NOT FOR SALE.
You may distribute this book FREE of charge in your website, ezine or part of your product bonus.
Chapter 1: Discovering the Real “YOU”............................................................................... 7
Chapter 2: Planning your Online Business .......................................................................... 10
Your Online Business Starter General Checklist ................................................................. 11
Simple business plan template ..................................................................................... 14
Chapter 3: Choose your product, make it available! ........................................................... 18
Chapter 4: Domain & Web Hosting .................................................................................... 23
Chapter 5: Your website: “design or be designed? That is the question!” .......................... 27
Some website design tips ............................................................................................. 29
Chapter 6: Accepting Credit Card Payments on your website ............................................ 30
Different types of merchant accounts .......................................................................... 30
Chapter 7: Advertising your website ................................................................................... 34
Top 10 pay-per-click search engines ........................................................................... 40
Chapter 8: Add-on products ................................................................................................. 46
Chapter 9: Starting your own Affiliate Program ................................................................. 49
Keeping track of your affiliates ................................................................................... 50
Affiliate Managers: Your Top Five Biggest Affiliate Program Mistakes ................... 52
Chapter 10: Interactivity = Definite Online Success Vitality .............................................. 57
An introduction to Content Syndication ...................................................................... 59 One Final Word ................................................................................................................... 61
Hello and welcome to “Online Business Starter Kit”.
You have made one of the best decisions in your life and that’s deciding to step in the road of success. That itself is a great achievement. Think of it this way: “You have started to think more than just your 9-5 job if that’s your case!”
Many people have started the journey of online business, some have succeeded and some have failed. By working on the practical concepts that this book has to offer, your success is 100% guaranteed, because this book is no magic, no “get-rich-in-24-hours” and no “make-a-zillion-bucks-in-one-week”. It is pure practical know how to firstly get you organized, give you ideas of what you have to do in an easy to understand fashion, and then provide you with ways to implement your ideas on the World Wide Web. The internet is a phenomenon. It has and will continue to change the world, its people and their lifestyle. The truth is that there’s simply no stopping its incredible growth, and that’s good news for you, because you can also be part of this fast and effective growth of the global economy. One other good news is that with this growth, the amount of money spent online grows each and every month, enabling you to potentially be earning far more than you would expect to earn at your current job.
For some of you this is one of the numerous books you have found regarding the “How to” of Online Business. If that’s so, then we almost have an agreement that unlike what you might have read elsewhere about making money online, there’s no such thing as “FREE Money” and there’s no such thing as getting rich in one or two weeks on the internet, let alone getting rich in 24 hours as some say. We all have to realize that no matter what the business is, making money online is no harder than making money in the offline world. It’s just that the internet is simply another channel of making money in business. However if used correctly, the Net provides many highly effective opportunities to help you skyrocket your profits in a relatively short space of time which is not very often possible offline. You might ask “How is this possible?”
Well the answer is pretty simple: By using the World Wide Web as your business place, you’re practically reaching millions and millions of customers just waiting to purchase your product or service. Thinking of it this way, the internet becomes a pretty exciting place to be in! Imagine making and average 10’s and 100’s of sales in a day; that’s something that would be considered magic for a small business in the offline world, but with the internet in mind, this is completely possible to make such profits online, provided that you follow the right guidelines.
This is one very distinct advantage on the Net when it comes to making money, the ability to automate some or all parts of your online activities, leaving you to build your business and increase your profits.
If you’re looking to start your online business from scratch, use the proven techniques described in this book and you truly cannot fail. There are BILLIONS being made online and your share is there for the taking.
I myself am a very “Plan-Plan, List-List Guy”, and because of this I have provided you with various straight-forward plans, lists and usable forms and tables etc. to make it easier for you to have a precise and effective approach towards your future successful online business.
If you are already excited, well you ought to be, because you’re about to here what others haven’t been telling you. There’s no such thing as secrets in making big money on the internet, it’s just that you have to realize your potentials and learn how to use them effectively by generating good ideas and implementing them on the internet, and that’s the exact thing that I will show you in this book. I have provided various questions at the end of each chapter to make sure you have grasped the needed knowledge in order to move on to the next section. We will stick to the guts of the trade and hopefully we will come up with a masterpiece matching your area of interest. So what are you waiting for? Let’s do it!
