Do you want to establish an internet business or a new blog but need help knowing where to begin? With ever-improving technology, including excellent online tools and decreased expenses, there has never been a better moment to launch your business line and begin making money online.
Whether you want to make some extra money on the side or entirely replace your income, you can quickly and effectively get your idea off the ground, build a web presence, start driving traffic to your website, and generate sales.
Here are 10 basic actions you can take to get a profitable internet business up and operating quickly and efficiently.
1. Understand Your Market
Knowing the market you are (or want to be) in is one of the most important elements to success with an internet business.
What are their most pressing wants and needs? Where do they spend their online time, and how can you contact them? What are the appropriate language and emotional triggers you wish to address with them?
The better you understand your market, the more successful you will be in reaching out to them with the proper message and providing them with the right products and services. You can learn as you go, but it’s a good idea to have some understanding about the market you want to be in as a starting point. If not, you should be very interested in knowing more about the market you intend to enter.
If you’re not familiar with a market or eager to learn about it (but know it’s profitable), another alternative is to collaborate or partner with a subject matter expert who is. You might either partner with them or simply pay them for their content skills.
In either case, rather than trying to recreate the wheel, you’ll be better off starting with a proven, profitable niche industry. If there is already a lot of rivalry in the market, it is a positive indication that there is profit potential. While most people would avoid a competitive industry, seasoned marketers understand that it is where the money is.
Instead than reinventing the wheel, go where the money is already.
2. Purchase a Domain Name
So you’ve determined which market niche you wish to enter. The next step is to register a domain name for your new online business.
Your domain name is your unique online address. It is your intellectual property, similar to a patent or a brand. You can acquire your domain name from a variety of domain name registrars (businesses that register domains) online.
Some registrars even provide “free” names in exchange for a hosting package or another payment. Bluehost Web Hosting is one of these firms, and it provides a free domain name with the purchase of a hosting service. Popular alternatives include HostGator, SiteGround, and LiquidWeb.
While many of these are genuine, make certain that the domain is registered in your name. If the domain is registered in the registrar’s name, switching to another hosting business without losing your domain may be difficult, if not impossible. This is why I normally advocate purchasing your domain name from one company and your hosting service from another.
Also, if you’re outsourcing your website to another firm, make sure you buy the domain name and that it’s registered in your name and not the company you’re outsourcing with. I’ve heard horrible stories about people being kept hostage by webmasters who actually hold the domain name of the business owner, which is not good!
GoDaddy.com and NameCheap.com are two popular domain name registrars.
Here are some additional choices for registering your domain name.
There are two typical approaches to registering your domain name.
If you’re more interested in personal branding, you can just use your name, or a variation of your name if it’s already used. If your name is John Doe, you may register JohnDoe.com. If JohnDoe.com is already taken, you could try JohnDoeLifeCoach.com if you happen to be a life coach.
Another popular option is to register a domain name that is descriptive of the product or service you are offering to the marketplace. FreeCreditReport.com is an excellent example. It’s pretty clear from the name what that website is about.
The important factor is that your domain name is easy to say, speak, spell, and remember.
Additionally, avoid “cute and imaginative” titles that don’t actually express to the market what your value proposition is.
Also see: How to Purchase a Domain Name Without Being Scammed.
3. Locate a Web Host
A web host is a corporation that “rents” you space on their servers to host your website. These firms typically provide domain registration, and it is frequently easier to have both with the same provider – but many people will purchase their domain from one company and host it with another.
Your web host is essentially where you will upload your web pages, photographs, videos, and so on.
Storage capacity, uptime percentage, domain-based email, and server security are all significant factors to consider when choosing a web host. While selecting a Web host, it is also crucial to evaluate the ability to host a blog, provide response forms, marketing tools, and e-commerce capabilities.
Also, make certain that your web host supports WordPress (the most popular website CMS platform) and that your website is safe (technically an SSL certificate).
Another critical factor to consider, and possibly the most significant, is simple access to 24/7 customer assistance.
Some well-known web hosts are:
Bluehost
GoDaddy
NameCheap
HostGator \siPage \sSiteGround
In general, most web hosts provide the same services, features, and benefits and charge roughly the same price. Whilst I strongly believe in supporting small businesses, in this case, you’re better off going with a larger corporation that can provide 24-hour help in the event of an issue. No small-town hosting firms are advised!
4. Creating Your Webpage
This is not as complicated as it appears. You have two options for creating a website:
Make your own website.
Pay a designer to do it for you.
There are at least three ways to build your own website.
Many hosting companies provide free website creation tools.
WordPress is a well-known free blogging software that can be used for both websites and standalone blogs. It is a pretty simple installation, with many hosting companies offering WordPress-specific installation tools. This software does not require years of study or hefty manuals to use. You may find literally thousands of WordPress templates to further customize your site.
The other alternative is to utilize a high-end application such as Adobe Dreamweaver (See Adobe’s Website), which will handle everything you need but has a somewhat steep learning curve. One of the Dreamweaver training books is a whopping 1000 pages long.
Employing a professional designer may be a more convenient choice. This isn’t always pricey. You can locate freelance professionals on various websites, including CraigsList.com, UpWork.com, and Fiverr.com. You may even hire a local high school or college student on the cheap. In addition to the visual design, you’ll need to think carefully about your site’s content.
