starting an online business
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Starting an Online Business: What To Do and What To Avoid

Every single day, approximately 1,000 people flock online to make money from home. Chances you were probably one of these people at some point. A lot of people underestimate the time, money, and effort of starting an online business. Usually, when failure comes (to approximately 98-99% of people) they just chalk it up to “too much competition,” “too little money,” or “everything online is just a scam – no normal person can make a real income.”

People are so busy asking WHAT PROGRAM OR SOFTWARE CAN MAKE ME MONEY QUICKLY, they forget to ask the most simple and pertinent question of all: What can I DO and NOT DO to make money online. In this post, I hope to address some of the best ways you can take basic skills and apply them to make money from home starting today.

Starting an Online Business: Best Marketing Tools

It’s true. There are software and marketing tools out there that can make your marketing efforts starting an online business with marketing toolseasier and your quest in starting an online business far simpler. No matter who you are, you should consider implementing these crucial tools into your business, rather sooner than later.

Every business needs a home. Whether you are internet-based, or set up shop on a street corner, you need to have a space online to explain who you are and what you offer. Setting up your own website is the best way to do this. Using websites like Weebly or Blogger are a great way to get your hands wet with wordpress for free, but they are not a great means to propel your business/brand online as a true leader in your given industry. Your domain will never be more than a subdomain with far fewer administrative options and less overall customization potential.

Owning your own website is not as technically involved and much less expensive than may believe. There are actually some marketers out there that own hundreds to thousands of sites! I recommend you start with one site, though. The first thing you need is hosting for that site. For under $4 a month, it is possible to host your domain and get your first domain included for free when you register! I prefer to use Justhost. They have excellent customer service, cool deals, and plenty of options for the geekiest of clients.

Once you are ready to get hosting and install your site, check out this post about assigning an addon domain and installing WordPress (extremely easy). Once this is done, voila – you’ve got your site in business! You can use that site to showcase your skills, display your resume, sell products, build your list, connect with other business owners/marketers, and so much more! The possibilities are endless!

Having your own website is just the beginning. Building your client base and learning how to advertise effectively are the two ingredients that will make your website and business move forward.

You may have heard the expression: “the money is in the list.” Most newbies and folks starting an online business avoid list building because it is intimidating. I know I put it off for way too long! Having your own list is an invaluable asset that can earn you money – even on days you decide to take off work! I will be discussing techniques you can use to list build in future posts on my blog. For the sake of this post, I will disclose just a few of the essential tools you need to list build.

starting an online business with AweberHands down, the most important marketing tool for list building success is an Autoresponder. My favorite autoresponder is Aweber. It is extremely reliable, provides comprehensive reports to analyze your subscriber stats more effectively, and it only costs $1 your first month! You’ll be able to track everything in your emails and even find out which emails are performing best…and which ones are sapping money from your potential! You can create lists in Aweber, then create webforms and place those in capture pages or on your website to convert visitors into customers.

An autoresponder is basically just a marketing tool that allows you to capture email addresses and keep in touch with those email addresses without having to send an email to each one individually. Another important component to list building, is capturing the leads that make up your list.

Another important tool is link tracking software. It is difficult to capture prospects without knowing who is clicking on your ads and determining which ads are doing the best and worst. My favorite link tracking software is Link Trackr. We’ve been using this service for a while now and it has helped us tweak our advertisements into high-converting machines. This becomes increasingly necessary when you start running ad campaigns with solo ad vendors and media buys. When you are paying more for high quality advertising, you need to be sure of how your ads are performing so you can optimize output of your ads and optimize clicks and conversions.

Starting an Online Business: Internet Marketing Courses and Get Rich Quick Schemes

Now that we’ve discussed some of the tools you’ll need when you start your online business, it’s time to discuss ways to speed up your learning curve. There are a lot of courses out there. If you studied every single once of them, you would never achieve a thing! Most of the courses out there are worthless. They will actually devalue what you are trying to accomplish.

