|
By S. W.
1. Find a product to sell or a service to provide. It's usually better to sell something you have knowledge of or a growing interest in because it makes an easier sale. Growing in popularity is niche marketing which is marketing a product/service that has potential, but not a lot of competition, you can visit Nichebot for some ideas. A lot of people believe that only tangible products sell on the net. WRONG. Some of the most profitable products on the net are intangible, hint hint-Information.
2. Gather information on the product. Nothing is worse than a clueless salesman/woman. Inquire about the market for your product, its benefits, competition, price, and the demographic of its consumers, on other words find your "target market" (forgive me I majored in Marketing). The easiest way to see what's hot at the moment is to simply surf the net. The key is to search as if you are looking to buy the product, in other words try to think like a consumer.
3. Build your site. There are a few options available to make a site. If you don't know how you can buy a book or use a site-building program such as Microsoft Frontpage or DreamWeaver. You also can pay your local webmaster to build one (which is going to run anywhere from $500-2000). You can also download free templates from almost anywhere, just make sure that they don't have the designer's "free website" logo on the bottom. Also, if you're considering selling tangible products the easiest route is to just go on Ebaystore and open an online storefront. It's inexpensive and will boost your sales, save you some time, and build trust with your customers (since Ebay is a renown marketplace).
4. Register a domain name. A domain name is your unique identity address on the net, example: "www.yourbusiness.com". Domain names are generally pretty inexpensive to acquire usually ($10-15/5mo.), but try to be creative when choosing a domain name; you want to choose one that's easy for people to remember. If you go over to smallbusiness.yahoo.com or GoDaddy you'll find low priced domain name packages.
5. Find a host. A web host store's your website and basically acts as your medium to the internet. It's a lot of hosts out there, however, it's very important to choose your host carefully as you want to find a host that has a good connection-you want you site up 24/7, as well as good overall service-believe me the last conflict you need is with your host, because they control your site. You have the option of having your domain registrar as your host as well. Many will offer you the option and will even offer you a "free domain". I'd think twice before doing this and here's why; if you decide to leave the host for any reason, they still have your domain name (and shady ones will hold on to if forever), and if you chose a free one, it's there domain-and your left in a bad way. So again, make sure you go with a trusted domain registrar and host. Bluehost.com and Yahoo are a couple hosts that have a pretty solid reputation for providing quality hosting and good customer service. From my personal experience both hosts are reliable offering 99% website uptime (which is crucial), good pricing, and more importantly they provide 24/7 support.
6. Get traffic. This is usually easier said than done. You can acquire traffic by paying for it which is referred to as "PPC" or pay per click, if you go on Google you'll learn about their Adwords program. If you're looking for free advertising there are a number of methods you can utilize; try emailing out a weekly/monthly newsletter, posting in blogs and forums, and/or writing articles and posting them to e-directories or ezines (some will charge you but the exposure is worth the money). However, you want to make sure that your ads are going to get read so make sure you post to quality ezines and directories. If you visit Alexa you can find out how much traffic these sites are actually receiving (for free) before deciding to post. Lastly, DON'T SPAM-this will shatter your credibility, besides no one likes it.
About the Author
Author and Internet Marketer
www.e-wmn.com |
