Are you ready to be in charge of your own destiny? If you want to start your own business, you don’t need huge capital to buy a franchise, open up a storefront, or keep a large database of inventory to start your own online store. The World Wide Web is a massive market place that anyone can take advantage of. You only need to learn and acquire a few of the proven skills for starting your own internet business, and to start selling goods or services. There are several tools and methods for buying, selling and marketing your products on the internet for a steady income, which we will discuss in this post.
5 Steps to starting your online business
Starting your business requires planning and making instant financial decisions. It also involves a minimum investment and risk. Here are 5 steps that have been proven to get your business off the ground and bring you success. If you are starting a small business, follow these steps and these will bring you guaranteed success.
Step # 1 Find your passion in the market
What are you passionate about? What do you specialize in? Find out the niche market that you are most interested in and have experience or expertise in. When you go into business with a product that you are most passionate about, it will make it easier for you to learn about it and also to market it because in today’s market, information is the most valuable tool. You will be able to inform your audience about your passion more easily.
However, when you are trying to find your niche it’s not just good enough to ask yourself “What am I passionate about?” because you might get answers like children, automobiles, clothing, fashion, etc. Those are too broad topics and they are not niche-friendly. Ivana Taylor, a DIY Marketing expert says in her article titled: How To Find Your Passion And Turn It Into A Profitable Business that “Asking what you’re committed to is a much better question. If you answer this question as a full sentence you will get much closer to a profitable market niche.”
Step # 2: Find a need and fill it
Once you know what your products and services will be, the next thing for you to do will be to find people or groups of people who need your products or services. Find out who is looking for the products or services you offer and not finding good results. Below are a few things that you can do to research your market.
Do keyword research to find which keywords people use the most to find a product or service but there aren’t many sites competing for it. You can use Google keyword tools such as the Google AdWords, Keyword Planner or Google Trends for it.
Visit social network sites or forums, and try to find out what products and services people are talking about and what problems they are trying to solve the most. Visit your competitors’ sites and find out what they are doing. Find out about the features and specialties that their products offer. You need to do a better job than your competitors to be successful in the market.
Step # 3 Design and launch your website
Once you have a product and market, you will need to start your selling process. For a small business you need a simple website. You don’t want to spend too much money on it. Just go to a web hosting company such as GoDaddy, Bluehost, or HostGator. There are plenty of other hosing companies available online as well that will help you set up your website in minutes with their site builders and other available business tools. All you need is a credit card and some time to spend on your design. Your site needs to be simple, attractive and easy to navigate, so that your visitors will find it easy to browse through and get information before they buy anything.
Remember, the information that you provide on your website is very important in generating sales and for the search engines. Your content needs to be informative. Write effective product descriptions to attract your audience with attractive headings. Describe your products in detail, with images from various angles. Also add testimonials and establish strong credibility. Use graphics and video to enhance your message.
Step # 4 Drive traffic to your site
To get traffic, you will have to rank higher on Google. Google ranks a site based on the site’s quality. An attractive title, elaborate description, and the quality of information given on your site will definitely help you rank higher. It also depends on how relevant Google thinks your site is to a searcher’s query. There are many ways to increase your site visits and conversion. Using social media to promote your site is one of the easiest ways. You can also use pay-per-click advertising, or Facebook ads. Google also value references from other sites, so if you have some other sites such as blogs, or forums that link to your site, it may help you gain ranking on the Google search results page.
Step # 5 Establish your business
Most people want information when they are surfing the internet. Present your information and messages in more attractive ways and you’ll get more visits and conversion. Videos are very effective for informing people about your products and services. Also use social media platforms to post about the updates about your products and business. Give away free expert content and create articles that people find 
useful and relevant. Include share buttons for each article. Become an active expert on your social networking sites where your target market hangs out.
Follow these steps and you will have your business off the ground and running in no time. If you sincerely follow your passion, it will not take you long to convert your passion into profit. All it takes is a little bit of knowledge, a bit of extra effort and enthusiasm for diving into the market, and you can surely start generating a steady income from your online business in no time.
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Source: Institute of Ecolonomics
