I’m sure you have noticed that many people have achieved success working from home via the Internet. But how to open online business? It’s not as hard as many thinks…
The Basic…
The first thing you need to do is creating a good plan. The same as with the stationary business, starting without a plan and idea is like walking alone on unknown land without map and compass.
You can start with anything you like. Choose your niche and think about how could you reach it. Imagine that you are the one who is looking for something. Every good business is focused on helping others. You need to create a good quality content and doesn’t matter it is a website, video or different method of publication. The recipient of your content, seeing that it is helpful to him, will certainly visit you more than once and buy your product!
Remember to focus on your niche only. You can not, for example, offer car parts if your niche is about playing football! In literally any niche you have the same chances to achieve success if you work consistently. Before you start, take a piece of paper, some pen and write down your long term plan and hang it somewhere in the room where you work, so you can look at it any time and remind your goals if you forgot.
You are starting a new business. It may not bring you a revenue in first months but never give up. Work consistently, correct mistakes, if you’ve done some, and sooner or later you’ll start earning money!
Be trustworthy and confident in what you offer. Remember that people are coming to you because they need a help and advice. I remember one guy I personally know. He was employed only one time in his life! That man was very good in business and created a revenue by trading Calvin Klein boxers! If he can do it, everyone can!
You don’t have to follow him obviously, but it was just an example that anything could bring you nice earnings!
I hope you understand the basics, so now lets take a real action!
Build your own website
Every serious business must have its website. It’s helpful to find a service or product by searching for it in Google but also shows and describes a full offer and prices. You should start with your own website or blog.
If you thing about affiliate marketing, it’s a great idea to write reviews for products or services that you want to promote. Try to be honest and don’t forget that you have to help people and build a trust. Only then people will visit your website regularly.
Building website
Creating website is no longer a big challenge. Years ago we had to learn programming in HTML and it was only a basic so you can only imagine how long it took to build just one page or post! Fortunately today we have tools thanks to which we can build a website much faster and easier.
The best one for both, beginners and advanced webmasters is WordPress.
WordPress includes all the necessary tools that are ready to use to create a nice looking website or blog. The best end easiest way is to register at Wealthy Affiliate where you have a full access to WordPress and plenty other very helpful tools. If you haven’t heard about Wealthy Affiliate yet, I’ve prepared my review with the description of the platform. Click the link below to read it:
—> Wealthy Affiliate – Review <—
Ok, so the first step is registration at Wealthy Affiliate. Obviously you can open account directly on WordPress, but you won’t be able to use many other useful stuff, that’s why I recommend to joint WA where is a great and professional Training section and support.
==> Join Wealthy Affiliate for FREE <==
Once your account is open you can watch welcoming video and we are ready to go. Now I’m going to focus on the website building only. There is plenty of other stuff at Wealthy Affiliate, but it’s for another article.
It the top menu click Websites, next Site Manager and you will see new window. In the first section What kind of website do you want to build? Choose the first option: Free Domain.
In next sections you have to choose a domain name and a title for your website. I’ve chosen stronatestowa.siterubix.com as a domain and Strona Testowa as a title, which is in Polish language and means Test Website. English name and domain was not available.
In the section No 4 you can choose a theme. I recommend to leave the GeneratePress which is default one. It loads quickly and that is important to get ranked better in Google. I will create another article about Google ranking and SEO, now we need to concentrate on basics. When everything is ready, click the green button Build my website.
Ok, after automatic installation and configuration the new window is shown. There is the Admin panel on the top, where you can login to the WordPress and start creating your contents, but before that let’s set your website and it’s ready to go!
Website settings
Fast working website is very important for Google. In other words, if your website loads quickly then Google will see that and will give a better position in ranking.
In the same window, in the section below SitePlus+ you only need to change site speed from Accelerated to Extreme. Then have a look at sections below, what is included in Wealthy Affiliate. SSL Protocol, site protection, and other features are shown and ready for you to use.
In Page Speed Insights section you can check your posts and pages loading speed on both mobile phones and desktop. It’s time to login to your WordPress account. Go back to the first section, which is Admin details and click Login Now button.
After few seconds you will see the welcoming message from WordPress. It’s almost ready to use for you now! On the left side menu choose Plugins and Installed plugins. You will see that there are two installed plugins: Kraken Image Optimizer and The SEO Framework.
All you need to do is click Activate under The SEO Framework and that’s it!
Congratulations! You have built your own website! Now it’s the time to create a content which depends on you and your niche only.
Content
It’s time to take matters into your own hands. Now you decide what you are going to publish on website. Content is king and your business is open now! Do you remember the basics described on the top of this article? Yes, good long term plan. Trust me, you won’t get bored in foreseeable future.
It’s very important to create a content regularly. And it must be a good quality stuff. It’s much better to write one long article then three short ones.
When you login to your Wealthy Affiliate account, click Websites from the top menu, and click the icon under My Recent Content section. If you are using mobile phone, slide down to the bottom of the list. Then press Create New Article and From a Writing Template buttons.
