Business Online

These are liable , viable online businesses, not a list of get-rich-quick schemes, or a fail-proof offer of turning you into an online billionaire overnight. It is a list of 3 opportunities available online( 2 I’m sure you’ve heard about, and so I simply write about them and then give links to useful sites, the last one is purely my idea as far as I know) with resources to get you started and advice to help you if you get into the tough and difficult places. By reading all the information below and the resources I’ll be offering you, I can assure you that with a reasonable time-frame you will definitely be running a successful online business in no time. Its a bit like an unspoken rule that you don’t write blog articles the way I’m about to write this one ie by sending much needed traffic to other sites, but I guess if someone can find answers to his/her questions by following the links I’ll provide, and be able to set up a successful online business I’d be happier than trying to create an intricate web of my posts and keep you trapped on my site (actually there’s a lot of good stuff here, you can look at the recent posts ). I wouldn’t mind a comment here, and a subscription to my rss, but I’ll leave that solely at your discretion. The last online business at the bottom of this post is purely my idea, and its something I hope someone will get into and make some good money for themselves. MAKE SURE YOU READ IT! Now to those online businesses …

The first of this online business trio is the buying and selling of domain names. It requires investments as low as $100.00 and can actually be much more lower. There is a learning curve and it will be foolhardy to assume that you’ll make big bucks without taking out time to learn. If you’ve been reading my posts you’ll realize that I don’t really dig the whole make it quick idea. So all the 3 online business ideas you’ll come across here are genuine opportunities to put in some decent amount of work and make some money. If you’re going to start domaining ( or whatever selling domains may be called ) I’ll advice you start by reading up on these forums www.namepros.com and www.dnforums .com . There’s a whole load of information there and the other forum members are pretty helpful. With hard work and proper education you’ll be on your way to earning some good money for yourself. There’s a host of other useful sites, www.tdnam.com, www.namebio.com , you can also check out www.dnjournal.com and www.domainerpro.com . It will take you more than a month to take in all the information on these sites, and between them I’m sure you’ll get as good an online business education in this field as you can get.

Start your own blog. There are literally over a million and one articles on starting this type of online business - a blog. So whats my twist on this one ? Its fairly simple. Once you start reading about blogging you’ll be revving to start up one immediately - that will be a big mistake. Read through on any and every piece of information you can lay your hands on, take your time, if you’re going to make money blogging its not going to be at the snap of your fingers. Its going to be by understanding everything it takes and more importantly having them at your finger tips . A lot of what you read will not be useful , but being able to identify the garbage is a sure sign that you are learning. A simple trick is to make sure that someone writing about how to rank tops in the search engines is actually ranking tops in the search engines and not trawling somewhere in some obscure page - obvious but will definitely save you loads of time. Courtney’s internet marketing school is a must read. When you’ve got a bit of information I’m sure you’ll find a whole load of stuff on the best ways to set out , I’ll advice that you start out by signing up for a blogger account, and run it for about 2 weeks. What will this do? You’ll be able to evaluate yourself, your ability to consistently put up posts especially when it seems like no one is interested in reading them and you’ll be able to sound out the different tactics I’m sure you would have picked up from all our reading. Once you’ve done this I’m sure you can then decide to pay for a domain name and hosting. You will find a lot of extremely useful tips at problogger.net I’m recommending Darren because he ( like what I’m doing ) will give you links to other sites that may prove really helpful.

FINALLY. This is the last and much talked about online business opportunity. Its based on social media networks such as myspace , facebook , hi5 etc I’ve been reading about online businesses for a very long time and I’ve definitely not come across anything like this. Its been played around , maybe inferred , but its never been described in the pretty clear terms that I intend to.

Most of the big social media networks have memberships spiralling into tens of millions, and this user base continues to grow every second.

The important question we must ask is why do companies that sell products and services pay millions of dollars to have popular celebrities endorse these products and services? The answer is pretty simple. They feel - and they’re probably right - that these people have a strong influence on the average Tom, Dick and Harry. But in the age in which these endorsements flourished it was near impossible to become a celebrity of any sort, much less exert any form of influence. It took stunning looks, a shrewd management of one’s rise to fame and a very healthy (or unhealthy-depending on your perspective ) dose of luck to even come close.

