General Business and Finance Blog

Peter Nisbet asked:


Serious internet business tips are needed by people who are new to online marketing, specifically those who have been made redundant or are otherwise jobless. However, there is difference between those jobless through redundancy and for any other reason, in that the redundant generally have a cash fund with which to fund their serious internet business activities.

If you have money to spend, keep in mind that it won’t last forever, and that you will eventually need an ongoing source of income. You might think you will easily find a new job, but will you? In this economic climate jobs are hard to come by, and businesses tend to be laying people off rather than employing them.

If you were made redundant, then offered the opportunity to start up a new serious internet business, as opposed to an online business used for fun or as a source of spare cash, for an expenditure of less than $1000 of your redundancy payment, would you consider it?

That $1000 won’t last long in any case – if you aren’t at home getting immersed in your online business you would be spending it travelling around seeking work, paying increasingly larger credit card bills, or even wasting it in bars or hanging out with your friends, depending on your age and responsibility. I know, because I was in that situation, and I wasted my money on all of these until I saw the light. Here are some tips on how to approach a new business online, and to start up your own serious internet business.

What Are Your Skills

Everybody knows something about something, and there is normally somebody somewhere in the world that will pay for your knowledge. Step 1 is to make a list of what you know or can do. If you have a trade, such as carpentry or plumbing, you can offer your services from a website. Are you a good writer? Lots of freelance work is available (many like me employ article ghost writers); can you draw – lots of work in website graphic design; can you train dogs, play a sport, quilt, embroider, fish, juggle, tame lions or know a great cure for psoriasis?

Make a list of things you know or can do, and decide which of these you can market: write an eBook, provide a regular course, make a video, review products, compare prices, offer your services (online or locally), etc. Believe it or not, that is how just about every individual gets started online.

Even the late Corey Rudl, one of the internet greats who was earning $10 million a year when he died at 35 years old while racing his Porsche, started off by selling an eBook about how to buy cars at discount prices.

You Have No Skills?

If making half a million dollars a year can be defined as a serious internet business, that is what some people earn simply by selling other people’s products.

It is called affiliate marketing, and if you focus on selling electronically deliverable goods such as eBooks and software, with no replacement cost, the average payment is 50% of the sales price. If you sell $57 eBooks, you make $28.50 for each sale – and you can sell loads of different products!

Your Niche

Whether you are selling your own products or skills, or those of other people, the subject of these products/skills will be your niche. If you have a variety of different products or skills, then organize them into niches because it will be difficult to succeed unless each website focuses on only one niche. If you have more than one niche you will need more than one website, though subdomains (website directories) will also do in place of more websites or domains.

Your Online Store

You need somewhere from which you can advertise and sell your products or services. Most people use a website, but you can also use a blog or some other online platform.

A blog is OK for those wanting to make spare cash, but you need a website for a serious internet business. Don’t get me wrong – it is possible to make millions from a blog, but the newcomer that has to make a living is better with a website, and then use a blog to promote the website.

There are many different kinds of website, but each has to be set up in web space that is provided by a web host. You will find lots of web hosting services online, and you have to decide which is best for you.

Website Design and Promotion

This is where it gets interesting. Your entire website is known as a ‘domain’ and you need to decide on a domain name and register it with the DNS (Domain Name System). You then have to design your website and promote it.

Website promotion involves designing and writing the content of the site to attract search engines, so that your site will be listed on Google, for example, and to promote or advertise it in as many of the different ways available as possible.

The content of your site should revolve around your product or service, and if you are running a serious internet business then your promotion should focus on getting visitors to your site, and the website itself should have three major objectives:

1. To retain the attention of visitors with a good headline and interesting content that should be relevant to your niche. You have to keep them on your website until they make a purchase.

2. To collect the first name and email addresses of visitors so that you can keep in contact – few people will buy your products on their first visit.

3. Ultimately to make a sale, but also to keep in touch with your customers.

Every serious internet business should be based on the above factors, and if they are then they are more likely succeed than if not. These are not easy to achieve without good advice, and there is a lot more to a successful online business than just the mechanics, which is what the factors above are.

You also have to take action, don’t get bogged down by trying too many programs at once, but focus on one, and persevere. Every serious internet business is based on perseverance and carrying on when things don’t seem to be working. The light bulb will suddenly switch on, and you will succeed if you don’t let intermediate failures get you down.



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