How to Start an Online Business
If you want to learn How to Start an Online Business, you first need the right mindset and then it’s all about working hard towards your goals.
To succeed as an online entrepreneur you need to become a producer first and a consumer second.
Whether you create a blog that promotes affiliate products, an e-commerce store that sells products, or an authority website for consulting, cars, music, art, or whatever; you need to create things that provide value so people will pay you for it.
When you produce something of value for others, you are also creating an asset for yourself that can make you money.
That asset can live on for years and years, and pay you over and over again even when the time you put into building it is long passed.
This is the power of being a creator rather than just a consumer.
If you’re ready to get started and put in the work, I’ve prepared several guides below on how to start an online business to help get you started.
Here are 4 online business models you can start today. These are the most popular and easiest ways to start an online business.
- Start an Authority website
- Start a niche Affiliate Marketing website
- Start an Amazon Associates Eccommerce store and
- Sell physical products on Amazon and/or your own e-commerce store.
As an online entrepreneur, you can do all of these and more but if you’re just starting out, i recommend you focus on one for now. There is a lot of learning ahead if you want to succeed and having a more narrow focus with help you reach your goals faster.
[su_box title=”Free Bonus Download” style=”default” box_color=”#333333″ title_color=”#FFFFFF” radius=”3″ class=””]I created a free ‘How to Start an Online Business‘ Quick Start Guide with all of the details below in an information packed 50 page PDF you can save and reference later as you start to build your online business.
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Getting started with your Online Business
To get started, choose an online business guide that most interests you.
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[su_spoiler title=”Learn the basics of online business” open=”no” style=”fancy” icon=”arrow” anchor=”” class=””]
What is an Online Business?
An online business can be described as buying and selling products, supplies, and services; servicing customers; processing payments; managing production control; collaborating with business partners; sharing information; running automated employee services; recruiting; and more.
One of the biggest advantages over traditional bricks and mortar businesses is an online business is able to project itself globally and not just locally. It is much cheaper and more economical to start up a business online.
The overhead and investment needed is much less but don’t be fooled, that doesn’t mean it’s any easier.
What is passive income and why it’s really not passive?
My definition of passive income is anything that doesn’t require you to trade your time for money.
If you’re paid by the hour, it’s not passive income.
Don’t get me wrong, trading time for money isn’t bad either. Consulting can provide a great revenue stream as well and it can sometimes provide you with seed money for other projects.
There are many ways to generate a passive income.
Some of the more traditional approaches include generating income from a rental property, or dividends from an investment in other businesses where you’re not materially involved. This form of passive income usually requires a large amount of money(capital) to invest to generate an income you can actually live on.
In these guides, I’m going to talk about how to create a passive income online selling products and using sales, marketing and software all together to build a system that works while you work on other things.
Yes, you can let the systems work while you sleep but from my experiences, whether you are just starting out or making $100,000 per month, entrepreneurs just want to keep learning & growing.
Making a passive income online is everything but PASSIVE.
It takes a lot of work both in learning what you need to know and then executing on that knowledge to create streams of passive income. The more time you invest in reading and learning, the more successful you will become.
Online entrepreneurs invest their time upfront in creating valuable products, services, and experiences so that we work hard now to continually reap the benefits in the future.
Investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make. It will not only improve your life, it will improve the lives of all those around you.” Robin S. Sharma
What do you want?
Do you know what you want? What are your goals, your purpose?
Successful online entrepreneurs and achievers in all fields all set goals.
Setting goals helps you define your long-term vision and they provide you with the short-term motivation to get where you want to go.
Goals focus you on getting the knowledge you need to succeed and they help you to organize your time and resources so that you can create the business & life you want.
What kind of online business should you start?
If you don’t already have a business idea, I would start with asking yourself what are you interested in, knowledgeable in, and even passionate about?
This can sometimes be the hardest part of deciding where to start. Try not to let this stop you. Starting something is better than not starting at all.
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[su_spoiler title=”Start a Influencer or Authority blog” open=”no” style=”fancy” icon=”arrow” anchor=”” class=””]
What is an Authority website?
The site you are on right now is an example of an Authority website.
Authority websites are focused on a broad topic or industry and are about influence. This blog is about online business and digital marketing. I’ve been working in this industry for over 15 years so I consider myself a professional in this space and therefore an influencer or authority.
The content I create on this website is focused on building online businesses including content about digital strategy, marketing, e-commerce, Amazon, Social media, PPC, SEO and life hacking.
You can be an influencer and have authority on any topic from internet marketing to fishing, fast cars, offroading, crafts or model trains.
If you have a hobby you are passionate about and can share your experience and expertise, then you can start an authority website and make money off your knowledge.