Before we start the real work, what I need is to make you feel good about yourself and to be positive that you really can do it, just like the other tens of thousands of individuals just like you who are generating large amounts of income through the internet to buy their dream home, their new car, saving money for the kid’s college, going to their best vacation spot and generally doing the best things in life and truly enjoying what life has to offer. These are things we all want and wanting it is the first step before making it happen. Do you know why birds can fly? Yes, they have wings, but they can forget about using them! So why is it that they can fly? It’s because THEY WANT TO FLY! Mankind saw that birds could fly, so he said: “Why shouldn’t I be able to fly?” So he decided that he wanted to fly. So he invented the airplane, and as you can see today, we can all fly (Provided that we pay for the ticket and check-out through the airport security in a non
terrorist manner!
So the whole point is that if you want something to happen, you can be pretty sure that if you do the right things and go the right way, sooner or later it will happen!
It doesn’t matter how slow you go, as long as you don’t stop. <Confucius>Note: Throughout this book, I will recall “Products & Services” as “Products”, just to make it easier.
As you might or might not know, the best internet business is selling your own product. You might say: “But I don’t have my own product!”
Well believe me, THERE’S A PRODUCT IN EVERY ONE OF US! You know why? Each of us is good at one thing or another. Some are good at cooking, some at gardening, some at different professions like teaching, management, pets, wood work etc. Anything you can think of … As they say “The sky is the limit”
Each of these topics can be a product!
The best thing to sell on the internet is information!
Imagine this: For example your mother is a good cook and has about 20 years of cooking experience! Now that’s something valuable! That’s 20 years of good information people searching for cooking recipes and techniques would buy!
One of my friends is a teacher. I told him about the fact that I was writing this book and I gave him some information about it and I told him that he too could make use of the information and start his very own online business from the comfort of his own home! He said in question: “Like?”
For example things a teacher can do as an online business related to his profession would be:
1. Writing about “How to manage class, keeping it fun and cool!”
2. “How to help out kids with learning disabilities”
3. “How to teach history in a modern way”
4. “Best practices in teaching students social well-being, sharing and tolerance”
These are just some ideas! Remember experience is something that you simply cannot achieve by reading a million books about the “science and theory”!
You see, it’s not that hard to come up with ideas! You just have to realize that whoever you are and with whatever educational background, you can do it too, because you have the ability inside you. Even if you don’t have a specific profession that you could count on, by following the easy steps in this book you will still be able to come up with a product and start making money ASAP.
Remember, it’s a power within you that enables you to succeed. People who are making thousands of dollars through their online businesses aren’t genius! They are just normal people that have realized their true potential and have put it to work.
I’d like to give you a vision that has been given to me and is probably one of the most important reasons that you have this book in front of you; and that’s being able to define “Vision” itself:
Please take time to think about it. Try to digest it into your brain and make mental contact with it.
So if things aren’t the way you’d like them to be, then you must realize a vision of what you want them to look like; then try to realize then around you in you environment and plan your way to make them physically available around you! Then is the time you have been successful with your vision.
With your vision, things you want will physically form around you. The rate you reach your desires depends on how clear your vision is towards them; the clearer the better. Always have your vision in mind, even in your simplest tasks, this way through your vision you will point all your life and activities toward your goals and believe me, YOU WILL REACH THEM!
Believe in yourself, realize your vision, plan toward your goals, and sprint towards them and be sure that you’ll cross the finishing line with pride! You will be the champion!
You might want to start a small online business at first, but the internet makes you think big. Whatever product, service or mixture of them you choose; the internet levels the playing field and helps you reach customers around the world who are just dying to buy your products and services as a solution to their problems.
What you must realize is that in the competitive World Wide Web as so called the WWW, conducting your business in order to generate your desired sales and profits, requires careful planning.
For every few successful online businesses, there are dozens that fail by simply not addressing basic risks and pitfalls along the way, therefore to take advantage of the online business opportunity, make sure you base your online business on a solid foundation that covers every element of a successful online business. To do this you must carefully make practical plans and slice up these plans into applicable step-by-step procedures; and that’s what this book is all about.
For starters, I’d suggest that you don’t choose a business that is impracticably suited to your abilities. Try to choose a business that you have the most passion for. Start with what you know, and what a well-targeted group of people really need. More on that later! First of all we will start with list of things that need to be done in order to plan your business. The list is in a completely separate page in case you might like to print it out.
