Wednesday 14 April 2004

How To Successfully Start An Online Business

One of the most common questions that I get asked by people is that I want to work from home and make money but I don't know what to do. This is an excellent and extremely important question to answer before one even invests a dime in internet marketing.

Why? Because if you don't know what you want to do or how to achieve your goal you will fail like thousands of other aspiring entrepreneurs out there trying to make money online. In some cases, you will be broke before you have even launched your online business.

The first thing to determine before you spend a penny is what am I knowledgeable and passionate about. Is it books, food, sports, computers, animals, traveling etc. This is extremely important since you want to have a business that you love working on. If you love working on it and have the expertise, you will begin to make money over time.

Once you have narrowed down your interests, you want to focus on a niche market. So if you are passionate about food then you can start an online business to do with food. What areas of food interests you: diet and nutrition, recipes, organic food, healthy snacks, cooking, etc.

Now that you get the picture, the next step is how do you go about launching this business and what are you going to sell: my expertise or other people's products? You could do one or the other.

If you choose to sell your expertise then you can have an affiliate marketing website promoting anything to do with your niche market by promoting other people's products and services. You get paid every time someone visits your website and clicks on an ad to buy those products and services or just visits an advertisers site.

Drop shipping is another excellent option, and also a very solid business model once you go with the right drop shipping company. What's nice about drop shipping is that you will have your own website and company selling other people's products and they handle all of the shipping for you. There is no overhead or inventory involved. You only need to set up a merchant account to take credit cards and they handle the rest. You only pay for something (wholesale prices) once someone buys from your site, and you pocket the profit.

There are many reputable companies out there that will build you an affiliate niche, turnkey or drop shipping website for a reasonable price. with no hidden costs. You only need to pay for a domain name and monthly hosting fee for your site. If you choose to be a drop shipper you will have a minimum monthly merchant account fee.

Pamela Shipp has over 10 years of experience in Internet Marketing and spent the first five years of her career as an online specialist at the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation. 

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