Today, starting an online business can be confusing to many, perhaps even you. With so much hype on how to jump-start your business, most of which, in reality, is either just repeated info from someone else or proven to be ineffective. With the correct instruction, it is easy to accomplish and extremely cheap compared to a brick and mortar store.

While I have enjoyed great success with my online ventures, I have decided to help others learn by my experiences, hence saving you money and time.

Four Main Areas To Concentrate On:

Domain Name – If you do not already have a domain name, you will need to register one. Many places charge up to $35.00/year for a .com domain name. Some will charge less if you also use their web hosting solutions or if you register your domain for multiple years. At Order Your Domain, a reputable domain registration service assisting others with their domains for 10 years, you can register a .com domain for just $7.67/year with a slew of extras thrown in for free that other domain registrars charge for.

When selecting a domain name try to keep it short and relevant to the products you want to offer. A good example is OrderYourDomain.com, which includes keywords as well as states exactly what the site pertains to.

A good trick is to find a few good domain names that are common search phrases and point the extra domains to the corresponding page on your existing website. For example, FishingEmail.com, a decent search phrase (Fishing Email) points to GoneFishing.net/email, which offers a free email account such as YourName@GoneFishing.net.

Web Hosting – you will need this to build your site, create your email accounts… Again, Order Your Domain offers the best of both worlds. Point and Click, WebSite Tonight – For those who do not know HTML, do not wish to learn, or just anxious to get started. WebSite Tonight offers over 1,500 professional templates along with more than 8,000 images, or use your own. FTP Accounts – for the more advanced where you create your own website and upload to the server via a FTP client.

When choosing a web host, keep in mind most new online businesses do not require a large server unless you have a large number of products, huge databases . . . Most web hosting companies will permit you to start with a smaller hosting package and upgrade as your needs expand by simply paying the difference in the monthly fee.

Product and/or Service — Usually the best products or services are ones that are your own. You should be very knowledgeable in the field you are going to offer; hence you could write an eBook and offer as downloadable once payment is received. This automation can save time and money as printing costs money and running to the post office everyday will take time. Your time can then be put too much better use, marketing your website to increase sales!

If you do not have a product to sell or wish to simply add more products to compliment your own, try LinkConnector Network , a free to join affiliate network of thousands of products and services. There are a few things that make them stand out from other networks . . . the commissions are usually higher and you get your own personal account representative for assistance if needed.

For payment processing do not spend thousands of dollars on a merchant account. If needed, you can always add at a later date, but for now use a free service such as PayPal. The only fees you pay are per transaction; you pay nothing except a small percentage when someone pays you!

Marketing – How will you market and promote your products and/or services? There are many ways to accomplish this. The correct way is to use a number of different marketing techniques, finding which work best for you. Some of the best are writing and publishing your own articles and then submitting to article archives such as Idea Marketers, allowing others to use with a four- or five-line signature with links back to your site (see the end of this article).

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search engines such as Yahoo or Google.

Assisting others needing help on targeted discussion forums.

One free way to begin driving targeted traffic to your website is with TrafficSwarm. Once you setup an account you can target your audience by choosing which categories your ad will display under. This is a good way to get some traffic to your new online business while keeping your overhead at a minimum.

Collecting emails for your own newsletter is a must for any serious internet entrepreneur. Use of Smart Autoreponders will send numerous prewritten emails out over a period of time, which you determine, to those who sign up. Use a remotely hosted script such as Aweber as this is your best bet and one I have used for years. Not only can you send one batch of preset emails to potential customers, but set up a separate batch of emails for existing customers for backend sales, hence increasing your profits for pennies on the dollar!


Lastly you can make your website stand out from your competitors by adding credibility to your website. How many times have you visited a website and clicked on the “contact us” link only to find a telephone number such as 954-201-1256 rather than an 800 toll free number? A toll free number adds not just credibility but sales as well. In fact I have three different toll free numbers for my online businesses.

The idea is not to just obtain a simple toll free number but rather a virtual PBX system which has over 30 features, all included in the service price.

One that I personally use is currently offering a FREE 14 Day No Obligation Test Drive at present.

There you have it, the right tools for getting started online.

Good Luck in Your Online Adventures!