Authority websites contain lots of content about a broad topic
- Lots of content like blog posts, guides, articles, and lists (as many as possible)
- Focus on a bigger topic where pages, not just the website go for keyword rankings in the search engines
- These sites take longer to build as bigger topics are more competitive and building authority takes time and effort
- Influencer & authority websites have a bigger potential for income than niche-focused websites
How to monetize your Authority Website
There are many ways to make money from an authority website. Here are just a few of the most profitable ones
Adsense and other ad networks
Google AdSense is the most popular ad network that website publishes can use to make money.
Google Adsense allows you to serve automatic text, image, video, or interactive media ads alongside your content on your website. The ads are targeted to your site content and audience. The more traffic you get the greater the chance of your audience visiting an advertiser and then you make a commission on these ads.
There are other ad networks like Media.Net, Infolinks, Chitika, Amobee, MadAds, Clicksor & Buy Sell Ads that are similar.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is partnering with brands that offer a commission as a reward for your endorsement and referral. Affiliate marketers or resellers generally act as a middleman between customers and products. Affiliate marketers earn a commission by referring web traffic and sales through their own promotional efforts using a coded URL or web address to track each referral.
Here are a couple of lists of where you can find products on affiliate networks or SaaS software products.
List of affiliate marketing networks
List of SaaS Affiliate & Reseller programs
Create your own info-products or software
This is where the real money is for influencers.
Creating your own products is one of the most profitable ways to make money on an authority site but they take the most work.They are easy and cheap to create and you can make a digital information product using nothing but your time and mental energy.
Books
Online courses
Video lessons
Create your Value Ladder
The value ladder is all about guiding your customers through a sales funnel that extracts maximum revenue from each of them, whilst providing value at the same time. As you can from the diagram, users enter a sales funnel by being baited into a free product, where you obtain their email address. Using an automated mailing system like the one included in ClickFunnels, you can push easily push them further and further up your value ladder. The higher your customers are on the value ladder, the more money you are charging them for higher ticket items.
Sales Funnels
The Tools you need to start an Authority Webiste & Blog
Web hosting & blogging software
I recommend using Bluehost. This site and many of my businesses are running on Blue Host servers and i’m very happy with them. I also use WordPress as my content management system and blog. It is the best in my option as it is easy to use and very extendable with plugins and add-ons.
Here is a tutorial on Setting up your hosting on Bluehost and installing WordPress.
Website Theme
WordPress comes with lots of free themes but if you are starting an Influencer or Authority site then you might want to consider getting a premium theme to provide the best experience for your audience.
You can find the best premium themes at Themeforest.
Email Marketing Software
Sales Funnel & Landing Page Software
ClickFunnels
Instapages
More info and resources
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[su_spoiler title=”Start a Affiliate Marketing Niche website” open=”no” style=”fancy” icon=”arrow” anchor=”” class=””]
What is an Affiliate Marketing Niche Website?
An affiliate marketing niche website is a hyper-focused website on a very narrow subject or keyword.
How to find a niche for your website?
Finding a niche can be one of the hardest parts of building an affilaite marketing niche site.
What is a niche?
A niche is a highly-specialized market. For example, a niche product could be something like:
An organic bath soap.
Doing Niche research
The goal doing niche research is to refine and understand the demand
What Are The Most Profitable Niches For Affiliate Marketing Websites?
The most profitable evergreen niche markets are Health, Wealth and Romance.
These markets are evergreen, meaning the that they are always relevant will be profitable forever.
Health and Wellness market
The health and wellness market includes niches such as weight loss, dieting, fasting, possible embarrassing health related problems, quit smoking and very specific medical issues.
It is estimated that the health and wellness industry is worth over $1 trillion a year globally.
For diabetes alone, it’s been reported that over $322 billion is spent in the Unites States on it every year.
Meaning there’s a lot of money around for the taking, if you’re willing to help these people get fit and healthy.
Reasons To Get Involved In Health Niches
- Health and well ness products and information can cost up to hundreds of dollars and some even cost thousands and up. This is good as you commissions will also be high as well.
- Everyone tries to put their health first so you can expect big spenders in this market as everyone wants to live a long and healthy life.
- Many health and wellness niches are ongoing and always in demand. This means it’s not subject to seasonal fluctuations and that everyone someone is buying health products. For you it means repeat purchases are going to be made every month of the year.
The Money and Wealth Market
The Money and Wealth market includes topics like internet marketing, gambling, lottery, finance, forex, cryptocurrencies, jobs and employment, affiliate marketing, multi-level marketing, network marketing and business opportunities to name a few.
The online business industry in the UK alone is worth £100bn according to The Guardian, that’s twice as large as the hotel and restaurant industry.
Then the gambling industry is worth over $35.5 billion US dollars according to Statistics Brain.
And the Forex industry trades over $5.1 trillion per day according to Wiki.
Reasons To Get Involved In Money and Wealth Niches
- Everyone wants and needs more money and as the old saying goes, “it takes money to make money” so people spend in this area in a big way.
- People are never going to stop looking for ways to make more money and new ways to make money are propping up everywhere, which means ongoing opportunities for success for you.
