It goes without that the fundamentals of business are the same no matter what environment you are operating in. It is about making a profit and being a responsible corporate citizen, about growing your brand and driving your sales. But the truth is that there are also differences and it needs to be acknowledged that on the back of the rise and rise of the internet that there have been some changes and some new rules added to the mix. If your background is more traditional than digital, then here are a few golden rules you should be aware of.

Back everything up

This might seem like a simple or obvious thing to say, but you would be surprised how many people neglect to follow this basic rule. If a significant part of your business is committed to the online realm – be it from a database, website or e-commerce perspective you need to back it up. Even if it is just email that you are talking about. The golden rule is to back up and ideally to back-up offsite. There are plenty of great cloud-based solutions that allow for this to happen, or if you want to be even safer, look for a solution that uses data storage tape Australia has several top companies who can help with this type of solution. The point here is if anything goes wrong – from a fire to a hacker, your data is safe and out of harm’s way and you can rebuild your operation from the last point you were backed up.

Beware of dangers

While the online world opens up many new markets and opportunities to engage with new customers, it also opens you up to all sorts of scammers and hackers. Make sure that you have all the relevant security protocols in operation to avoid people getting into your systems. Be particularly careful about using free wi-fi connections that anyone can access. In these environments, you are often completely vulnerable, away from the safety of your own network and firewalls and open to trojans or cloning agents.

It is always on

Remember that while a normal business keeps regular hours, the internet never shuts down. As soon as you create an online presence for yourself you are essentially open to the public. And while nobody will expect you to respond to their queries or orders immediately, you might want to look at some bot solutions to speed up turnarounds. The real danger is in eth social media space where if people are commenting or saying things about your product a response sooner rather than later might be required.

Make sure that you are discoverable

An online business needs to be easily discoverable. In the old days, business was discovered via The Yellow Pages. Now it is discovered via a search engine. With the Yellow Pages if you wanted an electrician you would go to the relevant section and there would be a list of options alphabetically laid out in front of you. It is a similar thing with Google, you type in what you are looking for, but unlike the Yellow pages, you will get a host of results returned to you – they won’t be in alphabetical order. Instead they will be in the order that Google things will be most relevant to the searcher. So, as a business you need to make sure that your site is positioned properly to attract the right audience. It is called search engine optimisation and it is a critical process.