Online Business Questions Revealed

Archive for the ‘How To’ Category

When new folks come to the Internet to start a new online business, this seems to be the first question they have.

So just how does someone start an online business?

There are a lot of different ways to get started online, but the one thing I have seen and learned, is you Must find out what you are passionate about. This is the best place to start. So let’s start there – your passion.

What is your passion, it can be anything you enjoy doing in your spare time, special knowledge you have that others would love to know, and/or what you do currently in your job or what you did previously in your job. Your love for your pets, knitting, boating, cars, motorcycles, jewelry, health care products, weight loss products. Keep this in mind while you are finding your passionate, you DO NOT NEED or Have to start with Internet Marketing and/or make money online markets. In fact, it’s best if you do not get started there. This is a very saturated market and not easy to get in to.

Decide what it is you want your business model to be, this can be a simple website that sells products, either your own or affiliate products; you can set up a membership site where you can share your expertise with others, and/or put a blog up that you can post your articles up, put anything up related to your market.

Some simple steps to take when you are considering to start an online business:

1. Decide what your passion is, this will help you decide on what type of business you want to start.

2. Find out if this market is profitable. Do some Google searches and see what others are doing within this market and ask yourself, How can I improve on that, is there something missing I can fulfill, what type of questions and/or problems is this market having I might be able to solve.

3. Decide what type of business model you want to run. This can be a blog, a website, and/or a membership business. Depending on what your market is will depend on this model. If you are brand new to this online marketing stuff, suggest you start out with a simple blog, put up a few posts/articles and see how it goes; from there you can always expand.

4. Build a list of prospects that are interested in this market. This is probably the one thing most overlook, do not do that, build that list now. It doesn’t matter if the market you have chosen is profitable or not, get a list started! You can do this a few different ways, put a form on your blog, if this is the model you follow, or put a web page up that asks for their information in exchange for a free report or e-book or a sneak peak at you product. Just get that list started.

5. Find something you can sell. This does not have to be your own product or service when you get started, in fact it is better to Not start that way. Find an affiliate product or service you can get started with, this way you can begin earning while you are learning the market. Test the waters with an affiliate product/service to see what the market is willing to spend money on. You can always develop your own product after you know the market is profitable and willing to spend money to get the information.

6. Once you have the above decided on, it’s time to let others know about your website/blog. This can be done many different ways, the best way to start getting traffic is to submit some articles, now these don’t have to be difficult to do, if you are passionate about your market then you should know something you can write about. These articles don’t have to be long, about 350 words is good enough. Use your resource box to send traffic back to your website/blog. You can find other blogs and forums within your market and post valuable information, answer questions for others, use your signature area to promote your new blog/website. Don’t get overwhelmed here, just pick one or two things you can do, then focus on those only until you are good at it and you are getting traffic using them, then and only then, should you look for other
ways to drive traffic to your website.

Okay there you have some steps you need to take to get started with your own online business. The number one key to success or failure is focus and action. Without these two key elements you will fail. You must take action, be willing to do some work, if you don’t know how to do something, seek the people that do know how and partner with them, exchange your time or money with them to get you started.

Take Action today!

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Dr Smiley recently received a question on pricing products.

How do I know what is a good selling price for my products?

Here is the dr’s response to this question:

When it comes to figuring out what the right price is for your specific product or service, the best thing to do is research. Find out what your competition price range is.

Doing your research to see what others are pricing their products at is time consuming but it is time well spent for any business owner, as the return will be well worth it.

Besides doing your research of your competition you should also put into account your profit margin for your product. As a business owner you always want to be making a profit from your sales, so do consider your pricing range to include your profit.

As an online marketer, it’s important to see what is selling and for how much, do a quick search on your favorite search engine for your product name or something similar and see what it sells for. consider pricing your product around the same amount.

If you are new to this market, consider pricing yours a bit lower, as you have not yet established yourself as an expert with this product. Test this out for 30 days or so and see how you do, you can then adjust your price to match your audience better.

Remember, you won’t always be able to get the prices right. You will likely lose money in the beginning due to pricing your products too low or too high. Do your best to stay on top of the market and how consumers are reacting.

Dr Smiley hopes this has answered your question.

Thank You
Dr Smiley

Making money online seems to be everyone’s’ dreams today. They are tired of the old 9 to 5 jobs, the commuting back and forth, and never getting ahead financially or emotionally.

When it comes to making money online there are a few things you must consider.

1. Is it something you can do
2. What type of business do you want to start
3. Have you done your research for your market place
4. Do you have the skills needed
5. Will you have to pay a lot of money to get help

One thing to remember as you venture out online, is time is money, and money is time. You have to be willing to give up one or the other and sometimes both. Don’t just decide this is what I want to do and not have a laid out plan of attack.

The first and most important place for you to start is with training. Find yourself a good mentor, someone you can follow and relate to.

There are certain steps all online businesses take, and the first step is to build a good responsive list of clientele. You can do this without a product or service set up. Setup a simple squeeze page to bring in visitors to sign up to your list by offering them something of value for free.

Build trust with this list as time goes by, by providing good quality information and products that will help them solve a problem they are having. This will build your relationship with them and they will begin to look at you as an expert within your market.

Starting out it is strongly recommended that you use affiliate products, this is simply selling other people’s products for a cut of the cost, known as a commission. This can get you up and earning an income right a way, without the hassle of having your own products or website yet.

By starting out with affiliate products/programs you will get a feel of how the system works without having to spend tons of cash up front and the headaches that go along with it.

Education is the key to a successful marketer. Learn all you can learn as you go along, but do not get overwhelmed with all this information. Make a list of what you know how to do, build a website, find affiliate products, and writing copy that sells.

If you have issues with any of these, consider finding people who have these skills and either stick up a deal with them or pay them to do it for you.

Making money online isn’t as hard as most people think it is, but it does take time and a learning curve.

Dr Smiley
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