- Many of the wealth niches are expensive and need ongoing purchases as people can be obsessed with getting the most up to date and complete information.
The Romance, Relationship and Love market
The Romance, Relationship and Love market includes online dating, relationships, attracting members of the opposite sex, finding a husband, wife or partner, marriage, love, getting your ex back, dumping your partner and more.
There are over 54 million single people in the US and over 49 million have tried online dating, showing the huge demand in this market.
People pay relationship Counselors up to $250 an hour which shows you how important relationships are and how much people are willing to spend to get them and keep them.
Does this show you how popular and lucrative these niches can be?
Reasons To Get Involved In the Romance, Relationship and Love market
- People will always be either falling in love, having troubles with love or breaking up so there will always be a need for products and services in this space
- People are passionate about finding a partner so they are willing to spend constantly to learn the skills that will help them do this from picking up people to keeping them happy.
- Relationships is an evergreen topic and is no going to go away ever.
- There are thousands of other entrepreneurs running relationship websites in this market so limitless connections to influencers to help you generate traffic and income for you.
Other Hobbies, Activities & Niches That People Spend lots of Money In
Sports: Skiing, swimming, golf, sailing, fishing, travel, hunting, boating, running, hiking, surfing, ATVing
- Travel: cruises, safaris, round the world trips, camping, backpacking, eco tours, Rving,
- Transportation: Cars, trucks, dirtbikes, ATVS, RVs
How to monetize your Affiliate Marketing Niche website
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[su_spoiler title=”Start an Amazon Associates Ecommerce webiste” open=”no” style=”fancy” icon=”arrow” anchor=”” class=””]
What is an Amazon Associates E-commerce website?
The Amazon Associates program pays you up to 10% referral fees for referring traffic to product pages.
You can choose from over a million products to advertise to your customers using a large network, content site or blog. The program provides simple linking tools to help you monetize your website.
It’s a great way to monetize your site, especially if you are getting a good amount of traffic.
In this post, I’m going to show you how you can create your very own e-commerce store full of Amazon products that you can make money off of using your affiliate ID.
What is your niche focus?
Before you set up any of the technology, the most important thing is deciding what niche you will be focusing on and what products you’re going to sell.
You’re not the first Amazon Associate out there and competition is fierce for customers attention. To be successful, you need to find the niche that makes the most sense for profitable monetization.
A lot of people make the mistake of trying to go for the most popular products like cameras, computers, and home electronics. These can be great products to sell, however, you will face the most competition for these products.
A better strategy is looking for a specific niche that doesn’t have a lot of competition. You’re going to want to find products that are not necessarily mainstream but that are popular and purchased online, but that is also of higher value.
Here are some things to consider when looking for a niche and products to sell.
- Accessory-Heavy Niches: Merchants make most of their profit on accessories not the big ticket items like TVs and computers. Accessories have great markups of 100% to 1,000%, and buyers are much less price-sensitive about them. Buyers can shop for weeks to get the best deal on a TV, but wouldn’t think twice about spending $50 on an HDMI cable. Choose a niche with lots of accessories and you’ll enjoy higher profit margins and fewer price-sensitive buyers.
- Customers with a Problem to solve: People are often searching for solutions to their problems. If you can offer a product-based solution to a painful problem, you’ll find an audience eager to buy solutions.
- Customers with a passion: It’s amazing how much money passionate hobbyists will spend. Snowboarders will spend hundreds of dollars on equipment and accessories, and wakeboarders will invest tens of thousands of dollars in boats and related accessories.
- The $90 to $250 Range: This price range seems to be the e-commerce pricing “sweet spot.” It’s large enough to create decent per-order profit, but small enough that – with a quality, informative website – most customers won’t need human intervention. Don’t avoid selling products that cost $500, there is still a market for these depending on your niche.
- Hard to Find Locally: Changing people’s habits can be hard and it’s not something you want to undertake here. For example. If someone needs a snow shovel, they are more likely to head down to their local Home Depot or Lowe’s. But where would you go to buy surveillance equipment or magicians’ accessories or other specialty products? You will probably go online and start searching. Pick niche products that are hard to find locally but ensure there’s still ample demand for the product.
Is There Enough Demand For Your Product?
Figuring out what to sell can be the hardest part of getting this started. Understanding a product’s demand, competition and suppliers are also important to being the most profitable.
The best way to measure online demand is with Google’s Keyword Tool, which provides data on how many people are searching for a specific term. If you’re unfamiliar with Googles Keyword tool, I recommend you watch this video on how to do keyword research using it.
In summary, make sure to:
- Use “phrase” or [exact] match, as these provide the most accurate results;
- Look at the local and not the global results;
- Look for keywords with lots of “long-tail” variations.
Choosing a niche and the right products to sell is not an easy task but it is important for your success. Don’t rush through this part and do as much research as you can to ensure your best chance for success.
Start Tutorial to get your own Amazon Associates Ecommerce store
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How to sell products on Amazon?
Private Lable products
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