How to Start an Online Business From Scratch

An online business saves money but requires astute marketing strategies.

An online business is the best way to go to save capital for many companies. Some entrepreneurs may want to start an online business as an adjunct to their brick-and-mortar establishment. But while you may save money starting a business online, you still need to have a smart business plan, thorough understanding of internet marketing and knowledge of where to get inexpensive web-design services. Also, creating a simple but unique domain name is a must.

Things You'll Need

• Internet
• Business plan
• Marketing plan
• Domain name
• Commerce
• Online newsletter
• Pay-per-click ads
• Business blog
• Affiliate programs
• Google Adwords
• Search engine directories
• Message boards and social media

Instructions

Developing a Business Plan

1. Think about what your business will be and how it can compete logically in the online world. Start small and sell just one unique product for the time being to stand out from the crowd.

2. Scope out your competitors online and analyze how your business will get noticed among all the other online businesses. Write down keywords related to your business that would be most apt to be searched on search engines. Use Wordtracker.com to research those keywords and see which ones are the most popular.

3. Formulate a marketing plan that competitively prices your unique product. Analyze where you'll make your products and how you'll get them to customers.

4. Craft a financial plan that shows what kind of capital you'll need for a company location and the expenses you'll incur, including licensing fees on the federal or state level. Devise a five-year plan indicating where the business should be at that time after projected expenses and estimated profits.

Setting Up an Online Business

1. Register your domain name for your online business. Many places offer this service with inexpensive and professional website design in one place, or through individual sites. Don't spend too much time designing your own website, even if you know HTML. If you design it yourself, it takes away valuable time you could use developing your business.

2. Set up commerce on your website so you can take credit card orders.

3. Ask for customer email addresses on your website so you can start sending updates about sales and promotions through an e-newsletter. This procedure is one of the simplest marketing methods to gain a customer base before getting into more complex marketing territory later. Be sure to provide an option for customers to unsubscribe to your newsletter if they so choose.

4. Learn SEO, or search engine optimization, which are keywords people use on search engines to help find products to buy. Make your web title pages simple, unique and with word order that web surfers would logically use. Search engines pick up these keywords more than any others. Services are available to help you find just the right keywords to drive the most traffic to your online business.

5. Use pay-per-click sites that help you come up with additional keywords that get high search engine traffic and place ads for you on search engines and websites. Create a text ad using any word processing software. Submit it with your keywords to the pay-per-click site where you pay a fee of your choosing every time someone clicks on your ad.

6. Submit your domain name to all the main search engines by going to their "Submit URL" pages. Google is paramount. Keep your URL as simple as possible so it's easier for customers to remember .

Customers and Marketing

1. Test out your business for a few months and make sure at least two percent of the visitors to your site buy something before you do more marketing. Keep sending out your newsletter with updates.

2. Start an internal blog on your business website and update it as often as you can. Write about your business and mention exciting things you have in store for the future. People do read blogs; they can help you gain more customers.

3. Look into affiliate programs that advertise your site on popular websites. You can also approach websites on your own and ask them about affiliating with you, as long as you advertise their website in return.

4. Use Google Adwords to get your advertising in even higher gear on the web. Google lets you create keywords that you know generate traffic. The company then places an ad for those keywords on your business website for its search-result pages . You decide what you pay per ad click, as you did earlier with text ads.

5. Analyze your budget and see if you have the money to pay to get listed in major search engine directories. Many cost close to $300 a year, as of 2010. But directories help get your business name out there. Also consider getting listed on search engine local directories. You can find information about local directories by visiting any search engine and clicking on their "About" icon.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't be afraid to market your online business on message boards or through social media. However, do it subtly so it won't be considered spam. Mention your business through a relevant discussion on a forum or merely place a link to your business website at the bottom of each post. Connect with people who may be interested in your product on social media sites like Twitter or Facebook.

• As with any business, online or not, keep on top of your financial records either on your own or with a dependable employee. Use financial record-keeping software to keep accurate records of sales, expenses and taxes.

References

• Scribd: How to Start an Online Business from Scratch
• Sell it on the Web: How to Start a Web Business
• Rankpay: Help in creating in effective SEO
• Google: Search engine directory
• Affiliate Scout: Affiliate programs

Resources

• Wordtracker: Finding popular keywords
• Register.com: Registering your domain name
• Build Website 4U: Website builders
• Paypal: Commerce
• Yahoo Advertising: Pay-per-click advertising