BASICS OF STARTING YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS

Launching an online business can seem either simple or simply harrowing, depending on your perception of the internet. Depending on your internet savvy, launching your online business will be either easy or you will need more help and guidance.

There are basically 10 steps you need to follow to initiate, cultivate and launch your internet business.

1. MOTIVATION AND GOAL SETTING

By reading this article we can assume that you have already thought about starting your online business and therefore the motivation exists. But, are you ready to invest the time and money needed to realize your vision?

You have to have the right mindset and a list of goals that you plan to accomplish, step-by-step.

First you have to gather the support of those who will be closely involved with you in your endeavour. In most cases the people most influenced by this decision of yours is your spouse and/or children when working solo from home.

Starting an online business is not for the faint hearted and a lot of work and dedication needs to be put in before you start to see results.

The problem we have in South Africa is that most Affiliate programs are designed for the overseas market and are difficult to employ in South Africa.

Therefore, I am not going to waste time on affiliate sites etc.

If you want to start an online business you must start something that will appeal to the South African market.

Therefore you need to do market research. Seeing as you are planning to start an online business, you need to do online market research.

The places where you can do this research is:

E-bay (Even though this is an American site, you will get valuable information about what people are looking for)

Google Trends (We either hate or love Google, but you need Google for any online business)

Amazon Movers and Shakers (A great way to establish popular products)

Keywords (These are the words that searchers use to find a product or service)

After you’ve done your market research you can start with your business plan. It doesn’t mean if you want to start an online business, you don’t need a business plan. This is usually where most people go wrong! Aspiring Online Entrepreneurs that an online business does not need the same attention to detail that a brick and mortar business needs. But the reality is that it might need more attention initially and will demand a lot of study and learning if this is a new avenue for you.

Your Online-Business Plan

The business plan is placed under the motivation part of this book, because it will keep you motivated when you feel down and want to pull your hair out and when you start wondering why you started this business in the first place.

Along with the plan you need goals to be set, but keep in mind not to bit of more than you can chew!

Setting your goals:

1. Make sure the goal you are working for is something you really want, not just something that sounds good.

2. A goal can not contradict any of your other goals.

3. Develop goals in the 6 areas of life:

Family and Home

Financial and Career

Spiritual and Ethical

Physical and Health

Social and Cultural

Mental and Educational

4. Write your goal in the positive instead of the negative.

5. Write your goal out in complete detail.

6. By all means, make sure your goal is high enough.

7. This is the most important, write down your goals.

On the internet, your growth rate can be much quicker than with a brick and mortar business because your audience is global and not restricted to your immediate area. Just make sure that you are equipped to service a global market. People using the internet are people who want instant gratification and are not usually willing to wait because you are unable to deliver.

2. IDEAS FOR INTERNET BUSINESSES

These are only ideas of what I’ve seen and have thought about starting. You can add any ideas. Internet is not discriminatory. You can sell/promote anything you wish.

2.1 Property – Yes there are a lot of property websites. But maybe you can offer something different than what they are offering. Have a look here:

http://www.sherlock-homes.co.za

2.2 Cars – You can start your own “selling cars” business without ever buying a care. You can get people who want to sell cars, to place them on your website and you can either charge and advertisement fee or a percentage of the selling price.

2.3 Careers – Start a career website. Get people to post CV’s on your site and even offer them video streaming as a preliminary interview. Income can be generated by getting people to advertise jobs on your site.

This site is for sale: http://www.careerexpress.co.za

2.4 Niche markets such as bridal, photography, sport, hobbies, crafts. Here is a site that is for sale http://www.bridescorner.co.za

2.5 You can start and run an online forum about certain interests. Your income here will be generated with banner advertising. (More about this later)

2.6 You can write content for business websites. There are a lot of businesses with websites out there that feel that the websites are a waste of time. And the only reason is that nobody visits the sites because there is never fresh content on the site. Fresh content is the most important ingredient for a successful website.

2.7 Auction site – you can offer an auction site for people that have white elephants lying around their house.

2.8 Online shop – this will be much the same as the auction site, with the difference that products will be sold at a set price. You can generate income by claiming a percentage of the selling price.

2.9 Sell second hand books. There is a vast market for second hand books out there! You can canvass for people who want to sell their second hand books and sell it for them here http://www.books-on-line.co.za

2.10 Online classifieds. The market is open for these types of sites. Gumtree is currently the biggest classifieds site in South Africa but it only caters for certain areas. You can have your own site by visiting here http://www.klerksdorphost.co.za

2.11 Selling ebooks. An ebook is a book that people can download and print or read on a pdf reader. These are very popular because they are usually concise and filled with a lot of interesting facts.

These are only a few ideas. I’m sure there are a lot of other ideas out there.

Let your imagination loose and think of something you might be interested in. Chances are that if you are interested, there are other people interested in the very same.

3. TIME MANAGEMENT

I cannot stress this too much!! When I started with the internet, I spent hours and hours on it, achieving absolutely nothing. I spent my time on forums, social sites etc and then one day I just decided that if I wanted to get somewhere, I should start somewhere.