Creating Your Online Business in 8 Easy Steps

By Nancy J. Lolita

It's hard to focus when there is so much information coming at you. It's hard to know what to use and what to discard. But it is a MUST to make those decisions and learn to make them right from the start. Information overload can drive you crazy!

Everyone talks and writes with "letters". They should make a dictionary so we could cut the learning curve. By the time you buy all the latest products, go to conferences, and learn all the jargon, your head is spinning. You don't know where to start so you don't get started.

You must take action. Below you'll find 8 ways to break it all down and make it much easier to understand. Take it one step at a time and you'll get there!

1. Get To Know Yourself.

It's hard when you first start to write down your interests, accomplishments, etc., so read this to get ideas and just think about them when you're going about your day and they will be a lot easier to put on paper.

a. Accomplishments - even small things mean a lot so don't count them out - write them down.

b. Interests - what would you do if you had spare time or extra income.

c. Does something come naturally to you - what's easy for you may not be for someone else.

d. Now go the other way - what are some things that bother you. What annoys you. What makes you nervous.

So many times just going about your daily routine you will come across situations that you wish you could just buy a guide, have a small widget, have a mentor, etc. Write everything down, no matter how trivial you think it is. You don't have to have one large project when a few small projects will get you the same results.

2. Keywords - Do Your Research

Look at keywords and phrases. If you find no one is looking for your subjects it doesn't necessarily mean there's no competition. It very likely means no one is looking for this and it will be a hard business to build.

One of the free search tools is SEO Book's Keyword Suggestion tool. A couple of paid tools are Wordtracker or Keyword Disc.

3. How Much Competition Do You Have.

Like I said before, it's not a bad thing to have some competition, it means there is interest. If you've thought of a subject, it's highly unlikely that someone hasn't thought of it and it's failed to produce any results.

Dissect the competition - take notes. Think of better ways to do the same thing. Maybe a better story, easier system, more detail oriented.

Be unique - find your advantage.

4. Check Out Your Would-be Customers

Make a list of subjects you've been brainstorming about and set up a simple survey to find what questions people have about them. Give them some choices. Some hire ghostwriters to do this research/survey. It's much easier to write about something if you know what questions they want answered.

You could run PPC (PayPerClick) advertising or you could ask questions on a few forums, with an incentive for those filling out the survey. One incentive is to offer them a digital or ebook form to download when it's finished.

5. Product Creation

Having done the survey will make this task much easier.

They say if you want to be successful, do what successful people do. So find a few people who are successful in what you're thinking about and interview them.

Another method is the find a quiet, serene place away from distractions to just think and write. Let the words flow and worry about editing later. Put down all your random thoughts and worry about organizing them later.

If you're comfortable speaking, create a video with Camtasia Studio or Power Point. Some people learn better by watching and listening.

6. Sales Copy Creation

Before you produced your product, you had in mind the questions, problems, desires or frustrations your customers have. Now you have your rough draft and from that should be able to pull ideas out of that for some good sales copy.

If you're new to this, it may be easier to start with a lower cost product that won't require such an intense sales copy. This video will give you some ideas for creating strong sales copy - review this recent video by Jay Abraham...

Ask yourself how you can make your product irresistible. Do you have a special story or a special way of solving problems. Think if you were looking at your product - why would you buy it over your competitors.

7. Secure Ordering and Website Setup.

You can use Clickbank.com to set up your ordering system for digital products or a site like Kunaki for CD's or DVD's. If you use Paypal/Kunaki script you can even package several products together.

Free website design software is available at Nvu. SBI is a web hosting site that has website design tools built in. Dreamweaver and Frontpage are more advanced tools that are available.

8. Traffic

Most often you will want to start generating traffic through MSN Adcenter, Google Adwords, and Yahoo Search. Generating traffic to these immediately will help you find out if your product is selling or not. If it's selling, you'll want to try some other strategies, especially affiliates. Test first as no one wants to be your guinea pig. One good list owner could mean instant success.

Other forms of marketing you can expand into are search engine optimization, ezine advertising, forum participation, blogs and articles as soon as your product is profitable.

RINSE AND REPEAT.

Nancy J. Lolita would like to help entrepreneurs decide if they're building a business or a job. Make it simple. Build your online business so you can live life more freely - work less, earn more. 8 key strategies and links to help you break it all down. http://www.terrydean.org/

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Published at Mar, 13 '08 ; read 251 times;

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