10 Easy Steps To Start Your Business

September 9, 2009 | Posted by admin

1. Choose a Product, Service or Both.

Having a product or service in mind when you are starting your internet business will make it easier to decide what type of web presence, hosting, and advertising will best benefit your efforts. In the end it comes down to what you are marketing. It could be retail items, bulk wholesale inventory, one of a kind collectibles, or even remote computer repair and diagnostics. The bottom line is, pick something you love to do.

Even if you aren’t sure what you want to market there are plenty of existing businesses that allow you to market their products, or drive traffic to their websites for a percentage, or flat fee. Many online marketers started with affiliate programs , and went on to market their own products. There are also opportunities to sell physical items from vendors and have them drop shipped to your customer. This is called drop shipping and is used often on sites like Ebay. The beauty of this option is you get payment up front and typically don’t have to hassle with shipping the physical item to customers.

2. Know Your Target Market.

Choosing a product or service is only a small part of the process of building a profitable internet business. Understanding your target market is just as important as what you are selling. Knowing who your potential customers are, and what they like, and dislike are very important when it comes to designing sales, landing page, website, or marketing campaign. A great tool to use to understand how potential customers may search for your product or service is a Keyword discovery tool. The Google Adwords External Keyword Tool is an excellent aid in helping to identify words or phrases that people use to find what you are marketing.

3. Choose a Hosting Company.

It is important to find a stable hosting company to handle your web hosting needs. There are literally thousands of companies offering hosting for a myriad of prices and options. Cheaper is not always better. It is important to find an operation that has been in business for at least a year and has good customer feedback. It may save you time and money to do a search for customer comments about the company you are interested in by doing a search for the company name and looking for any negative comments or experiences.

4. Taking money: Merchant Account or Paypal.

Depending on your online business you may need to set up a payment method in order to process orders and collect money for goods or services sold. Not having automatic payment methods available may keep a good percentage of your visitors from completing their purchases. A large majority of internet users have used a credit card online and find it a fairly simple, fast, and efficient procedure. However, you will have customers who are wary of inputting their credit card number online, especially to companies they don’t know or are unfamiliar with. Paypal is a safe, fast, and easy alternative to using credit cards, using secure account verification and passwords to process purchases making it safer for both customer and seller. Paypal is the payment method of choice for most online shoppers. By having multiple payment options ensures that your customers are able to purchase your products and services no matter which method they prefer.

5. Create a Website or Landing Page.

In order to present your product or services for purchase you need either a website or landing page.

Landing and Sales Page:
One of the best ways to communicate to a specific group of people is a landing page. Used to promote a specific individual product, product line, service, or services, landing pages can be used with a custom domain name or through an independent provider. The advantage of using a landing page is the ability to focus all the user’s attention to one message increasing the percentage of sales you will obtain per visitor. A well designed landing page should include a one-click buy-it-here option that allows a fast, easy purchase experience for the customer. Companies like Ad2Action provide many prebuilt landing page templates for various industries and product type for a low monthly cost.

Website:
Building a website is generally what people expect to do when they put their business, products, or services online. The most important detail you need to know is what you want. Knowing what you want will save you time and money developing your website. Chances are someone on the web is marketing the same or similar services that you want to sell. By understanding what your competitors are doing online to sell their products and services will allow you the opportunity to discover their methods and shortcomings in order to improve your presentation, and overall customer perception, and experience with your website.

6. Capture Customer Contact Information.

It’s more expensive to generate new customers than it is to maintain a relationship with ones you already have. There are many ways to encourage your customers and users to give you their contact information. One of the most utilized is offering a opt in newsletter that you send to them on a semi regular basis with information pertaining to your products, services, or area of expertise. If you offer special discounts or sales, give them the option of receiving alerts about upcoming promotions. If your business focuses on a specialized niche, creating a forum section where users can post questions is a great way to promote and build community interaction, answer questions, or solve problems either through direct interaction or through community posted advice.

7. Build Your Brand.

Unless you are selling custom made widgets from Yak hooves there are probably several competitors offering what you have. It is important to stand out from the crowd. Identifying what makes your company different is the key to exploiting your strengths and building your brand. Creating a distinct or humorous logo, using a unique catch phrase, or creating viral videos that draw attention to your business and products, all these things help you to get noticed. Building your brand is only one part of the equation. Without excellent customer service your hard work at brand building can be eroded in a very short time. Customer relations are important in building a great reputation online with your customers and the web community at large.

8. Promote Your Product or Service Online.

There are several ways to promote your business online. So far we have covered Pay Per Click (Google Adwords), Newsletters, and Email Specials. Other means of online promotion include, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Networking (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Myspace etc.), link building, and banner advertising. We will cover these areas in detail in further posts. Click here to opt in to our newsletter and alerts about new articles and guides to building your business online.

9. Promote Your Business Offline.

Once you have a web presence it’s important to associate all your traditional media with it by including it on all ads, correspondence, business cards, signage, and anything else that you use to market your business. If you touch it, send it, or authorize it put your website on it! The customers you reach offline often will be your next online purchasers.

10. Think Legal.

Depending on your city or state laws you may need to register your online business and obtain a business license. Make sure you keep track of income and expenses as like it or not the IRS will want to know where that extra 50K came from. Check into tax laws about business usage, tax write offs and credits to ensure you get the tax benefits your entitled to!

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