Again, if you outsource the creation of your website, you must own both the domain name and the hosting account; the web designer is simply designing your website.
If you’re not familiar with technology or don’t have the time or patience to learn how to design a website, it’s best to outsource it to a professional so you can focus on more vital tasks like product development, marketing and promotion, and other higher-value activities.
The main point is that you do not want any technology to inhibit you from getting started and running your firm. You’re in the online marketing and selling industry, not becoming a skilled developer.
5.Accepting Online Payments
The days of printing, faxing, and mailing an order form or a check are long gone. It is vital that you can accept payments and execute transactions directly through your website. Customers can act on an urge and receive immediate enjoyment as a result of this.
Two of the most common methods for accepting internet payments are:
PayPal.com
Stripe.com (See this article for a comparison between PayPal and Stripe)
When you’re ready to design more complicated sales funnels, upsells, and other shopping cart experiences, you might want to consider upgrading to a shopping cart software like:
1ShoppingCart.com
Infusionsoft.com
Samcart.com
Check for mandatory features and their terms. Minimum monthly costs might have an impact on new enterprises. It’s ideal to choose with a capable service provider that allows for expansion, so you can start with basic services at a cheap cost and scale up as your business grows.
When starting out, most people will start with a less feature-rich, lower-cost solution and then upgrade to a more sophisticated shopping cart solution as their business expands.
Unless you have a large e-commerce company with hundreds or thousands of products, you can generally forego a more complex shopping cart solution in favor of a simple payment processor (like PayPal).
Many people will begin by accepting payments online using a method such as PayPal, but as their business expands, they will add a more feature-rich shopping cart / check out system.
6. Choose Product Delivery Ways
Based on the nature of your product, your delivery methods can range from basic (a downloadable information product or an internet service) to sophisticated (shipping of goods via courier, using a fulfillment company). Choose an electronic fulfillment firm such as E-junkie.com or Clickbank.com for downloading products.
If you haven’t already, you should seriously consider becoming an affiliate for digital information items.
If you’re in the physical products sector, you might want to investigate an online drop shipping business model so you don’t have to deal with inventory.
7. Increase Website Traffic
Even the most innovative design and great new product are worthless if they are buried beneath millions of other websites. You must attract large volumes of website traffic in order to generate sales online. Consider the following fundamental approaches for promoting your new website:
Sign up for the three major search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo)
Include your blog in major blog directories.
Podcasting, video marketing, and content marketing
Google PPC, Twitter ads, and Facebook advertising are all examples of online advertising.
Direct marketing (print, not email)
Offline advertising (billboards, company vehicles, stationary, print ads, promotional products)
While there are numerous methods for driving visitors to your website, you don’t want to be overwhelmed by the options. Concentrate on a few tactics at first, maximize these sources of traffic, and then constantly add new ways to attract large volumes of visitors to your website.
If you’re already involved in this market, you should be aware of where your target audience congregates, what websites they visit, which periodicals they read, and so on. If not, you’ll need to spend some time conducting market research to determine which platforms you should be advertising on.
Start with free techniques of attracting visitors to your website if you’re on a tight budget. As you start making money, you should reinvest it in paid methods of driving traffic (such as pay-per-click ads), because paid techniques are considerably faster and scalable than free methods in general.
8. Create an email newsletter
Collecting your website visitors’ email addresses is important to the growth of any online business. A huge and expanding list, on the other hand, is only helpful if interesting and relevant material is given to these folks on a regular basis. An email list’s purpose is to convert prospects into clients, and clients into repeat customers and brand ambassadors for your company/product.
Maintain regular touch with your email list by sending them an update, information, or an offer at least once a.
AWeber.com is a fantastic email marketing solution provider.
Offering a valuable free offer is the best approach to persuade people to subscribe to your list. This might be a free report, white paper, or promo code. These types of offers outperform a simple’subscribe to our email’ offer.
It is vital that you adopt an email marketing strategy in your business because email marketing is still the most profitable way to market and sell your products online.
9. Monitor Development
There are simple (and free) tools available to see who clicked where and when. Many web hosting firms provide traffic analysis software.
Google Analytics is a free application that tracks a variety of metrics, including:
Popular web pages
The sources of traffic
Popular search terms
The location of the clicks
These reports can be adjusted with a variety of characteristics such as date range, page visits, and time spent on the site.
You could also consider tracking how many individuals open your emails and click on the links back to your website.
While visitor traffic is an interesting metric, what you actually want to see are transactions. Success is measured in sales, whether you are selling a product or a service.
It’s vital that you track and evaluate these crucial metrics on your website; otherwise, you won’t know what’s working, what’s not, and what you need to do to boost conversions.
10. Further Business Considerations
In addition to the unique online factors, you should think about:
Taxation
Banking
Trademarks and licensing
The legal structure of a business
Business address
Storage of goods
Accounting
Among other things, legal issues
Take note that these goods are listed last. Although these things are vital, you don’t want to let them hold you back. The goal is to choose your market, obtain a domain name, develop your website, and begin producing cash as soon as possible, working out the details as you go!