Hello Readers, I’m Sierra, the founder and creator of Selflessmoney.com. This website is deliberately created and developed to constantly educate and provide you with useful tips on how to achieve financial freedom through selfless endeavors, working the right techniques with the right energy.
I’ve been into affiliate marketing for a while now and just wanted to share my entrepreneurial skills and experience with you so you can safely dive into Online Business without making the same type of mistakes that a lot of people constantly make while just getting started.
I would also like to introduce you to the Wealthy Affiliate University, the same online marketing /training community that changed my life completely and turned me into a successful affiliate marketer today.
This great affiliate marketing community will train you in making use of the best online marketing resources out there and show you how to turn your passion into a thriving Online Business. What is your passion about? Come on, let’s show you the way to financial independence by saying NO to procrastination but YES to a world of possibilities where numerous opportunities are already awaiting you.
Online Business has gone a long way since 1995 when Amazon came up with its first book. If you’ve been planning to start up an online business, there are numerous opportunities that utilize a couple of different business representations:
- E-commerce sites like Amazon or eBay
- Online clothing retail like Crowdcube, Betabrand, and others
- SaaS (Software as a Service)
- Hand-made markets such as Etsy
- Freelancing and online consulting services like Upwork and Fiverr
- Subscription boxes such as Dollar Shave Club or Apron
- Vacation rental services such as Booking.com and Airbnb
- Dropshipping ventures like network marketing food supplement distribution
Below are a few steps to help you get started with an online business of your dream:
Step 1: Choose an Interest
If you’re just starting a new business online, this is where you go from – choosing an interest or perhaps finding a passion is paramount to online success and every successful blogger today started out with a passion they built upon! In order to achieve a similar success online, you need to identify your passion as well.
This is the foundation which your business is built upon. Without a passion, there’s no foundation. And without a solid foundation, your business will likely crumble on the way.
While several blog posts will teach you to blog simply about any given passion/niche, it’s worth noting that not all niches are profitable in the blogosphere – not all industries can bring you the desired financial independence. While a lot of blogging heresies are being posted everywhere online, you should rather select from the most profitable niches that interest you the most.
Here are the most profitable niches that you can choose from:
- Health
- Weight Loss and Fitness
- Pets
- Relationships and Dating
- Passive income building through investing
- Self-Improvement
- Beauty Treatments
- Make Money Online
- Personal Finance
- Technology and Gadgets
Step 2: Build A Website
Select a name: On Wealthy Affiliate, you’ll be walked through the whole process of selecting a name for your business and having a domain name registered should be done alongside each other (in tandem). What you simply want to figure out is whether the name you’ve selected or the domain name registered hasn’t yet been taken by someone else.
There are obvious advantages to registering a domain name which looks or sounds alike with your business, product or company name. You want to ensure that it’s made as simple as possible so users can find you easily when they search for your business online. The same applies when you’re leveraging on marketplaces like eBay or Etsy to name your storefront.
Grow your site: In certain circumstances, it’ll be more sensible to grow your personal website. If you’re launching a product online, like a SaaS (Software as a Service) product, members of your team have already possessed the expertise to assist you with building your business site.
If you are actually selling something analog (for example, a subscription service or clothing box, or a similar service like design or consulting services) leveraging a web platform, using an already existing platform, or perhaps a designed e-commerce choice, might be more beneficial; so you aren’t beginning from scratch.
You may choose to hire a web design company. This is a common choice. Whichever way, note that it isn’t an unpleasant idea to grow a least viable product (LVP) website first, which implies that you do not need to build up a completely accurate/perfect website out of the gate. Examine your hypothesis and deduce that your service or product can be marketed utilizing a cost-effective choice.
Make it mobile-optimized: It’s of course feasible to build sites and choose to utilize themes that are not mobile optimized. You pretty much widely believe that it’s a biased idea. Anyways, while you’ve decided to build an online presence, consider making it mobile-optimized.
If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, your visitors will certainly have a less pleasant experience whenever they prefer searching through their mobile phones, and search engines will equally hold you to ransom in search results, meaning that your search visibility and organic ranking status will be lowered beyond normal.
Focus on the quality of your images: Sloppily created images on your website do not add anything to building your trust score and credibility status. Whether you are selling ideas, products, or expertise, utilizing good images will constitute a big difference.
If you are dealing in products, try investing in the tools you’d need to take and modify good pictures or hiring a freelancer to get the job done for you. If you aren’t certain you can cope with paying for pro images, be on the lookout for veteran students who might be looking for an opportunity to build their portfolios which attract little costs.
Also, do not get caught with trying to settle for poor stock images. You identify the ones I mean.
