Thursday

Starting An Internet Business The Right Way

By Alexander Newell

Starting an internet business is an exciting and difficult endeavor. There are many decisions to be made and skills to be learned. The biggest of these decisions is the choice of which business model you are going to follow. In other words, "How are you going to earn your income online ?"

Here are:7 options to consider, seven different business models for an internet beginner to ponder

Adsense:

This is Google advertising on your website. Your job is to write or commission articles and assemble them into a professional looking website. Google's job is to find adverts which are suitable.. All you do is write interesting material about your chosen niche or passion. You can just talk to a friend about your niche and tape it. Then just type it or get a secretarial agency or www.elance.com to transcribe it for you. Lots of professionals get content for their web pages like this.

Affiliate Marketing:

I call this The Way Of The Middle Man. It is, "Making Money by Selling Other People's Stuff" . One of the most proficient "Middle Women" is Rosalind Gardner who makes a six figure income by Affiliate Marketing. It is selling for people who do not like selling. The days of high pressure sales are over. What works best on the modern day web is a more reflective and editorial approach. So you could review a product and provide an Affiliate link to the merchant site in your review.

eBay Marketing

This is a whole series of market places online. Much used by marketers to do research about what is selling, what niches are active etc. Also of course people buy and sell here. Here is free marketing information. Many people watch what ebay customers want and then go get it and sell it to them. Where do they get it? From eBay of course! Yes you really can buy stuff from one market in eBay and sell it into another market in eBay. It needs perseverance and a certain mindset but you can make a very good living like this. It is not for me but it may be for you!

Email Marketing:

You will often here web marketers obsessing about getting more "Traffic" to their website. By "Traffic" of course they mean visitors. All other things being equal, the more visitors you get the more sales you make. Now there are plenty of ways of getting more traffic and of getting the most out of the traffic you are getting. But far and away the most important way of contacting visitors again and again is through email.

Have a look at your email, how many times have you been emailed by the merchants and marketers there in your inbox? All other things being equal contacting your visitors repeatedly like this will lead to further sales.

If someone just surfs onto your website gives it glance and surfs off how likely is it to get a sale?

Very unlikely! But if you encourage them to sign up for your Niche Newsletter and you email them regular with interesting stuff they care about they are quite likely to buy sooner or later. Provide quality content, market sensibly and it will work, if you do!

Information Marketing:

In the Offline world business is about, "Location, location, locations", but online its all about, "Information, information, information". So the market is there, the demand is ready but are you ready?

Whether it is advice about motorcycle servicing, gardening, minimizing your tax exposure, there is a demand for millions of niche subjects and any experience you have from work or hobbies or from your personal life can be used to produce a Special report or ebook and a one page website to sell it or even give it away to get people to subscribe to your newsletter. There you discuss your niche with other "fanatics" and review any books or other products. Buyers then make you money by affiliate sales. If you like the idea of making your living by writing, this may be the best Business Model for you.

Merchandising:

This is selling real stuff, not just information in ebooks. If you already have a shop it makes sense to extend its reach onto the Internet. Like all other Business Models you must do your research to see if there is web demand for this, or whether you just want to automate some of your sales. You can build this yourself with the right software. It is not necessary to spend huge amounts on a website, you just need one that works. And while we are thinking about "What works" keep well away from Graphic designers and their "cool" websites. You need a website that sells well. It does not need to look cool. You may need a specialist help you installing the shopping cart. Either get help from your Web Host or hire someone from Rentacoder.com, elance.com, or guru.com. . It is a small job for a professional.

There are two ways of arranging an online shop. You can do the whole deal, order processing, putting the stuff in boxes, postage etc. Or you can arrange a fulfilment company to do all the wrapping, shipping etc and leave you with marketing and product development. Depends on what kind of life you want!

Professional Services

Service Providers such as Lawyers and Accountants take notice, the Internet is for you too! And for Financial Planners and for Real Estate and Chiropractors and Hairdressers and ... anyone who provides a service, even if very hands on, needs an Internet presence to perhaps introduce enquirers to your business as well as build the relationship with their present customers and clients, and provide them with news through email, special offers etc. And just to communicate in a different way to your present client base Offline

So, which of the business models of those above is best for you? Only you can make that decision, Of course many Internet business owners will use more than one of these models. Most will use Affiliate sales, many will use Adsense and everybody who knows what they are doing will be working on their email marketing. And of course you can't learn everything at once. You may prioritize the website and put either Adsense or Affiliate links on it and then start to build your email list by using a quality autoresponder

I can't exaggerate the importance of understanding which business model suits you best..

Until you are clear how you are going to use the Internet you are wandering about the Net like a victim ready to scooped up by scams and get rich quick schemes! The clearer you can be about your intention and your business model the easier it will be to get the right help and meet the right people. And the sooner you will be serving the customers you were meant to serve.


Get your free special report and sign up for a free course of lessons at the link below. Alex Newell taught Information Technology in a Community College in London, UK for many years and is now teaching Newbies to Internet Business how to shorten their learning curve to make a living online Starting An Internet Business
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alexander_Newell



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