The Secret to Starting a Successful Online Business

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Copyright © 2009 Ruth Barringham


It goes without saying that everyone who starts up an online business wants to be successful. Having an online business means you can "retire" and work online. With your own successful online business you quit your day job. No more commuting. No more boss. No more 9-to-5 drudgery.

But how do you set up an online business if you don't know where to start?

There is a secret to setting up a successful online business that no one ever wants to talk about. The so-called internet "gurus" don't talk about it because they want to sell you their product that they claim will make you instantly rich. Some of them will even offer to give you a free money-making web site. But why would anyone give away a web site that makes lots of money? Because these sites are designed to make them rich; not you.

There are lots of money-making scams on the internet and they are easy to spot because they are full of hype and promises that you can "get-rich-quick!"

None of this is true. Any logical person knows that it's impossible to go to bed poor and wake up rich (unless you win the lotto while you're asleep).

The real secret to a successful online business is just four small letters. W-O-R-K. And that really is all there is to it.

But because the word "work" conjures up mental images of toil and sweat, no one wants to talk about it. But it's worth doing if your goal is to have financial freedom and the luxury of working from home.

The way to create your own online business is to first build a web site from scratch and work your way up. This means knowing how to write HTML code which is the cornerstone of all web sites.

HTML code isn't difficult to understand once you know what you're doing. Even if you only understand basic HTML, you'll have a firm foundation to grow your business from. Web designers will try and tell you that building web sites is difficult and is best left the professionals (meaning them). But they only say that to serve their own interests because if you build your own web site, they're out of a job.

Understanding how to write HTML code is also handy if you do hire a professional web designer in the future because you'll understand their jargon and know if they're trying to over-charge you.

But ultimately being able to write HTML code and build all your own web sites gives you the freedom to design your sites exactly as you want them and it puts you more in control of your online business.

But before you build your first web site you need to know what niche you want to work in.You can have a web site in any niche (subject) you want but it needs to be something that you're really interested in so that you can stay enthusiastic about your site. If you can't get enthusiastic about your niche topic, it will show in your web site and ultimately your income will suffer.

Once you know what you want to make your web site about then you should start small with just a simple site that has only a few pages. A site that's too big too soon will quickly become too much.

You can place a few PPC (Pay Per Click) advertisements on your site by simply copying and pasting a small script onto your web pages. Ads are then displayed automatically and whenever a visitor clicks on an ad, you earn money. These ads vary in payment from only a few cents per click, up to several dollars. So you can imagine how quickly that adds up day after day.

Next you need to find a few affiliate products to sell. There are plenty of companies on the internet that use affiliate programs to boost sales. There are also quite a few giant affiliate directories where you can find hundreds of products from lots of different companies. You just join an affiliate program for free, place ads for the products on your web site, and whenever someone clicks on one of your ads and makes a purchase, you earn a commission. And some of the commissions pay as high as 75%.

Affiliate sales are a great way to generate income if you don't have a product of your own to sell. Some people earn their whole online income this way with some affilaites earning in excess of $200,000 a year. And it's easy to see how.

Say you have a web site that advertises exercise equipment and someone clicks through one of your links and buys a treadmill. You could earn over $600 from a sale like that by doing nothing more than placing a small advertisement on your site. Of course not all commissions are that high. But even if you're only making $20 a time from selling e-books, you only need to make a few sales every day to earn a full-time income.

Eventually you may even consider selling your own products online. Most people start by selling small information products such as e-books because there's no expensive production required and no shipping costs.

Of course, just because you have a web site doesn't mean that you'll get a lot of visitors. So you also need to do some online marketing to drive visitors (called "traffic") to your site.

Marketing can be done for free. You can market by writing articles and uploading them to the online article directories. You can give away free things such as short reports. Or you can market your site using free videos and audio pod casts.

But whichever method you use to drive traffic to your web site, you have to make sure that once your visitors get there, your web page content is appealing, informative and compelling enough to make them want to stay awhile and click on your PPC ads or make a purchase through one of your affiliate links.

Of course, these are not the only ways to build a profitable web site. But they are a great way to start. And once you know what works for your site and what doesn't, you can add more pages and make it as big as you want, or you can build more sites and create what is known as VRE (Virtual Real-Estate). And as you can probably imagine, more sites, means more sales and more PPC ads which all adds up to more money.

So although building your own successful online business might seem like W-O-R-K in the beginning, the quicker you can grow your site the quicker you will profit from it. So working 8 hours a day on your web site will build it quicker than working only 1-2 hours.

Just start with the basics; learn HTML code, learn how to write compelling web page content and learn the simplest ways to start making money online. Doing it this way will give you complete control over your online business.

And you'll find that running your own online business is not only interesting and fun but it's also extremely profitable.

And if that's what you really want, then you need to stop dreaming about it and get to work right now.

As the old saying goes; be a doer, not a gunner.




About the Author:
Written by: Ruth Barringham. Imagine how great it would be if you could live the life you've always desired by working from home running your own online business. If this is something you've always dreamed of doing, don't put if off any longer. Find out how how simple it is to start your own online business at http://www.newonlinecourse.net/


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