You’ll see a new window where ready templates are available. Choose Keyword Rich Content Page and the ready template will open for you. At the bottom there are your targets. There is 1000 words as default, but I recommend to use minimum 1500 words. The more the better. You can check there how many words have been used. Google will see your posts as a valuable.
You can edit in WordPress all the post written in Content Creator of Wealthy Affiliate.
Next important thing is to publish your posts regularly. Search engines, like Google will rank you better if they noticed that something happens on website and it doesn’t stay in one place. Also people who visit you will be happy seeing updates.
Remember about keywords. It could be literally everything! Wealthy Affiliate has a great built in tool that helps with keywords research! Its name is Jaaxy. We can type a phrase and it shows as list of keywords with important statistics so we can choose the best keywords. I am going to write another article about keywords and SEO soon to help you better understand the positioning, which is the basic thing in online business.
Thanks to that you can get a traffic on your website and traffic leads to money!
Website is just the beginning
Everything starts with good website. As I said before, business is a long term plan and you need to patient. The advantage of an online business over a stationary business is that you can start without investing anything and you can but do not have to buy products for sale. Before you start earning money you need to get a traffic. There is few methods how to speed up the process.
- Open Facebook account. If you have one already, add your website or blog address to your details so everyone can see. You can also create a group and invite people from your niche. If you publish something interesting more people will like it and create a traffic. Publishing posts from your website on your Facebook group and profile is a great idea!
- YouTube is another source of traffic. It’s the most popular place where people publish their videos. You don’t need to show your face or even talk, but it’s much better as people hearing your voice will trust you! Put link to your posts in the videos description and comment section so everyone can be transferred directly from YouTube to your blog. And, obviously if you’ll get a lot of views, YouTube will pay you extra money. Sometimes it’s a great source of passive income, remember that!
- Other social media, like Instagram or Twitter can give you additional traffic. They work very similar to Facebook.
- Mailing list is a powerful tool. People will receive emails automatically after signing up. It’s especially good method because only people who are interested in your service will sign up. Probability of taking action by them is high!
Thanks to the social media you can increase the traffic, which gives you much better results! After few months you will notice a passive income, that means you earn money automatically! Sounds good, isn’t it?
It really works!
Plenty of people have changed their financial situation thanks to that method. Interesting is that you can start anytime and anywhere, for free! There is no need to spend money in the beginning of your journey, but in the future you can invest a little in better tools and education. Knowledge is a key that opens the door to the success!
If you just start, then must remember to keep on the track and work consistently and don’t give up. The first money will come to you sooner or later, that is sure! I am going to prepare another article where we are going to talk about SEO and positioning, so bear with me.
Take your action every day. If you have written a plan, follow it all the time. Creating a content regularly is necessary not only to attract visitors, but also for search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, that will put your website higher in the search results.
I highly recommend to start the training at Wealthy Affiliate where you can learn a lot. We all learn all the time. Years ago, we had to buy an expensive courses to start making money online, but today there is a lot of cheap or even free tutorials and trainings available. Yes, sometimes advanced knowledge is not for free, but its very helpful to become a real professional.
Have a look. I we have another great idea! What if you create a training, tutorial or webinar for sale? It is your work, isn’t it? Someone pays for time you have spent on creating a precious stuff thanks to that they can achieve their goals! Make use of it to increase your earnings.
Everything starts with your own website. That’s foundation of your business. Now you are your own boss, so do your best and it’s guaranteed that you will get what you want in every niche!
Check also my previous post, where I show 5 Top online business ideas for beginners if you haven’t seen it before:
==> 5 TOP Online Business Ideas for Beginners
If you haven’t opened an account at Wealthy Affiliate to start making money, do it now by clicking the link below:
==> Join Wealthy Affiliate for FREE <==
If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know in the comment section below and I’ll be happy to help!
Kind regards!
This is a very good article on starting an online business. Thank you for going into detail about setting up your website and optimizing it under the site manager tab.
I think it’s important to have a business plan when you first start so you can measure progress.
What do you think is the best way for beginners to get traffic to a new website?
Thanks for sharing!
Hi again Susan! I think the best way to get traffic is working consistantly and publish contents reguralry. It takes time obviously, but sooner or later more people will visit the website. You can also publish your post in social media like Facebook, then much more poeple will see it.
More and more people are looking online for ways to make money and your article gives a great view into what’s required before you start . So important to have a plan in place. The same as having directions for travelling somewhere new. I like the way you have added screen shots as I know myself, I do prefer picture instructions. I find it easier to follow. Very detailed and easy to follow.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Louise and thank you for your kind comment! I try my best to help others to better understand the process.
This is a terrific article you have published Blazej over the subject of How To Open an Online Business, I thank you for your effort in writing it and am sure that it will be tremendous help the many folks who are confused and wondering about the exact steps they need to take to be successful in business online.
Building a search engine optimized website and drawing tons of traffic to it is not anywhere near as difficult as most people think. You rightly point out the four pronged approach the Wealthy Affiliate platform teaches and will satisfy the search engine’s algorithms to result in the traffic required.
Just one question, how long does it normally take for a website to start making money?
Hi Joseph! Thanks for your comment. It really depends on how much work you put in your website, I think the average time is around 4-5 months