This article will teach you the basics of starting your
first internet business. You'll be introduced to some very
useful products and services. You can also use this as a
checklist to help stay focused and make it easier to set up
and improve your internet business.
1) ‘Find a Market’ - Find a market before you decide on a
product. If you pick a product first then find out later
there isn’t a market for it, you will have wasted a lot of
time and money. So be sure to look for the market first.
Also try to find an area that inspires or excites you. If
you find your passion then it’ll be easier to stay motivated
when building your business. Use Google to search different
keywords. Try searching with Yahoo to see what else is
selling. Check eBay for all their different categories. And
use ClickBank to look for interesting markets. When you
locate a market and find out what people want, all you’ll
have to do is sell it to them. After your first internet
project is up and running, and is profitable, then you may
want to start looking for your next market. Remember it's
very easy to jump from one project to the next before the
first one is finished. So try to find a market or project
that you really like and stay with it until its making
money.
2) ‘Find a Product’ - After finding a market you’ll need to
find a product to sell. You could search the internet to see
what other people are selling to get some ideas. Or buy
resale rights to a product. Maybe you can sell an affiliate
product. Remember you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Find
a product someone else is selling and make it a little
better, different, lower in price, or add a bonus whenever
someone buy from you. If you choose to sell digital products
you will find many extra benefits such as: no shipping or
handling, low start up cost, your profit margin will be
close to 100%, your customer will get their product right
away. And a lot of it can be set up automatically so there’s
less work for you. Make sure to take full advantage of the
automation possibilities of the internet.
3) ‘Get a Domain Name’ – You’ll want to have your own domain
name. Try to think of a few different names because your
first choices may not be available. Choose a short name and
it will be easier for people to remember. If possible get
domain names ending with.com. You should also try to get a
name to match your product. And maybe use keywords in your
domain name to get a better listing on search engines.
4) ‘Hosting Companies’ - The purpose of hosting company is
to keep your website running properly. They will make sure
everything is working properly so your customers can
navigate through it and buy your product or service. So this
is a very important responsibility. If your website isn’t
working properly or not at all then you are losing money.
You may find some free hosting companies, but you really do
get what you pay for. So it may be better to use a paid
hosting company.
5) ‘Create a Website’ - Create a website so your customers
can buy your products 24 hour a day. You will be competing
with lots of other websites so try to make yours unique. If
your site takes a long time to upload your potential
customers will go somewhere else. Graphics are nice to look
at but slow to upload so have more text and less graphic.
Remember its words that sell products. To get ideas for you
website search the web and look for sites that you like.
Make sure your website is easy to navigate. And if you are
short on time and have the money you could hire a
professional to build your site. Or if you want to save
money you could do it yourself.
6) ‘Payment Processor’ - To collect money for your products
you will need a payment processor. Make sure that you accept
credit cards because most transactions will be made with
them. But you should also consider other options as well,
like accepting checks and money orders. And you may want to
use PayPal. The more ways you can collect money the more
sales you’ll make. And if you’re selling a digital product
you may want to use ClickBank.
7) ‘Autoresponder’ - If you want to make your internet
business easier, then you’ll want to automate as much as
possible by using an autoresponder. You can automate a lot
of your every day business tasks leaving more time for you
to concentrate on more important things. Here are a few
examples: send out email advertisements to everyone on your
list at predetermined intervals. Automate the delivery of
several different mini courses all at once. Send out
sequential emails automatically whenever someone buys one of
your products. Have all of your digital products sent out
automatically. And with an autoresponder you can collect
names and email addresses and add them to your list of
customers and much, much more.
8) ‘Free Advertising’ - This may be a good way to start out
if you are limited on funds. But this will be slower than
paid advertising and will take a lot more time. And time is
money so figure out how much you’re worth and monitor your
time. If you are spending a lot of time with free
advertising and not getting the results you like, then you
may want to try something else. Keep in mind when using free
advertising someone else may also place their ad with yours
and this is not very professional. Also when you join these
free advertising lists it usually means everyone on that
list can send free advertising to you. So you may get a lot
of unwanted emails.
9) ‘Paid Advertising’ - You may get better results with paid
advertising. And at first you may think blasting your ad to
as many people as possible will make you the most money. But
this really isn’t a good idea for a couple of reasons. First
a lot of people won’t have an interest in your product so
they’ll probably not even read your ad. And second you may
be accused of spamming which is something you never want to
do. So always try placing ads with your specific targeted
group. And always test your results to make sure that its
cost efficient.
10) ‘Collect a List’ - This gets 5 stars. Start collecting
your list of names and email addresses as soon as possible,
add to your list often, and cherish your list because it
will make you money over and over again. Whenever you need
extra money you can send an email promoting a product to
your list. So you’ll want to collect names and emails
addresses by offering free e-books or a mini course, by
having them join your newsletter and of course whenever they
buy your great product.
And remember to always invest in yourself. Invest your money
for quality information that will help expand your business,
and invest your time to thoroughly read the information.
Copyright © Duane Marx
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Duane Marx
For a list of internet marketing resources
and other free marketing tips please visit:
www.internet-checklist.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You have permission to publish this article electronically
or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are
included.
About the Author
Duane Marx
For a list of internet marketing resources
and other free marketing tips please visit:
http://www.internet-checklist.com