Social media sites have drastically reduced this barrier, and changed the requirements. To be able to exert an influence on 1000 people in 5 days, all I need is an email address and a brain that can think up a password for that email address. With access to the internet I can quickly build a ‘friend’ list of over 1000 people IN ONE DAY. A few people may reject your ‘confirm as friend’ advances on facebook, but 95 percent of people wont !!!

By deftly sending out messages, remembering to send out happy birthday greetings ( pretty easy to do that , just install the right applications on facebook ) and doing every other thing that basic human interaction requires you will earn the trust of a good number of these people. And as has been mentioned nearly everywhere where social media sites have been discussed, all you need to do is add some value to others and they’ll remain ‘loyal’.

Now how much will a company be willing to pay you to do an innocuous review of their product on your profile page - if it was viewed over 1000 times a week ? Do you want to imagine what putting an affiliate link in the right place can do ? I strongly believe that by building the right group of people on your friend list you can give yourself a HUGE advantage and edge and turn yourself into some form of ‘online celebrity’ - at no extra expense, just the hours it will take you to build and maintain that imposing friends’ list.

But I’d like to hear everyone’s comments before I go off on a tangent. Based on the feed back I’ll then decide to write my follow up post on how to BUILD AN ORGANIC LIST OF FRIENDS AND CONTACTS that will make advertisers queue up with their offers, and keep drawing in new people ?

There are a million and one profitable business opportunities available online. There are a lot of things to get involved in online. There’s profit that can be made, honestly, with hard work online. But thats not what this post is about. Posts that are solely about that are two-for a penny on the internet – so I won’t bother you with another one.

It occurred to me that the online business world is basically defined by eras. Each era is characterized by a new idea or concept. Advertising, search engine optimization, search engines , news, gaming, blogging etc But there usually is some big idea that pops out of nowhere ( seemingly ) and then suddenly becomes extremely profitable – making huge profits for the people who hitch a ride on the band wagon early. Eventually too many people get in and profitability dwindles, funny enough, some people make their own money helping people who want to catch on to the bandwagon ( search engine marketing is an example ), and the probability of making some decent bucks fizzles out. This is the usual cycle for the profitability of any online business.

Its obvious that those that get the best deal are those who get in at the beginning. Most of the ‘hot new’ ideas online for profitable online businesses are basically re-packaged ones. So I wondered to myself, whats the next big thing ? What’s the next profitable online business with a decent  probability for success? How do you get in at the beginning ?

And thats how this post was born. Basically I doubt that any one will come up with that one idea, but I feel a good number of ideas shaken together , looked at from a different perspective and maybe marketed to a different niche could just be it for some one. In other words I feel that the next big thing is scattered on jotpads, notebooks, minds, computer screens and every other place people leave fragments of their thoughts. So I’m asking everyone to throw in their ideas that for some reason have not yet seen the light of day.  Feel free to drop them in as comments. Who knows you just may get some feed back that’ll send the dollars pouring in. I’ll pick the really interesting ones, and write posts about combining them with others to spurn a profitable online business.

Now while one person reading this post may not have the big answer, I think if everyone throws in their little ’spark’ somehow by putting two or three ideas together everyone can come up with  their own ‘fire’. Feel free to drop a comment about where you think the online business world is headed. So good luck to you and happy commenting.

I’m offering something special to the best idea . Keep your fingers crossed.

In my previous post on making the much needed capital for your online business, I mentioned a few ideas on coming up with the some money to start up your online business. I also pointed out that these ideas can easily snowball into full online businesses for you. My opinion is that you simply come up with a clear plan ( since you weren’t in for the long term initially ), so that you don’t get your fingers burnt.

So I said I’ll put up ten simple steps to making some money. They’re laughable, true, but if you try them you’ll be closer to making more money online than you were , 5 minutes before reading this post.

I’ll advise that you follow the steps in order, but if you don’t want to, feel free to improvise. My goal in this post is not to provide you with a long term online business even though that may eventually happen. I simply just want to show that with hard work you can make some money online. There’s no better motivator to putting in that extra work than receiving that check in your mail, or checking your account online and seeing the dollar sign and a few non-zero digits after it, no matter how small.

So to the steps:

1. Write a list of 10 things you can do sitting in front of your computer
2. Strike out 5 that don’t really excite you
3. Now here’s the catch - open your web browser and browse to www.google.com - not much but you’ll be surprised how many million-dollar ideas started out like this.
   
