Starting an online business is not a simple thing, though there is 3U rule bearing following three simple points, which should be obeyed to make your online business successful: Unique Offer, Unique Service, and Unique Design. As you can see, Design is not first, as Offer and Service go before it.
Make a Unique Offer
After researching your competitors, you may feel rather confused, as there are so many of them and each one states that he is best in field. Don't despair. The information you gather is necessary only to help you build your offer. You should not use it to build a case against yourself! Simply, you need all information you can get. A competitor's website is not only source of information. Try to find out what his customers think about him. Do not trust testimonials; try some posts on forums, where you will get real testimonials! Find your competitor's weaknesses and try your best to avoid them. His weaknesses should become your strong points. Your offer, however, is not only thing to make your customers return. Your service should be unique as well.
Provide a Unique Service
The key point of Unique Service is constant feedback. Find out who your clients are and what they like or dislike about your service. This is information for improving your service.
Do a little research on how your competitors work. Competitor monitoring is best way to be up on what's new on market. You shouldn't miss anything about them: who their customers are and why they stay with your competitor, details about their affiliate programs, who their partners are, where they get traffic, etc. - any kind of information that may be useful.
However, competitors are not only source of ideas for improving your services. Try to study how hosting companies work. They have been in business from very beginning, so their experience will be of great use to any newbie to online business.
Create a Unique Design
One of problems which rise before a newbie is creation of a front office or website, which is almost same thing as a front office on Web. This is not a big problem.
Online business is not limited to website design. While having a unique website design is good, it will not make your brand unique. The real question is how can you make your brand unique?