subject: Nine Steps To Create Your Dream Online Empire [print this page] Here's a nine step plan that you can follow to get you started on the road to financial independence and freedom from the 9-5.
1. Research. There's no point in selling a product or information that no one wants, and in the Internet age we all know what people want, just ask Google. You need to decide what your product will be.
a. A physical product. Just like a brick and mortar store, without the bricks and mortar and able to sell to the world, not just the high street.
b. An online service. Coaching and any form of consultancy can all be done remotely using fabulous web based tools or the simplicity of email and the telephone.
c. Advertising. Using the same model as glossy magazines and newspapers you create a website filled with content people want. Advertisers will pay to get to your traffic.
d. Information. You create (or pay someone else to create) an information product, an e-book, an email course, a webinar etc (ideally all of the above) about something people need to know. Then sell it.
2. Find the product
a. If you've decided to sell a physical product you need to find a reliable source, a wholesaler or drop shipper. You will need to buy in bulk from a wholesaler, but a drop shipper will sell to you one product at a time, minimizing your risk and removing the need to store inventory. The drop shipper will also handle shipping, a complication you can live without while you are getting started.
b. Online services need to be modeled, defined, priced and tested.
c. Advertisers need to be found.
d. Information products need to be sourced or created.
3. Get legal.
Depending on where you are in the world you will want to set up a legal framework for your business. Ideally keep your business quite separate, open a bank account for it and buy some accounting software to help with taxes. You may also need to register for VAT or Sales and Use tax.
4. Choose a website format.
You can sell through auction sites like eBay, and this may be a good way to get started, but pricing on eBay is very competitive, so you may want to graduate to your own e-commerce website. There are many formats to choose from.
5. Develop the Website platform.
You can do this yourself or find someone else to do it for you, but unless you can afford staff from day one, you will need to find out about your chosen web platform. Find a web hosting company, and register a domain for your business to use. Then you can set up the initial website, choose colors, get a logo etc. While these steps may be important in establishing a brand, they are not crucial to the operation of an online business. You will also need a toll free telephone number to use for your business. Display this prominently on your website.
6. Choose a payment processor.
It can be difficult to find when your business is new, but your website provider may be able to help.
7. Add content to the website.
So far life has been simpler for the information and advertising web sites. Now it gets hard as you have to put together the compelling content which makes your site work. For physical products this means adding product descriptions and pictures, setting up tax and shipping charges and your payment processor and testing from end to end.
8. Open for business.
It may seem strange to have this as a separate step, but a lot of people get stuck at this point. It's easy to prepare and prepare, but sometime you have to quit stalling and actually do.
9. Drive traffic to the website.
Creating a website is not enough. You need to get visitors. This means registering your website with search engines and giving them a reason to find you.
You may want to do this organically, by writing articles and posting to blogs all over the web, or by paying for advertising, usually with Google. You can do both. If you do neither, no one will find you and you won't make sales.
Few Internet fortunes are made on one product alone and the market is volatile. A product which sells well one year may be out of style the next.
Best of all, the skills you develop setting up one business will serve you well in creating the next, using the same steps. You will have found trusted sources of information which serve you well, use them wisely and build the online empire of your dreams!
by: Kirsty Hale
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