4. Type in each of the 5 things (in turn, that is) and add ‘earn money’ before each phrase, it mustn’t necessarily make grammatical sense.
5. Scan through all the listings in the search results and go through the brief descriptions, these will give you an idea of the opportunities available to you without necessarily having to open all the pages.
6. Click on any three listings that hold your attention, and scour through the web sites.
7. You’d have gone through 15 web sites by now,make sure to look out for credible and secure payment schemes, credible feedback from independent sites and forums, a functional user support system.
8. You’re options should have narrowed down by now - sleep over it.
9. Select one of your options (if it’s possible you can select more than one) based on your research in forums, draw up a feasible expectation of how much you intend to earn and how long it will take.
10. Get to work and make some money.

Good Luck .

Its very interesting to read many of the make money online schemes one comes across every day surfing the internet. As a matter of fact any body who values his/her time must have developed a way to quickly identify the gimmicks. I, for one, can hit the Ctrl+w button on my laptop ( firefox ) to close any tab that seems to offend my senses ( whilst also breaking every known law of business income).

And that was my biggest problem writing this post. This post is not about the get-rich-quick scams every one comes across, but its about opportunities to make genuine money online - with hardwork. Problem is any web headline for this post must contain two words, ‘money’ and ‘online’. Two words that may not necessarily go down well with a lot of internet surfers. Hopefully you’re reading this , and you’ve given me a chance. Actually I’ve tried to weave the purpose of this post into the headline without necessarily sounding like a gimmick.

The idea for this post came from an interesting post i read over at TUK . In this article Jason gives a link to a web site that pays you for posts, comments and generally things like that . The reason I’ve chosen to put this on here is because I realize that a lack of funds is usually an excuse ( and thats usually all it is ) to setting up an online business.

Basically with $30.00 you’ll be able to get most of what you need to set up a full fledged online business , hosting and all. It may not be the best but it’ll be enough to get your feet wet and earn yourself some money.

I almost got myself caught up in the snag of looking for some of these deals that’ll help you make this start up cash, but i realized that I’ll have to try a lot of them out to be certain enough to recommend them here . So I’ll just give a basic pattern.

Always make sure the returns are not crazy. Money made online is spent in the real world, conversely too money spent online is made in the real world. $1000.00 is a lot of money, anywhere, anytime (i guess that gives you a fair idea of how much I make from adsense) so anyone promising you this or more must either love you to bits or want to milk you - I’d go with the second option. Stick to beleivable offers - period.

I’ll advise that you stick to writing . It isn’t that difficult to learn if you feel you aren’t good at it. More importantly because writing is only a form of expression I’m sure you’ll find atleast one thing that you’ll be able to write about. Paid reveiws, comments , blog posts, articles, forum posts, the list goes on and on.

You can also try out one of the freelancer networks. I used getafreelancer for a while so I’ll recommend it, but I think elance.com will do too. There are loads of projects there under ‘ copywriting ‘. Trick is simple , bid low , build a reputation and get reviews then you can charge. It will also help if you submit a few articles to places like ezine articles and have a few samples on hand to show your stuff to the project owners. As a matter of fact you may get used to this and decide to run this as a full online business. Like I always say it doesn’t come easy but you’ll definitely make money this way.

Finally this post is simply meant to set your brain off, sparking with ideas. Please read my 10 simple steps to a successful online business . funny but its a great post.

Can you design your own e-commerce web site – all by yourself ? Without using a web design company ? All for free? They’ve told you its impossible, that you cant do it, or that this is simply a gimmick to get you to read this blog post. They’re wrong on all points especially the last one.

This series is a spin – off from my other series on designing your own online business website for free . Like I said in the first post of that series, this is the second stream. The first stream simply deals with designing a simple but effective HTML web site (for free too) for a few specific products or services. This second stream deals with something a little bit more difficult – designing a full blown e- commerce.

Like I always do I’ll be plain up front -

• Its going to be a tiny weeny little bit difficult

• but more importantly YOU DEFINITELY CAN DO IT

All you will need to come up with your e-commerce website is the right advice and guidance to help you navigate the sometimes complicated world of e-commerce solutions. For this series I am also going to be a little bit more specific. To get the tools you need for free you need to use the right web hosting services, learn to find what you want for free, and get the right web site templates for your online business – for free. So I’ve done a bit of research on online business e-commerce websites to come up with the best of all three.

