, invoicing and creating financial reports.
Customer Support tool
Since your business operates online, you need a tool to handle customer questions, customer support tools are the tools that can help you respond to customer questions anytime they contact your businesses without relying on the Contact Us page only on your website.
If you are choosing the best customer support tool, look at the features they have and the pricing just to be sure the cost will not affect your ROI. I do recommend Zendesk or Jivo Chat for the start.
With Zendesk, you can have free WhatsApp integration so your clients can contact you through WhatsApp, you get a knowledgebase system where you can develop your support article and so many more benefits that you can find here.
AppNomu uses Jivo Chat to provide customer services to more than 20,000 clients who visit our website each month looking for products and services we offer. If you need help using Jivo Chat or if you signed up for Jivo Chat using our referral link. You have free support for any Jivo Chat related questions. If your business need a live chat software, I recommend Jivo Chat and you can use this link to get your 14- day trial plus free support from us anytime you contact us
However, our best alternative is Jivo Chat, simply because even when you have not subscribed to the tool, you get the free version that supports three operators for a lifetime which is impossible with Zendesk and other tools. If you need to get a free trial for Jivo Chat, then you can use this Link.
Ads Manager
It is very possible to start an online business without the use of Ads, Google Ads or social media ads, but this means spending a lot of money on the SEO for your business website to rank well and that is why I do recommend the use of Ads to boost your online sales.
Google ads help you to create campaigns based on user interests and Social media tools like Facebook and X(formally Twitter) have invented this technology. We recommend investing a lot of time in finding the right keywords for your business that will help your ads rank amongst competitive advertisers without spending bigger amounts of money.
If you need an expert to set up your online campaign, contact us and we will be more than happy to help you.
Now that you have known the essential tools to consider before starting a successful online business, let us know in the comment section which tool you need us to talk about and we will publish about such a tool
Please note that, depending on the nature of your business, not all those tools can be applied at a single time, however, we believe you need all those tools mentioned above for your online business to thrive.
We may earn a commission if you subscribe to the software we used in our article, you acknowledge that no compensation shall be rendered to you.
I have contacted you over the issue of my Flutterwave account which until now has not been activated but unfortunately, you did not get back to us and we are still waiting for your response.
Thank you for reaching out and bringing this to our attention. I sincerely apologize for the delay in responding to your concern about your Flutterwave account activation. Please know that we are looking into this as a priority, and I will personally ensure that we get back to you with an update as soon as possible once we hear from the Flutterwave team. Your patience and understanding are greatly appreciated.
We applied for the startup program from your website but it has been three weeks and we have not heard from you. We tried contacting the team on the email but still no response. I will be help to receive an update from our request.
Meanwhile thanks for this wonderful article.
Thank you for reaching out and for your interest in our startup program. We apologize for the delay in responding to your application. We understand that waiting can be frustrating, and we appreciate your patience. Our team is currently reviewing all applications carefully, and we aim to provide updates as soon as possible. In the meantime, we’re glad you enjoyed our article, and we thank you for your kind words.
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