So You Want an Online Business
I want to kick off this section by drilling a point home in your head. The topic of deciding what type of Internet business to own is immense. The area of choices available to you can simply be overwhelming at times and this fact alone causes many to never get past the starting line.
You'll never earn a dime if you don't take action so deciding on what type of business you will own and what type of product you'll sell should be something that you decide on rather quickly.
If you follow the information that we have outlined for you, then building your initial business won't require a lot of startup capital so if in fact you decide that the product you chose to sell is either unprofitable or simply doesn't interest you then switching gears and taking a different route won't represent a huge financial loss; having said that, we will provide you with tips along the way to help greatly minimize the risk associated with your initial decision.
One of the easiest ways to get up and running with Internet business is through the sale of information products. Information products are simply those that provide you with information about a particular subject that you want to know more about.
Anyone who has an interest on any subject would welcome more detailed information about their interest and providing this to them in an attractive easy to consume product has been the basis of more than one success story on the Internet. Let's take a look at some of the ways you can find a product to sell on the Internet.
Affiliate products
Becoming an affiliate of someone else's product is incredibly easy and can be incredibly profitable. You're simply acting as a salesperson for a product that someone else created and you'll use your website to help sell this product. The product creator pays you, the affiliate, a commission for each sale you make, and in turn, you won't be in charge of any of the overhead or service related to creating, delivering, or servicing the product once you make the sale.
Many large and well-known companies have affiliate programs and will pay you a percentage of the sales made from any visitor you send to their site. In addition, many info marketers have created individual products for sale on the Internet and will allow you to earn commissions on the sales as well. These info products are incredibly popular on the Internet and because of this and the potential profits that can be made quite easily, they will be the focus of most of our discussion throughout this book.
One of the easiest places online to find all of the affiliate programs you may ever need is www.clickbank.com. Click bank offers you the ability to sign up for free and become an affiliate of thousands of products.
Simply choose one of these products and build your website and marketing efforts around it.
Click bank offers tutorials on how to get started and support can often be obtained through the creators of the product as well. Once you sign up for a program you will be allowed to use a myriad of graphics and advertising materials to help you achieve your sales goals.
While earning a percentage of a sale through an affiliate program is attractive, especially considering how quickly the programs can be set up, earning 100% of the sale can be even more attractive. The only way to do this is to create your own product.
Creating your own product
This statement may shock you, but I'll bet you yourself have inside your mind information that would make for an incredibly valuable and profitable info product. The fact is, all of your experiences, talents, and skills if put down in the proper format, could very well represent a value to someone else that doesn't have that knowledge or skill.
Simply make a list of any hobby or talent that you have that you could teach to somebody else. If there is a big enough interest in a particular subject matter that you have knowledge about then don't hesitate to create a product. As far as the world of online goes, an expert is merely someone who can provide specific information about a topic that someone else wants to pay to learn.
Creating your product doesn't require any special skill either. A salable product could be as simple as an e-book, such as the one you're reading now, or a more detailed program that may include a series of videos, audio lessons, or a combination of any of the three.
There are many places online you can use to outsource the work to be created. If you can type or talk into a microphone then someone else can take this recorded material and turn it into an information product you could sell on your website. For more detailed information about this particular subject, simply go to Google and type in how to create an info product and a plethora of solutions will be available to you.
Now that you've got the goods, it's time to set up shop
Once you've decided on a particular product to sell, it's time to begin building your storefront. In this case, of course, your storefront will be your website. The first and one of the most important subjects we're going to talk about in creating your website choosing a domain name.
Picking and buying your domain name
There is no rule that says the first step of creating your website should be choosing your domain name but the name of your url will be used throughout your marketing and on your website so it makes sense to go ahead and take care of this one now. Just to clarify, your url is your actual website address such as www.yourwebsite.com. In this case, yourwebsite would be your domain name.
Choosing your domain name is important and the simpler and more specific you make it to what your website is about, the better. If your website is about learning how to play tennis better, then www.learntoplaytennisbetter.com would make a pretty good website address.
The shorter you can make it the better. Most really short domain names are pretty much gone these days but if you can find one that fits, it might make for a great choice. Here is a quick breakdown of some tips that can help you choose a good domain name for your online business.
When choosing to purchase your domain name one company has risen above all others:
There are certainly many places where you can purchase domain names online but Go Daddy has made them their specialty and their familiarity with the needs of their customers and providing a consistent level of quality customer support has made them the true leader. They offer domain names for less than $10 per year and much less than that if you purchase them for several years at a time. Their full-time customer service support team can take you through the entire process with ease.
Hosting
The best analogy I can give to the relationship between hosting and your website is hosting is like a piece of land, and a website is like a home that you put on it. Your website needs a place to live on the Internet and that's exactly what hosting services provide. They help to ensure that your website is online and visible to everyone on the Internet 24 hours a day.
There are several things to look for when choosing a hosting service and only one of those is price. Because of competition in the marketplace, the price of hosting has gone down dramatically over the years while the amount of services they provide has gone up. The key thing you want to be concerned with is the quality and level of service you receive from these hosting companies
It’s unfortunate to think about, but the fact is problems can and probably will arise with your website at some point in time. It's comforting to know that the hosting company you've secured will be there when you need them. This should include a variety of ways to communicate with them including of course e-mail and phone.
If the hosting company you work with only provides e-mail service, this could lessen their effectiveness in times of trouble. In addition, make sure to note their hours of service because unlike a bricks and mortar store, your website will be available to customers 24 hours a day seven days a week; you want your host to be available for you as well.
Your hosting account is where you will upload the graphics of your website to then be sent to go live on the Internet. The process of doing this is called FTP, or file transfer protocol. The process is incredibly simple using the control panels that will be available to you on your hosting account, and depending on the level of customer service that the hosting company provides, they may be able walk you through this process the first few times to make sure all goes well.
Below are just a few hosting companies that have provided markedly good service over the years and are backed by an overwhelming amount of positive feedback from past and existing customers. We have provided a few basic specifics about each company, but make sure to visit each site to investigate the terms and services of each company to decide which one will be right for your online website project.
Because of the low prices associated with hosting companies today and the general ease of use in working with them, many people take their website hosting services for granted; this is a mistake. All of the amount of work that goes into designing and building a website not to mention driving traffic to it in order to sell a product you are featuring would be completely a waste of time if no one can see it.
Developing a strong relationship with a reputable hosting company should be your first step into your online marketing venture. If you latch onto a good one early, you may have just started a relationship that will last for years and wind up being very, very profitable for your business.