Consider blogging: Blogging (Content Marketing) may or may not be included in your previous marketing channels. The main thing here is trying to be selective. If you are just constructing your website from the onset or leveraging an e-commerce theme via Squarespace or another source, ensure to build the website such that integrating a blog would not be a main reconstruction.
Think about affiliate partnerships and monetization: Using on-site advertisements and affiliate partnership to monetize your e-commerce website is something worth thinking about.
If you’ve decided to integrate 3rd-party adverts into your website, begin in a slow and steady manner. You wouldn’t want potential consumers to be misled about what you are originally managing to sell through your website.
Don’t just set it and leave it: When you start out your self-hosted website, integrate Google Analytics, or simply figure out whether your 3rd-party solution can constitute monthly intuitions on how perfectly your website is performing. Make use of that info to evaluate little changes to your website which might have an influence on your selling point.
Step 3: Attract Visitors
Once you’re done creating your website, you’ll want to bring people around to read the posts and share with others. This is significantly part of the steps required to build a business website successfully.
You need to devise strategies for attracting quality website visitors and these begin with content building and sharing, then promotion. It may take a longer time to get results with content building without promotion.
While you’ll be creating great content almost every day, there must be a way through which you’ll be promoting your content effectively – spreading the word alongside building out compelling content!
Here are some good ways to promote your content for free:
- Forum Posting: You don’t need to use all the forums on the web to have an effective forum posting strategy for your business blog. Just select a number of forums – probably 3-4 high PR forums would be okay. Insert your website URL in the signature box and you’ll generate tons of referral traffic to your blog. To make the most of forum posting, ensure to post regularly, helping others solve their problems and participating actively in the communities.
- Socializing: This is quite another powerful way to drive lots of traffic to your blog. There are four types of traffic – Organic traffic, Referral traffic, direct traffic, and Social traffic. When you stay active on social media, you’ll earn social traffic and this will help you generate lots of backlinks to your blog in no distant time.
Step 4: Legalize it
There are some steps you must take to ensure your business is legalized. While broadly speaking, the same regulations are applicable to internet entrepreneurships as brick-and-mortar ventures, there are some overwhelming disparities.
Study online business rules: The most crucial difference when it comes to engaging in online businesses or in person is online business regulation. These regulations have to do with the distribution of your clients’ info together with other intellectual property and privacy laws. The SBA lays down a complete shortlist of the specifics of internet business regulations, so ensure to study them before you get started with any online business.
Incorporate your business: Make a decision on how you want the legal structure of your business to be set up. A lot of businesses make attempts to incorporate, but do thorough research to find out which is most suitable for you. State-fundamental requirements will, typically, differ according to the different states. Reach out to your local state secretary’s official site for more info on getting compliant at the level of the state.
Study tax obligations for operating an online business: Do you operate a home business? And as such, you’re likely to be subjected to particular tax deductions. You will typically be obliged to pay some income tax; thus, prior to setting up an online business, it may be good enough to meet with a legal practitioner first and ensure you’re fully covered pressing forward.
Most importantly, getting started with an online business is related to starting a real business with a real storefront. Nevertheless, you will need to run business plans and will leverage your understanding of tax priorities and obligations from the beginning. Do not underrate the significance of blending an existing site and bringing it before your ideal market.
Step 5: Earn Revenue
Every blogger wants to make money off their posting endeavors. But not everyone wants to wait for success to come at the right time. Most people ask me; how long would it take to get results from blogging? And I do tell them to continue posting consistently (if possible every day) and within the first six months, they’ll begin to see some traction in search engines.
Also, in not more than 12-18 months of being consistent, persistent and disciplined, money will have started coming in. It’d be the time to start making money even while in the backyard, or sleeping, or at work.
If you’re a type that wouldn’t want to blog on the persistence rule, then Online Business isn’t meant for someone like you. You’ll quickly give up and even quit Online Business faster than you got started.
What are the ways to monetize your blog?
- Google AdSense: Google AdSense is a free online advertising program that allows bloggers to display advertisers’ ads on their blogs and earn from valid clicks. Though not all bloggers love to monetize with AdSense, it’s a good source of income for most struggling veteran bloggers who are just gaining traction in search results.
- Affiliate Marketing: Becoming an affiliate marketer is one of the best adventures you can find online and it’s a great way to earn income passively after a few months of consistently posting quality articles. Aside from these two ways, there are still lots of ways to be explored while monetizing your blog.
Conclusion
Getting started with an online business requires all the prerequisites listed in this tutorial and, ultimately, setting up a personal website, which is something you can do yourself without hiring a programmer or acquiring the knowledge of coding or HTML first. If you’re ready to get started, don’t hesitate to learn more through this route.