There are probably more ways than one, to design your e-commerce web site but to avoid being vague and to give you the most value from these series of posts I’m going to actually pick one method, a particular web hosting service and set of add-ons and tools that will give you a full blown e-commerce web site in in as little time as possible . I’ll be available to answer questions and help out as much as I can.

My next post in this series will deal with the first step towards your e-commerce web site – choosing the right content management system (and if you don’t know what a content management system is don’t get bothered, it actually sounds more technical than it is). You can view all current articles in this series by clicking here

Writing content for your online business website is far more important than picking the right template. Hopefully if you’re reading this post you’ve already read the preceeding post that gives you links to useful websites where you can get free web templates. Free as they may be no one can come up with accurate content for your specific online business - except you. You will have to do some work in this area.

Putting up the right content is multi-faceted . There are a lot of things you will have to pay attention  to. You’ll have to learn how to come up with, and use creative and appealing web headlines, I’ve already written about this here. Learning how to weave key words into your content without making it unreadable is also something you’ll have to look out for.

I’ll just point out some of the things you can do to ensure that the content you come up with is both useful to your customers and clients as well as search engine friendly.

• Study your chosen web template . Different web templates have different layouts. Each layout is designed after a particular presentational concept. Most templates will usually have a central portion on the page above the fold for your main content. Most layouts also contain smaller portions of the page for smaller tidbits of information. Understanding the particular layout of your web template will ensure that you come up with appropriate content tailored to leverage all the advantages of your chosen web template.
  So before you start writing your content have a proper look at your template it’ll give you a clear idea of how many words you need, the size of images you will be able to use and how much content can go into one page.

• Determine the best keyword phrases for your products or services . To get high traffic you will need to have good search engine page rankings. One of the ways you can achieve this is by using the right keywords that will draw the right search engine users to your online business website. There are a lot of tools that are available for researching keywords online but rather than send you off to hunt for one ,I’ve found this one it’s an excellent tool for selecting and researching key words, most importantly its easy to use. To select ideal keyword phrases avoid top search queries, since the competition for such phrases will be very high. Simply pick a more specific phrase to whatever product or service you intend to offer and optimize your content for it.

• Weave your content around your keywords/keyword phrases . Based on your selected keyword phrases, write your content. Ensure that your selected keyword phrase is in the title of the content and also that you put it in the first paragraph of your content. Usually a keyword density of between 2 and 5 percent is recommended to ensure that your content doesn’t seem too artificial. The search engine bots will pick your content soon enough, but even where that is not the case you can submit your url directly to most of the major search engines. I’ll do a piece on that soon and link to it from here.

• Ensure there are no typos. Typos have a dousing effect on the interest of your visitors. Most people simply move on to some other page or close the window once they come across typos. Ensure that you read, re-read, and crosscheck your content. Typing in a word processor that has spell check functionality can be a lot of help so I’ll advice this.

• Learn from your competition . Visit the online business websites of other businesses in your niche selling the same products and services. Study the way they’ve presented  their products and services and then build on this to create your own content. Write a list of things you didn’t quite like and things you found attractive, use this to come up with your own content. If you did this to 5 of the top online businesses in your niche , your content will eventually have the best in all the 5 with no resemblance to any of them in particular. make this a frequent habit and update and optimize your content to always be at par with the top online businesses in your niche.

Hope the tips above will give the help you need to come up with super content for your website.

I promised to give links to web sites that offered web templates, I haven’t been able to come round to putting up the post , but I guess I’ve finally done the rounds and come up with a few. Please note that some of these sites require a link back so please ensure that you read the terms of use. Here they are …

http://www.freewebsitetemplates.com/

http://www.dreamtemplate.com/

http://www.zeroweb.org/

http://www.oswd.org/

http://www.templateworld.com/

I’ll keep updating this list as I come across more web sites.

Everybody searching for a product or service online has a basic idea of the value they intend to get from that product or service. In other words if I’m looking to buy real estate I’m looking for a site that gives me information on where I can get the best property to buy. If I’m looking for a particular music cd then I want a website that offers that cd for sale, will offer me a download service or can somehow get the cd to me.

Speaking in basic conversational terms a benefit is the actual value that my product or service offers my client or customer, its the customers sub-conscious evaluation of all the work and effort you’ve put into that product or service . Sometimes online businesses get carried away trying to describe special features to prospective clients , they forget that the clients are there, primarily because of the not-so-special features that offer them foreseeable benefits. If its an online retail shop, the fact that you now accept credit cards should not be the first and only information a visitor gets when they come to your home page. Give the obvious things you do - product search, popular products, discounts etc - a prominent place, that way your visitors don’t get carried away. Your goal is to make a sale, whether through a credit card payment or by any other means. Your excitement is understandable but it may not translate into needed customers if you misuse it.