Google Sniper 2.0One course that I have always loved is called Google Sniper. Most of my actual skills in blogging came from that very course. George Brown walks you through the entire process of setting up a website and ranking them step by step with videos and written instructions. He also has an area with ongoing training where he keeps you up-to-date with everything that is changing on Google and in the internet marketing industry called Google Sniper X.

The premise behind the course is to show you how to rank little 3-page affiliate websites on Google and earn huge commissions for the product the site is built around. It teaches you how to effectively use keyword research and how to build your sites from the ground up to outrank other sites competing for the same keyword(s)

Google Sniper has actually been around since 2009, but the updated version, Google Sniper 2.0 came out in 2011. The updated Google Sniper 2.0 added new tactics to the arsenal, along with a brand new module that shows you how to outsource your website building and build up an empire. If you are curious to check out Google Sniper, check out the sales page here.

Not all courses are winners. Some courses actually teach you techniques and strategies that are outdated or saturated with other hungry marketers. For example, any program that talks about utilizing some unknown loophole, or renegade traffic strategy is probably either full of $*%#, or the secret loophole has been saturated or closed (which is why they are selling it to you now). Now one will share a secret loophole with thousands of people on Clickbank for $47 if it is making them thousands a day. Think about it…would you?

Also, any course that appears over-hypey that talks about push button software or one click push buttoncommissions is full of the stinky brown stuff. If “Ed Johnson” developed real push button software that earned him millions, he would not share it with you for under $10,000 (or higher). If his push button software really worked and hundreds to thousands of people used it, it would lose its effectiveness and Ed would have to develop new software.

I think its a shame that the gurus taint our market with this stuff just to make a quick buck. Where’s the value at? You need a course that will teach you how to fish for yourself. Push button software will more realistically get your ip address banned or blacklisted across the internet and get you into serious trouble!

Another type of program you should STEER CLEAR FROM is the infamous “get rich quick” programs that everyone always warns you about. I have also dabbled with these and have seen profits before in some of them. They all have one thing in common – they shut down…with your hard-earned money in hand. If you stick with them for too long, you WILL lose. To read a recent review I wrote about one of these so-called get-rich quick schemes, go here.

Starting an Online Business: Why Proven Systems are The Way To Go

While internet marketing courses can teach you how to accomplish certain tasks, having a proven, top-notch system can be the real game changer that brings it all together. The simplest formula for internet wealth is:

Online Success = Tested Traffic + Proven System + Monetization

Let’s say you have a sales funnel. You send traffic to that sales funnel and monetize that traffic with offers and bonuses…that traffic becomes cash in your pocket. What you need is the system that provides the goods that will result in the sales.

Starting an online business is far easier when a well-oiled system is already in place for you. My favorite system that I use every single day with my business is called Elite Marketing Pro. I have written an in-depth review about Elite Marketing Pro you can view here.

Elite Marketing Pro is a very special program that was created by the Magnetic Sponsoring team. It is extremely simple to use and can help your business on so many levels. It can, in fact:

  • Build your list for you
  • Teach you how to drive traffic effectively like never before
  • Give you access to capture page creating software and your own website that is pre-loaded with all the products they you have rights to sell.
  • Licensing rights to 12 awesome products that have been proven time and time again to change people’s lives
  • Help you close sales with their in-house team that will call, mail, and email your prospects to earn you up to $18,000 per prospect you bring in!

I have only scratched the surface of what Elite Marketing Pro offers. I can’t believe the value they cram into this very special system. If you want to sign up or join Elite Marketing Pro, you can join here.

Starting an Online Business Summary

Starting an Online Business can be intimidating, but it can be simple if you use a system and start building your list as soon as possible. Utilizing these essential tools and services can help boost your business to the next level:

Autoresponder

Link Tracking

Web Hosting

I hope you have learned something from this post today about starting an online business. If you remember to imagine, strategize, implement, and tweak accordingly, there will be little to stop you from dominating the marketplace! See you at the top!

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