Start An Online Business – Quickly

Don’t worry if you don’t know how to start an online business. Simply follow these 7 steps and don’t veer from this plan.

Day 1: Set Up Your New Business.

On the first day, you need to prepare your finances and make separate accounts for you and your business. This ensures that you can claim the appropriate expenses when it comes time to reporting your income. You should get your accounting system set up on the first day too. If you are in the U.S., a single entry accounting system is acceptable, and elsewhere, a double entry system is preferred.

Day 2: Choose Your Product Or Service.

During the second day, you will choose a product or service to sell, and research markets to make sure that people are actively seeking to buy such a thing. Be sure you have a way to reach this market. If you also do something you are passionate about, it will help you a lot down the road.

This day is also where you decide to either create a product, or find an affiliate program to promote, or create a content site with recommendations to various offers.

Day 3: Determine Your Unique Market Position

To be successful, you need to differentiate yourself from your competitors – offer something uniquely different from the rest that your potential customers truly value. This will bring in sales more than anything else you can do.

To determine which benefits you can uniquely offer, you should try to profile your typical customer, and determine what their needs and wants are, so you can tailor your offer to them, and connect with them at the deepest levels. It will make your product the best out of all products available.

A key factor in making a great income online is by really knowing your customer, and delivering what they really want. It is why picking something you are passionate about will make you profitable faster than choosing something you just think will make you a good income.

Day 4: Get Your Web Site Uploaded.

Most websites can be created in a few mouse clicks these days, and what is most important is how you set it up (e.g. a shopping cart, a blog, or a sales page format). Another extremely important step is picking your keywords – the phrases you will design your site around, since this is what buyers will enter to find you.

During day 4, you will pick either a product-based website or a content-based website. Product websites are good for things you sell, and content sites are good for affiliate programs you are promoting. In either case, you will need to choose the keywords you will use to design your content and descriptions, since these keywords are what your buyers will use to find you.

Day 5: Finalize Your Marketing.

Once your website is up and running, you need to create an action plan for marketing your website. This includes choosing the tools, systems and partners to help get the word out to the world.

Day 6: Web Site Advertisements.

On the 6th day, you will need to get ads designed – banners, reviews, and other stuff that you and others can promote your site with. This is also the time to start testing which ads work, and which websites are sending you the visitors that buy.

Day 7: Start Selling.

After you have all the pieces in order, and your website is up and ready to take orders, and advertising and marketing systems are in place, the next step is to manage the business. Make changes to improve performance, and outsource the tasks that need to be done but don’t require your talent.

Around this time, the successful business spends about 10% of their time in support activities, 60% in marketing and advertising activities, and 30% on research and product development.

It doesn’t matter what you decide to sell, just as long as their is a hungry market looking for it. If you get that part right, then it’s just marketing you can focus on, and you can start an online business that earns you a fortune. Simply follow the outline above, and make it happen starting today.