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How To Create An Online Business System.
Creating an online business is a relatively simple process that becomes very complicated by the distractions that abound on the internet.
One of the big advantages of an online business is the fact that you do not need to rent or lease a physical premises.
On the other hand, if you are serious about creating an online business, you will need to create your very own virtual premises. This could be a dedicated website, an e-commerce store or a blog. More than likely it will need to involve all three.
You will also need to learn about the process of setting up your virtual premises, and then how to get people to visit it, and then how to make sure your visitors are becoming customers. It is likely that you will need to outsource some or many of these functions.
To be as efficient as you can you will also most likely need to buy or pay for access to a number of tools that will allow you to automate your processes.
So where do you start, well it is quite simple really, and here are the five stages of creating an online business system;
- Research
- Monetisation
- Site Strategy
- Marketing
- Test, refine and repeat
Research is really all about establishing what you are selling, confirming that people are buying it, who they are, and finally how they look for it. There are a number of tools available to assist you in this process, many of them are free.
Failure to go through this process methodically and without distraction will set your foundation for success in your online business.
You will discover many temptations for “easy” money and “overnight” success “get rich quick” schemes in this process. A successful online business can happen quite quickly, but it will only happen quickly if you follow a sound business setup system.
Be wary of anything that sounds like you will get huge rewards for little effort. In fact forget about every offer or deal you come across, UNLESS it is of direct use to establish your online presence or automate your business. And even then don’t buy or subscribe without doing some research and making a considered decision.
Monetisation is where the action is at. You have established that there is a market for your product or idea, people are buying and you now know what search terms they use to find them. So now you need to work out exactly what you are going to sell, and how you will deliver it.
If you have not heard of the sales funnel, then you had better learn about it. In brief you will most likely need to give something away to attract people to visit your site. Then you may attempt to sell them a relatively inexpensive item, to prove that what you sell is great value before attracting them to your higher priced products.
People buy from people they know like and trust, so be patient and let your visitors get to know you like you and trust you. Then just like in the real world you will have long term client. Remember, your website is just like your service counter, only you are not actually standing there to greet them live.
Site strategy. If you are selling physical products you will need to set up an e-commerce site. If you are selling information products that can be delivered by email, you may still have an e-commerce site but might not need to go to that extent straight away. Similarly if you are selling other peoples products as an affiliate or agent, you may just need a blog or simple web site.
In all cases you should start a blog. Once you have learn’t a bit about marketing online you will most likely have a series of blogs, but for now I recommend you start your first blog very soon if you have not already done so. Just to get the hang of some basic marketing techniques.
Marketing your site or sites is simply about getting your name out there in the right places to entice people to come and visit your site. There are three basic ways of doing this, free (or so its called) and paid.
Within each category there are a number of different methods but the two most common method are as follows;
For free it is article / social marketing. They are really referred to as 2 separate techniques, but for the purpose of this explanation I have grouped them together. Basically what you do is write articles and post them with online article directories like Ezine Articles, and social websites like Sqidoo and HubPages.
The members of these sites will see your articles and come and visit your site.
The most common paid method is PPC or Pay Per Click. You simply set up an account with google, MSN, Yahoo, or any other search engine you like and you bid to have your advertisement shown to people when they search on a particular term that you nominate. If the surfer clicks on your add you will get charged your bid price, and they will get directed to your website.
This is simple in principle but very competitive. There is a big learning curve here and probably some expenditure on courses to get you up to speed. If you choose to rush in without first learning the techniques, you will most likely get spend a lot of cash with few or no returns.
PPC can be awesome in booming your business, but it can also be a big money pit. Do your time and learn at least the basics so you can play with small loses while you refine your strategies.
The final marketing strategy is SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Don’t be too scared, you do not have to be a techy person to do this.
SEO can be either paid or free if you take it on yourself. I recomend you at least learn the concepts before employing an “expert”. There are plenty of “experts” out there that will get you results that look good but don’t show you an actual monetary return on your investment.
SEO is simply about making your site easy to find for the search engines and demonstrating to them that you have valuable information on your sites that is relevant to the search terms that YOU want them to find you for.
Test, refine and repeat. Every thing you do online is testable. You need to know which of your efforts are working and which are not for obvious reasons.
Perhaps the most important process is to remember to repeat. It is unlikely that you will find your pot of gold in your first attempts. In fact most people who have successful online business systems, don’t have just one business system, they have multiple businesses returning small but consistent profits. But collectively they all return large profits.
The key to it is to build the foundation at the start, refine it, and then automate your online business system so that it requires minimal upkeep, and move on to the next phase of your business.
So just to refresh;
- Research
- Monetise
- Set up your Site(s)
- Market
- Test and repeat.
Now here is your first free tool (if you want it that is). Keyword King.
This tool comes with a brief training course to help you on the way with the basics of step 1. Researching your market. So good luck with it and I wish you all the best in establishing your online business system, and remember stay focused.
Cheers,
Steve Roberts.
PS Don’t forget to keep a back up of all of your work!
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