1. Come up with the business idea (decide what to sell)
2. Update your knowledge regarding the chosen product/service by searching the internet etc…
3. Plan your business and divide it up into applicable time-based procedures
4. Gather your start-up money (which by this time you have already made a close estimate of how much you will need to start)
5. Gather all prerequisites (opinions, suggestions, ideas etc…)
6. Make your product or write down your service conditions and policies. For instance if you are in the web design business like me, you would write down your service fees and detailed information regarding your services.
Note: If you are not planning to sell your own product/service, you can always search the internet to find some good commission-based affiliate programs in order to sell other people’s products and services.
7. Design a professional looking website or have it designed by a professional You must decide whether you will be designing your website yourself or having it designed by a professional web designer. There’s a big difference in that. More on that later!
8. Sign-up for an online merchant account in order to accept credit card payments online.
9. Double-check and fix any possible usability problems with your website and product before launch.
10. Launch your website
11. Advertise your website in the search engines and other websites
12. Find some add-on products to add to your product list in order to generate more income
13. Add interactivity to your website by adding a weblog, forum, mailing list and syndicating you’re your content using RSS
14. Take a closer look at your plans and website and think of some new ideas on how you can improve your sales.
15. Start a Affiliate/Reseller program and have other people sell your products Now that you have seen the steps involved in starting and achieving results with your online business, you should have a rough idea of what we are going to do and what procedures are involved.
Things to remember when writing your business plan:
1. Think big but be realistic about your abilities related to your business
2. Make a good estimate of how much money you’ll need to start your business and also define where this money is coming from.
3. Make sure you ask yourself this question: “Do I really have time to start and run this business?”
4. Will your product /service fill a need? For example: There’s no use in selling snowboards in the Sahara Desert
Ask yourself this question: “Would I buy such a product myself?” If you feel doubted, then you might as well think of another idea for your product
5. Think of ways you will market your product and your marketing audience! You will probably need some money put away for this purpose, because advertising costs money!
6. Will you be required to have some sort of licensing for your product or business in order to make it legal? Check this with your local licensing agency.
7. How are you going to do the bookkeeping and tracking for your business?
8. What will you name your business?
9. Make sure you keep your personal and business finances separate. This will make your business seem legitimate, credible and professional and will help you manage your income and expenses more efficiently.
10. Make a timetable for all the different steps you are going to take so you will know where you have to be after a certain time in terms of project process
Believe me planning will do you wonders! It will focus on your business and product, who you are selling to, how you will sell it, how much you will charge, how much it will take to startup and what your startup inventory and requirements will be and where all the money will come from.
You will specify all different options and facilities you will have for your online business and website; and different procedures you are going to take in order to make sales. When defining goals and initiatives, be short and descriptive, so you will know what you have written about when you come back to read your plan at a later time. For example you might write your advertising procedures like this:
1. Have a Search Engine Optimizer to review and optimize my website for search engine placement
2. Advertise on Pay-Per-Click Search Engines after website launch
3. Make arrangements with the community hall and give out some promotional leaflets
4. Design a professional looking business card and hand it out to friends and relatives and ask them to spread the word about my business etc…
In the next page, you will see a simple business plan template that you night like to use as a sample for your own business.
Date:
1. Business Owners: ………………………… [names go here]
2. Business Purpose: ………………………... [What do you want to accomplish? What are your goals?]
3. Describe your business (preferably in a bulleted list) ………………………. [What are you going to sell? Product/Service or both]
• ……
• ……
• ……
• ……
4. Define your target market: ……………………… [Who are you selling to? Specify the age range. Is there a need for your product or service? Write them down]
5. Explain how you intend to meet these needs: …………………… [How will you produce your product or offer your service? How will you deliver goods to your customers?]
6. Define your staff, or supplies, if any: ……………………….. [Is there anybody who will be providing customer service for your products/services? Write down a list of people (if any) that you will need in order to run your business].
