How to Start an Online Business

The Internet has made it much easier for people to work from home. There are many opportunities to work for established businesses, but others are starting their own online business. The startup costs are low since expenses such as office space and costs associated with such businesses are non-existent. Many business owners work from their own kitchen tables. Here's how to start your own online business.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Start with a business idea. Many people make the big mistake of creating a wonderful website, but their ideas gets lost in the mix. Even though it's online, the basic rules of business apply. You must sell a product or service and keep your customers happy.

2. Speak with your accountant and attorney. Even when you start an online business, you are still subject to the same rules and regulations as brick and mortar businesses.

3. Register and purchase an appropriate domain name. Your domain name is your calling card. Make sure it's catchy and adequately describes your online business.

4. Find a reputable hosting company. Having a wonderful idea with a catchy domain name means absolutely nothing if your web-hosting company is not reliable. The last thing you need is for your website to be down at your busiest times. Price may be important when looking for a hosting company, but reliability is essential. An unreliable hosting company costs you money in the long run.

5. Design an intuitive site. Your website is your storefront. Make sure it is easy to navigate. Your customers can lose interest if they have to spend too time trying to figure out where things are. Make it easy to navigate.

6. Market your site and develop a customer base. Traffic is key to online businesses. Submit your site to online search engines to help generate traffic. Even though you are running an online business, don't forget to hand out business cards and market offline too.

Tips & Warnings

• Unless you are in the business of designing websites, it's best to hire someone to create your website. You need to concentrate on growing and improving your business, not designing a website.

Resources

• Get going on your business idea with the help of Entrepreneur.com.

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on 7/26/2009 I have to agree with mustache-man here. This is one of the few WikiHow pieces that is an actual time-waster. There is nothing written here that a child could not tell you, and no specifics that can help. If you paid the person who wrote this, I'd ask for a refund.

[yankeestonk]

on 11/13/2007 This article isn't really all that helpful. It lists the steps as if it is obvious and easy to do each one. "Find a business idea", Find a reputable hosting company, design an intuitive website. I could figure all that out, HOW do you do these steps is what we need to know. It's like telling someone that the way to make money on line is to find products that sell like hotcakes. Well duh !