Well first of all let’s make things clear. Running an online business is not easy. To become successful you have to be diligent and work at it like any type of business. However, there is a difficult way of doing it and there is a “Simple” way of doing it.
The difficult way is to go about it on your own. By that I mean create a product, construct a website, find a hosting company, create a sales page, market the product, generate traffic to your sales page, and make the sale. That could take anywhere between 3 months to 3-4 years, depending on how good the product is or how big your business plan is. If you are truly passionate about a specific product or niche then this might be the road you want to take. If you’re looking to generate profitable business in a shorter time frame then there is a better way.
Let’s look at the 3 easy steps to getting started and generating money fast.
Step 1: Leverage other companies
Find a company or product that is already established and has all the marketing tools in place for you. This avoids the huge step of creating the product and website which will cost lots of money and lots of your time. A good company should give you a website as well as tools you can use to market your website. They should have a sales page in place for you and an offer that is attractive enough to convert leads into sales. Also, make sure you stay within your budget, some companies charge an arm and a leg for these products or tools. Find a price that’s right for you.
Step 2: Get on board and start promoting.
Using the tools provided to you by the company you should start promoting your new product or company right away. Depending on your budget there are many ways to advertise and promote your company. Some advertisements cost money like Pay per click (PPC) on the search engines, buying advertising spots on other websites and having them send traffic to your site, taking out ads in the newspaper, purchasing email leads, or paying an internet marketer to advertise for you.
Or there are free methods of advertising. Such as writing articles, hanging out in forums of the same niche, using social media such as Facebook, MySpace, Linked in or twitter, free classifieds like Craigslist or, and so on. It depends on your comfort zone, budget, and your knowledge of internet marketing.
Step 3: Manage your business.
As I said, an online business is not easy, it takes work. However, by eliminating those other tedious steps you can spend the majority of your time managing and growing your business. So to grow your business, you need to cater to your customers. Make sure you keep an email list of all the leads you generated through your marketing efforts so that you can update them on any upcoming promotions or opportunities you might have in the future. This way you’re providing quality to your customers and perhaps making some back end sales or referrals.
