Here Peter Hanley tells you just how to start a small business online for very little money and have a real chance of success in the journey.
First of all, you need a Domain and a website
I guess we are jumping ahead of the game here because first of all you really need to know what you are going to sell or market online.
A domain name is your internet address where people will search for you.
Your website is where they land, it could be your main page, or a blog or a funnel but they all belong to you.
Next are the keywords that you use to attract more business using SEO techniques.
Do you have a headache yet?
My domain is www.onlinebusinessmarketing.info.
For this post, I used a Keyword
Start a small business Online which takes you to a page on my site.
My site is hosted. Or live at a company called Wealthy Affiliate. I chose them because of the training and a free website.
Types of online businesses
Now, these are just a few ideas that work or have a reasonable chance of making money. If you have yours all lined up this may still help.
- Online Store. Here you can sell products or virtual items like Training or software.
- Affiliate Marketing for Amazon and others.
- Training programs
- Social media advice
- Creating business videos
- Podcasting, creating a voice broadcast
- Photography. Selling photos
- Marketing advice
- Coaching
- E.books
- Multi-level marketing MLM
There are many others but they probably fit within one of these heading along the way.
The internet comes with a lot of help but most of it is a waste of your time and money so follow on and learn a few ground rules
How is a web page built to suit you?
I want to make this pretty simple and provide two options
WordPress
It was developed as a free web page builder and to this day remains free and covers about 1/3 of all Websites on the market
Paid platforms
Since it is complicated, field templates have been built so that you or trained experts can follow along
Both of these can really do anything you want. This site is built on WordPress and I have commercial sites as well built by others.
( at a big cost of course).
If you are starting out and want to save money then WordPress is the answer.
You can learn all about it at Wealthy Affiliate
Let's look at the best businesses to start
For the beginner or the more educated there is nothing easier than affiliate marketing so let's start right here.
Affiliate Marketing.
Urban Dictionary
affiliate marketing
A marketing practice based on the internet in which affiliates are rewarded for marketing on behalf of other companies, bringing customers/visitors to the business's site.
Companies such as Tatto Media take part in affiliate marketing by rewarding its affiliates for lead generation by way of commissions per lead.
The best companies are the ones that provide an ongoing revenue stream so you build a customer base and an income or business.
The best known is Amazon–
A large percentage of Amazon sales are made by affiliates with both small and large-value products. It is easy to set up and they provide training to get you going. Commissions, however, are small so you need to get busy or they will cut you off.
I searched for a reasonable explanation and I think this one by Greg Elfrink is not bad
and saves us from going over it again.
You need a website and an Amazon agreement, a bit of training and traffic and you can be earning.
Wealthy Affiliate
WA is a web hosting company that provides an opportunity to earn money recommending it to others.
The difference is they provide full training and everything needed to succeed and to start it costs you nothing.
Furthermore, it is so designed to build a business and recurring revenue.
This is a great place to start any business
Other affiliate sites
There are literally millions of Affiliate offers.
An easy guide is to go to Google, type in a product and then space affiliate and you will get a list as long as you want.
The problem is getting accepted as you must demonstrate some competency and ability to drive traffic.
That is why we recommend starting at a training site and then doing the things you want at Wealthy Affiliate.
Setting up a shop
If you have something to sell, this is the place to be. The most used is Shopify, a premium paid for a resource with lots of training and fairly easy to use the template. With WordPress, the plugin is Woocommerce that lets you set up a shop on the net.
Both are relatively easy and it does not take long to understand it.
Having set up the shop, however, the job is not done. you still need to be seen to sell so back to training and SEO and Keywords.
If you have a fixed business this is a must for online buying as many will shop with their fingers.
Use your social pages to carry visitors to the shop and bag those sales.
Social Media
There are all sorts of media and to be a general expert is hard as they change regularly and control a market.
However, if you specialise in just one media you can run an online class or web-based training. Sometimes this can extend into a full-time job.
I have a friend that does Facebook, another Instagram and one that focuses on LinkedIn.
they don't try and do it all because the field is far too wide.
Instagram, however, is the current darling of the market.
There is a business in Social media
EBooks and your future
Once upon a time ebooks were all the rage.
I have written a couple myself in small business but there are now so many nearly all are used as Giveaways.
If you have a very special field then there may be an opportunity.
About
