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By Maria Estarellas
When I got divorced, I didn't know how I was going to be able to
cope with my financial responsibilities which included mortgage,
car, my kids's private school plus all the other expenses related
to having a family without a husband's salary.
I had recently lost my full-time job, had managed to find a
part-time job, and wasn't receiving any child support because we
had joint custody.
With all this happening at once, I was desperate to find some kind
of work that I could do from home so I could pay the bills.
That's when I decided to look on the Internet. I looked for
information on how to start an online business, web design, how to
find products to sell and everything related to having a home based
business. But guess what, most of the free information available
talked about getting a product, promoting it and making money but
they actually didn't say how and where to find products,
where or how to promote your web site and I was so frustrated that
for a moment I thought about forgetting the whole thing and look
for a full-time job somewhere else.
At this point I knew that I only had one last chance at it so I
decided to spend one more day looking for step-by-step information
on how to set up your own online business.
Luckily, I came across a very impressive step-by-step manual that
taught me how to start my business online.
If you plan to start your own online business, keep in mind that
you have to invest a a little money. But hey, the investment is a
lot less than starting any other business.
My initial investment (after having spent previously around $250 in
information that wasn't worth a penny) was $296.90. This included
the step-by-step manuals, autoresponder, domain, web hosting and
search engines.
The basic steps to start your own business are:
1. What to look for first?...A Niche Market
Some people think that they should look for a product first and
then look for customers but in reality, it's the other way around.
One of the tools that I use for this is
http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ac/index.jhtml and
look in the "Search Term Suggestion Tool".
All you have to do is type a keyword and it will give you a list of
related keywords that people have looked for during the previous
month.
You may be asking, how do I know what keywords to type? Well, I
recommend you start by writing on a piece of paper the answer to
these questions.
- What are my hobbies?
- What are my interests?
- What talents do I have?
Don't leave anything out. Why things you're interested in?
Because having a home business is not only about making money
but also about having fun in the process. If you're passionate
about what you do, you will succeed.
Once you have your keywords, then you go to Google and start
writing each keyword in "search". You will notice numbers
underneath the "search" box.
Just to give you an example, if you type the word "home based
business" you will see "Results 1-10 of about 13,900,000". To see
if you found a niche market, all you have to do is do the following
calculation.
Supply/Demand = Supply/Demand Ratio
In other words: Google Results/Overture Count = Supply/Demand
Ratio
Let's say that when you looked for "home based business" in
Overture the count was 415461 so the result is:
13,900,000/415461 = 33.45681063
The lower the Supply/Demand Ratio number is, the better because it
tells you that there is more demand than supply and you will make
more money with this niche market.
2. Looking for a Product
Once you identify your niche market, it's time to look for a
product.
In my case, since I don't want to get involved in shipping
products, I look for companies that once I sell the product, they
will ship it to the customer allowing me to save on shipping
charges and time.
Nowadays, people are looking for information on various topics.
Most of internet sales are on info products that the customer can
download immediately, once they pay for it with a credit card. It
doesn't involve any shipping charge and the customer doesn't have
to wait 2-3 weeks to receive it.
There are suppliers that have over 10,000 digital products on every
topic and the best thing is that they deliver the products, and pay
you commission. They issue checks twice a month.
3. Building a Web Site
Once you have your niche market and products, you need to build a
web site. Since I didn't know any HTML and didn't have money, I
looked for companies that would allow you to build your own web
site at a very low price and that included some type of HTML
program so all I had to do was type the information and the system
would convert it to HTML.
In terms of the design of your web site, make it as simple as
possible. Make sure the navigation is easy for your customers and
don't use too many pictures. Less is more. The background should
be white with black letters to make it easier to read.
Don't have too many pages. Don't give your customer an excuse to
leave your web site because it is too long or have too many pages.
Have a "subscribe form" built in your web site. It's very
important that you collect as many email addresses as you can
because those will be your customers. Provide a free newsletter
every month with useful information to your customers.
4. Writing your Sales Letter
When I read about writing a sales letter, I wasn't sure I could
write anything. To tell you the truth, I'm not a good writer.
What I learned was that if your going to write something for your
web site, write as if you were writing to a friend of yours.
Be honest, write the pro's and con's of your products. That way
you establish credibility and your customers will be more inclined
to buy from you.
5. Choosing a Web Hosting Company
Look for a company that gives you enough bandwidth, email accounts,
and support.
Look for their reliability because you don't want to choose one
that have frequent problems with their system.
6. Autoresponder
You need to set up an autoresponder because if you're going to send
information to your costumers, you don't want to spend time writing
every month and sending it to them. With an autoresponder, you can
type or even copy and paste articles in advance that will be
automatically sent to your customers every week or every month.
This may take you 1-2 hours to do but once you do it, you can
forget about it for a whole year.
7. Promote Your Web Site
I've found that the most difficult thing to do is this, promoting.
Know why? Because there are lots of companies that supposedly
"guarantee" that you're going to get lots of hits for a fee. Most
are scams. I personally don't spend a cent buying "guaranteed
leads".
Another thing that doesn't work for me is "free ads". Most of the
time, people don't read them and because they are free, these ads
are not sent to anyone.
The only ads that have worked for me are the one in Google Adwords.
These are based on a "pay-per-click" basis. You have to make sure
that if your are going to use this method of advertising, that you
set up the parameters. What I mean by this is, establish the
amount of money you will spend on a daily basis so you don't spend
more than you can afford to.
During my first month doing business on the Internet, I generated
$532.16 working only 2 hours a week.
The feeling of checking my account every day and discovering that I
had made money was so great that I decided to look for other ways
to make a bigger income.
I'll be honest with you, it hasn't been easy and I'm not going to
tell you that I became a millionaire in 6 months because I would be
lying, but every day I search for more information and ways to make
money and it feels great to be able to pay my bills and still have
money to do whatever I want.
Don't let anyone tell you that you can't make it. Believe in
yourself.
The advantages of having an online business is that the expenses a
very low, you get to have the flexibility of working the hours you
want and the days you want, allowing you more time with your family
and friends.
One important thing is to keep up to date on everything related to
having a home based business. The Internet is changing every day
and if you're serious about having an online business, make sure
you read and educate yourself.
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