7. Make a timetable: …………………………….. [Do you expect to reach a certain goal in a certain amount of time? Write them down! Also assign time durations for every process you will be taking to start your business, this way you will be able to figure out how much time you will need to get started]. For example: Website Design: 2 weeks
8. Calculate your finances: ……………………….. [organize them in a table like the one provided]# Finances Cost Startup Money
A Copywriter
B Web Designer
1 C Domain Registration
D Hosting (normally a monthly fee)
E Software (if needed)
F Other
2 Licenses or fees
Advertising
A Search Engine Advertising
3 B Print Advertising
C Advertising tools and software
D Other
4 Product delivery
5 Subcontractors
6 Staff/Affiliates
Total
Notes:
Some finances are considered monthly, whereas others are one-off expenses, therefore it might be a good idea if you have an additional list separating the two so you’ll have a good idea of what you will be expecting to pay monthly and what your one-off expenses are going to be.
If you make a mistake in this area, by all means count on needing more than you’ve actually estimated. Many terrific businesses have ground to a screeching halt, simply because they ran out of operating money too soon (because they didn’t make the right estimates), so this is a critical issue you should watch out for.
Remember the more detailed your business plan is, the better your roadmap will be, so I suggest that you assign a great deal of time focusing on the different aspects of your business plans.
As we discussed earlier, information products are the best and the easiest to sell products on the internet. If you plan to start selling your own information product, the list below would be a close example of what you would need and the required time and money for starting-up the business.
Do-it-yourself Duration/hour Cost/USD
1 Evaluating your business idea 1-3 0
2 Writing your business plan 2-5 0
3 Create the product 10-15 0
Total 1-2
Minimum: 18
Maximum: 33
25±
Total Minimum: 13
Maximum: 28
25±
Minimum: 300 + Around 35 USD/ Monthly
Maximum: 1000 + Around 35 USD/ Monthly
1. The quality of the writer/designer’s services
2. Their years of experience
3. Their portfolio and previous work they’ve done
Note: When choosing a writer/designer make sure you take a look at their previous work and judge if they fulfill your required needs for the job. Nearly all professional freelancers have a website with details on their services plus their portfolio of work; therefore it’s a good idea to only hire professionals who have an online portfolio of work.
4. Complexity of your project: the more complex and time-consuming your project is, the more you should expect to pay. There’s an old English saying that says: “We’re not that rich to buy cheap things!” It all goes to say that whatever you pay for a product or service, it’s important that you get value for your money.
I don’t agree with some people that say both methods of designing (doing it yourself or having it done by a professional) are equal in results. In that case why would we need professionals?
It is very clear that what a professional does is different to an amateur in terms of quality and overall effectiveness, but the important this is that you ask yourself this question: “Which do I have more? Time or Money?”
If you’ve got the time and patience, write then your own product and design your website yourself.
If you’ve got the money, hire a professional!
You haven’t written a thing since high school and you think that you can’t write your product!
Right? WRONG!
You can easily get a hang of what you have to do by following these rules:
(also search the Net) and answer each and every one of them. b. Have a friend interview you, record the interview and type it out into a
report
2. Research-Research-Research!
Always remember to research on your product topic (use the internet, local
library, experienced professionals etc…), then compile your information
into categories of choice. This way, you will eventually see the product
come into shape; you will just need to brush-up the text and make it superfine!
Remember what friends are for? To help each other out when in need!
Have one of your smart friends review the text and fix-up any remaining
spelling and grammatical errors.
Don’t forget that you can always use text editors like Microsoft Word (best
one I can think of) to fix your errors.
If you are in need of software, you don’t need to pay hundreds of dollars to buy retail versions. There’s always OEM! OEM stands for “Original Equipment Manufacturer”. OEM software is legal versions of software from the manufacturer, but without the package and user manual, resulting in a dramatic price drop. By purchasing OEM software, you only pay for the software itself. If price is the problem, OEM is the way to go! Just search OEM software or visit my website’s forums for more information.
If you’re planning to design your website yourself, I would suggest the following software: HTML Editors:
• Macromedia Dreamweaver
• Microsoft Frontpage
Graphics Software:
• Adobe Photoshop
• Macromedia Fireworks
• Jasc Paintshop Pro
If you wish to hire a professional freelance copywriter, there is a list of good copywriters available in my website that you can take a look at. They all have their own website with a comprehensive portfolio, so you can compare and decide who to choose.
If you wish to hire a professional web designer, this is my surprise for you: All buyers of “Online Business Starter Kit” are eligible for a
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