27 April 2008

Start An Online Business in a Four-Step Strategy

Business Strategy Articles : Start An Online Business in a Four-Step Strategy by Kathleen Krueger

Let's review a four-step-strategy, or approach, on what must be done to succeed online. This formula is very simple, easy on how to learn what must be done, and clear about what it will demand of you to start on-line. A realistic view of individual investment of time, pursuit, and interest isn't one that people pay enough attention to. By explaining what to look for online, this will be a good way for you to learn how to start an online business and what you must do to make it happen.

1. Perspective. When you are looking at how to start an online business, you'll first want to look at a particular field which you are interested in, and evaluate interest. Very rarely does a person become excelled or an expert in an area they just can't stand. On the other hand, your main passion may exist in a saturated field. You'll then want to gauge how much competition there is in unison with how effective you think your efforts, resources, and commitments are in breaking into the area. Theoretically, when deciding to start an online business, you usually want to look for a field in which there is less competition, then affordably market, and hopefully dominate that niche. The tools you'll need are a website, a domain name, and a Hosting Company.

2. How are you going to make your Money? Sounds cold, but you need to answer this question. There are many different ways that you can make money on a website. Let's focus on what that website is going to do for you. You can decide to sell products online, which you can find through wholesale distributors. You are able to advertise on your website and sell advertising using programs such as Google's Adsense. You can even sell your products through storefronts at Yahoo, eBay, or Amazon websites. You'll need to decide who will be your money processor, such as Paypal.

3. Test. Once you design your website, you can sit back and wait for the sales to come in. But why? The Internet is a dynamic place. You want to test and retest the different ways in which you have your pages and website built, see where your traffic is coming from, and see how your website content seems to attract traffic. Do not be surprised if web- features you thought were outstanding at first later become changed months later, only to be edited yet again.

4. Marketing. The final key when looking at how to start an online business is how you decide to market your website. One, there are many companies which you are able to buy traffic from at a very cheap price and this can be a good way to supplement your natural search engine traffic. The way to build natural search engine traffic is through content and developing back links. Back links are links from other websites to yours so that when search engine search bots are indexing webpages, they will find the links to your web site and index your pages. Two, many hosting companies are now offering $25.00 to $50.00 free introductory marketing coupons through Google, Yahoo, etc. for their new customers and first-time account holders. Three, start up a Blog. It used to be that a company without a website was looked upon with suspicion. Now, it seems a company without a blog is regarded as the odd-man-out. This is a powerful way you can make informal contact with your customers, and let them get to know you. Wordpress is the way you want to go. You can use your own domain name, host it yourself (complete control over the content), and keep those indexing spiders coming back.

If you work on serving your niche, develop a good site and contents, its only natural people will want to read what they find and continually return to your website. This is a simple formula in your search on how to start an online business. If you want to know and learn more:

Download a free ebook : How To Build Your Internet Empire One Site at a Time

About the Author
Kathleen Krueger is a part-time entrepreneur who manages MarginsXs Ebooks website and blog.

Source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=764010

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