2. Everyone wants to start their own business and become
their own boss, but many are not sure how to do it. There
are several types of home businesses. Service businesses,
selling products, and web based home businesses, just to
name a few.
3. In this article I am going to guide you through the process
of starting your own web-based home business. I will try
to take some of the mystery out of the process. By
following this guideline, you will be up and running in very
little time without having made a huge investment.
4. First, you need to know what your business is going to do.
Will it provide a service? Are you planning to sell
products? Those are the two general types of web-based
home businesses I will be discussing in this article.
5. If you plan to provide a service, what type of service will
you be providing? Will it be provided to people who own
websites? Will it be a service that anyone can use or will it
be confined to your local area?
6. Ask similar questions of yourself if you plan to sell a
product. Will it be a product you sell and deliver locally,
nationwide, or internationally? If you choose worldwide,
do you know anything about shipping your product
overseas? The same applies to nationwide delivery. Do
you know the costs associated with delivering your
product everywhere in the nation you live in?
7. Once you have answered those questions, you will have
more of an idea about how your home web business will
eventually be shaped.
8. Next, you will need a domain name. Most people think
their company name is the best way to go for a domain
name, however, a generic domain name with keywords
that are associated to your product or service will serve
you much better. You can also register your company
name as a domain name and point it to your website, but
it is not necessary.
9. The generic domain name can help you with search engine
traffic and can be more memorable. It is only one factor of
many that will help you with search engine optimization,
but it is a step you should take when getting started.
Example: cars.com is a better domain name than
ford.com, even though ford spent millions to advertise and
brand their name. Even cheapusedcars.com is better
because people will search for that.
10. You need to find a good domain name registrar, not a
cheap domain name registrar. Cheap means cheap in the
area of domain names. Your domain name is important.
Spending $25 per year to registrar that provide more
services and quality VS spending $10 or less at a cheap
registrar is what we are talking about here. If that extra
$15 per year is going to make or break your home
business, then maybe you should not start one.
11.
12. Now, you have your domain name and the hosting for
your new website, but where is the website and how do I
get that? You have several options. You can learn html and
build your own. You can use a WYSIWYG editor like
FrontPage to build your own website. You can hire
someone to build your website for you.
13. First, we will talk about learning html to build your own
website for your home business. There is a learning curve
here. This is the best option of the three I mentioned
above, but it takes time to learn. You will probably not be
up and running in just a few days with this option. In the
long run, it will save you a lot of money to learn html and
build your own websites. The more websites you have in
your portfolio, the more likely you will have at least one
that is a big winner. Writing your own code means you can
build a new website as often as you want.
14. Next, building your own home business website with a
WYSIWYG editor. (What You See Is What You Get). These
editors are similar to making a document. Everything is
visual and you do not need to know html. The learning
curve for these editors is much less than that of learning
to actually code your own website.
15. However, these websites do have limitations. Since the
code for the website is auto-generated, it tends to have
mistakes. In addition to that, you have to make sure your
hosting has the proper extensions to host your website.
FrontPage Extensions is the example if you use the
FrontPage WSYIWYG.
16. This option will get you up and running faster, but you
need to hire someone at some point to fix the code for
you so the page will always load correctly and optimally.
How your website is viewed in different browsers, how
fast your website loads, and how your website looks are
all design factors that make a difference to your
customers, so weigh each option carefully.
17.
18. 1. If they say they will register the domain name for you,
say no. Registering a domain name is not technically
difficult. Do this yourself. Many web designers register the
domain name at the cheapest place they can find then
charge you $100 or more per year for the domain name.
Then many of them register it in their own name! This will
cause you huge problems if you ever decide not to use
their services anymore. The domain name should be in
your name always.
19.
20. 3. If they wish to charge you monthly to run your website
for you, be careful. Do not sign yearly contracts. Their job
is to build you a home business website. Let them stick to
just that. Most designers are just designers. They are not
search engine gurus, business managers, or anything else.
Hire a designer to design and others to do what they are
good at.
21.
22.
23. 6. If you are going to add the ability to buy your product or
service by paying for it through your home business
website, then it becomes an e-commerce website. Again,
watch out for the bells and whistles that the used website
salesman tries to sell you. PayPal is a good option when
you are first starting out. You can get a PayPal account
easily. You can create your own buy buttons and insert
them into your website with the code they provide
without being an html guru. You can even configure
shipping costs and everything else through PayPal for free.
They charge small percentages per sale, but the services
they provide are worth it. Besides, they have no setup fee
or monthly fee like other e-commerce solutions. When
your sales volume reaches into thousands of dollars per
month, you can look for a better solution, but until then,
24.
25.
26. There are several things you can do to get traffic. Do not
fall for all the scams out there that tell you they can send
millions of hits to your website for just a small fee. There
are a lot of traffic scams. The traffic is usually auto or bot
generated traffic and will do you no good in selling your
product or service.
27. You can buy Adwords from Google, MSN (coming soon), or
Yahoo. That sends you traffic from people who search for
specific keywords. Be careful about bidding on these and
set your spending limits low until you see which keywords
are paying off for you.
28.
29. You can write articles on topics related to your products or
services like the one you are reading now. Your links go
into the box below, just like mine here. You submit your
articles to article submission websites. They provide it to
other webmasters that want to use your article as free
content for their website. Each one that picks up your
article becomes another link to your website. This is the
best method of marketing in my honest opinion.
30. Posting in related forums and blogs with your home
business link in your signature can produce more targeted
traffic for your website. More traffic does not mean better.
Targeted traffic means much more and converts to sales
more often than traffic you might get from unrelated
websites, so stay focused on blogs and forums that relate
to your topics.
31. I hope this article has helped you realize what it takes to
start your own home business on the web!