Where to start?

[JP66]

Hey everyone,
I am looking for a logical starting point when it comes to having an online business. I have absolutely no knowledge of how to build a website, getting clients, etc, etc, etc.

I am looking for ideas on what knowledge I should begin with; what books I should start reading, etc. I am interested in learning the basics and working up from there. I'd like to start with a few of the best recommendations. Luckily, I have a job with LOTS of free time to learn and study.

So basically, for those of you who have a website or online business....if you were to start all over again, where would you begin, knowing what you know now?

Thanks for any feedback!

Jeff

 

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[Sparlin]

I'm heading out for Thanksgiving festivities, but I'll throw out some basic Online business models.

Drop shipping, affiliate marketing, blogging (or any high traffic website) with adsense or any other ad program, lead generation (this is the only one mentioned that is readily fastlane potential), building subscription based services, building websites and maintaining them for companies, platform building (fastlane idea) meaning to create a service or product that naturally draws in traffic and grows exponentially (social media, dating sites, etc.).

Many of these are more traditional "mediumlane" methods, the key is to tweak them into a fastlane enterprise. I'm still working on this part myself.

Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[Don't-Try-DO-It]

First I would start out with affiliate marketing even if I want to have my own product. This is a good way to get into marketing and learning the ropes.

My first tool would be my domain name. Choosing a good domain name is vital to success in getting good traffic to your website.

Next, I would focus on Hot niches. I would go where the competition is because this is where the money is. But I would choose something I'm happy with promoting. I would test the market using Free traffic before I spend a dime on paid advertising. To get this free traffic I'd learn SEO (search engine optimization) and become very good at blogging. Submit quality articles to all the top article directories such as ezine articles, Articlesbase, Buzzle, Article Alley and so forth.

I'd use a good bookmarking tool such as bookmarking demon to get back links to increase traffic to my site or blog.

Since blogging offer a variety of plug ins (plug ins will allow your blog to do some awesome things including getting Free traffic) this will allow you to test many products at once.

If you have a small budget you could test things faster but I'd only recommend that if you have experience in knowing what works as you could lose your shirt. Even when knowing what works, still start out slow and roll out as your testing results allows. Again, I'd focus on Free traffic first.

I would track everything. This way all the views, clicks or sales I receive I would know EXACTLY where they are coming from. From there I would expand according to what's working. Once you KNOW what works you can always speed up the process. Testing may get a little boring but if you stick with it, you should find yourself generating more sales.

Good tools to start with are:

Hostgator (great for hosting)

Wordpress (for setting up your blog)

Google Analytics (will let you see and analyze your traffic data. With Google Analytics, you're more prepared to strengthen your marketing )

Wordtracker (a great keyword tool for finding good keywords)

Aweber (great autoresponder for building your email list)

Hope that help

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

Some great responses.

I would put two things before that:

Number one, Find a need you want to fill.

Everyone seems to be enamored with online business because you can work from anywhere, but keep in mind it is still a business. If you aren't fulfilling a need someone isn't meeting or fulfilling it better then everyone else, you won't be in business for long! ...Listen to me... I'm becoming a MJ evangelist... ha! But the more I test this theory, the more it becomes true. I have yet to find a successful business that doesn't fulfill a need.

And letter B, learn the lingo.

I went through several online marketing courses just to learn what the heck I was doing. Terms like "SEO" and "PPC" and "CTR" was all jargon. While I understood them intellectually, meaning I knew what they stood for, I didn't understand them at the core. You can say "yeah, yeah, I know 'search engine optimization'" but do you really? I sure as hell didn't.

Good luck friend, I love to hear progress so don't be shy about telling us!

 

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[LarryG]

Steve,
I found tons of free information, well, not free, it cost me time but no money at the local university's small business development center. Taxpayer funded to help newbies get started, then they referred me to the university's IT department and computer science lab guys for hands-on help. I like reading, but their examples sure helped seeing it done.
Good luck and hope you can find some help.