So you have decided to start your own online marketing business. Congratulations. You are taking a huge step into the latest technology that is still in its infancy. The internet is projected to grow to over 300 billion dollar in sales within the next 10 years. Now is the best time to get your foot in the door and get started.
There are several steps you will have to go through if you want to be successful at this extremely competitive game. First thing you have to do is come up with a plan for your new business. There is an old saying "People who fail to plan, plan to fail". I certainly do not want you to be one of the 95% of the people who start an online marketing business and fail. I am here to do everything I can to help you succeed. Here are the initial steps you need to get your business going.
Figure out your commitment
How much time and money can you invest to make your website profitable? In the beginning you will be spending a great deal of time going through the learning curve. How many hours per day are you willing to invest in your new business? How much money are you willing to invest in your new business? If you have more money than time your website can be up and running very quickly if you want to use pay per click advertising. If you do not have much money, then you will have to invest more time to get your new business up and running.
Find a Niche
If you do not already have a niche in mind then you will have to find one. A niche is a market within a market. For example, "Leica" is a manufacturer of photography products. "Leica Camera" would be a niche within the market. A "Leica Digital Camera" is micro niche within the market of "Leica Camera". One way to find a niche is to see what is being advertised on TV. In the home exercise market Tony Horton runs an infomercial for P90X. You could become an affiliate, build a website then start selling the P90X home exercise DVDs on your website and earn a commission from each sale of P90X. The beauty of this method is that Beach Body, Tony Horton's company is spending the money to advertising the P90X system, not you.
Identify your customers
Once you have identified your Micro Niche you will need to identify your customers. What kinds of people would each of your website ideas serve? In order to find who your market is you will need to research, research and more research. A very easy way to do this is to use QuantCast. QuantCast keeps track of every purchase made on the web. They know things like the purchasers age, race, location, income, interests, and hobbies. Doing your research will prove to be invaluable as you get to know your target market.
Perform Keyword research
To determine if other people are searching for your micro niche. topics and learn more about your potential clients. There are many free keyword tools to help you get more information about your topic. Google's keyword tool is the best on the market and it is FREE. You will need to find keywords that are in demand (people are looking for it) yet have some chance of finding your site.
Determine what type of website you want
Do you want to be an affiliate marketer and promote other peoples products and be paid a fee for each sale. If you want to promote your own service or product then affiliate marketing will not work for you. Do you want to use blogs, create your website completely on your own or use one of the monthly subscription sites to build your site for you.
Register a domain name
Your domain name should contain your main keyword. Always try to secure a.Com at the end of your domain name. If this is not possible then go with.Net. Avoid domain names with the following extenstions:.US,.TV,.CO,.ME,.MOBI. Google and other search engines likes domains that are.Com or.Net. The other domain extensions do not carry as much weight with the search engines and can lower your page rank. This will cause your website to be better optimized by the search engines to get on page one. GoDaddy is a very good choice to register your domain name. GoDaddy has a search tool that will help you find a domain name that matches your micro niche market. You can usually purchase your domain name for under $15.
Find a Hosting Company
Two of my personal favorites are HostGator and 1 and 1. With HostGator you should sign up for the "Baby" plan. Both sites will give you unlimited websites for under $ 10 per month. HostGator has fantastic customer service and videos that walk you step-by-step through each process to get you up and running quickly and easily.