Obviously where you believe that you have a special feature that adds value to your product feel free to sell it ( and what better place than your web site ). Just make sure that it is not at the expense of the more obvious benefits a prospective client will be looking for. Sometimes it may be better to create a special page linking from the original product or service page , to describe in detail this new feature. Anyone who comes to this special-features page is interested in the information that you have to offer and will be more likely to go through this page. Either way such a client would have already seen your product page and by getting to this page has already shown some unconscious level of commitment to purchasing your product or service, its almost like some cyber analogy of closing in on the catch.

How have you set up your web site , what have your experiences been, and whats your view

Your online business web site will thrive on content, primarily. No matter how good your product or service is , its clear that your only selling point is the content on your web site. Unlike your competition who have offices or stores somewhere and – depending on how good their products or services are – can allow the products sell themselves by just showing them off to prospective clients, you are entirely dependent on your images and content to make that sale, or clinch that portfolio. Obviously with Adobe Flash and 3d imaging software you can come up with stunning online ‘presentations’, but these have their disadvantages(one of which is their inability to be crawled by search engine bots ), and are not readily available to the average internet entrepreneur.

What’s all the hype and noise about content? I wrote a little piece on its effect on web traffic here, but primarily this is the reason your online visitors come to your web site in the first place. To get some information. And talking about the dual concepts of information and content…

I also want to make a distinction here. In using the generic term ‘content’ I am basically referring to the actual amount of useful information contained on your web site ( or a particular page on your website ). It isn’t just good enough to throw up a write-up that may seem to describe your products and services, it is necessary to consider the perception of your visitors. Exactly what keywords are likely to draw your visitors to your web site? If they are searching for such keywords what information will they specifically be looking for?

By determining these you can form a simple mental guide that will aid you in coming up with the right content. From my perception of content it’s clear that your content should appeal to a broad range of people within your defined targeted traffic.

In the long run , your ability to create information-filled content will give your visitors some value that will definitely ensure that they return, and also spread the word for you. My piece on creating relevant content will definitely give you a tip or two to enable you sell your product or service and come up with a winning solution for developing your content.

An online business plan is any plan that is designed to encapsulate your projections for your online business. It is key to understanding planned allocation of your resources to achieve the most with the minimum amount of resources. It also enables you foresee and decide on how you would handle envisaged problems and opportunities, giving you the added advantage of preparation .

Your business plan is your guide in making decisions for optimal growth and development. Most online businesses may be run by a single individual or at most a few people, especially at the beginning. But it is still wise to define short term, medium term and long term goals for your business. At the very least it acts to ensure that everyone is on the same page , with the same goals and notions in mind, hinged within similar time frames.

For a start - up your online business plan may simply consist of

• A summary of your business and what you hope to acheive

• A mission statement - this will help to keep the business focused in the long run

• Success Keys, core values that you hope will take you to the top of your market

• An analysis of the market you intend to be competing in and how you hope to gain an edge over competition

• Finally you need a break even analysis of your online business. How much are you putting in and how long will it take to make your initial investment back

For your online business to succeed you must develop an implementation strategy that outlines how you intend to achieve your set down goals and targets. It takes a lot of discipline to follow this through but this gives you a clearer picture of when/why you are lagging behind your projected goals. It can also help you to set feasible and achievable goals , helping you review your expectations.

A full standard online business plan which you may have to come up with as your business grows should contain

• An Executive Summary - A simple summary of your business, concise and straightforward

• Company Description - This should contain information about incorporation, number of shareholders, breif reveiw of your board, company’s history etc

• Products and Services - State the products/services that your selling and the benefit or advantage it offers your clients/customers.

• Market Analysis - A detailed analysis of the market you intend to sell your product to. Possible advertising techniques, demographic spread etc

• Strategy and Implementation - Clearly describe how you intend to carry out day to day running in order to acheive your set targets

• Management Team - Information on staff holding managerial positions especially detailing previous experience and background

• Financial Plan - this should contain your break-even analysis, cash flow, business ratios, profit and loss etc

This should help you write out a good business plan for your online business, whether for personal or corporate use.