Small Business Startup for Newbies

There are no shortcuts to building a business on the internet.

There is, however, a very simple five step process you can follow to build a business, starting from scratch, and skip the major learning curve I had when I started my business years ago.

Here are the steps:

1. Choose your product or service.

2. Set up your business.

3. Build your website.

4. Choose how you will market your business.

5. Write your marketing materials and do your marketing regularly.

Step 1: Choose Your Product or Service

Before you do any marketing or anything else, you need to be absolutely clear about what your business is about. This means that you need to decide up front if you will sell your own products or services, or if you will sell someone else's. Once you make this decision, then you will need to either create your product or service, or select your affiliate programs/MLM opportunity.

If you are marketing affiliate programs, you can use some of the affiliate program directories like Clickbank, Commission Junction, or Linkshare to find products to market.

You will need to keep track of your affiliate links, usernames and passwords. I recommend you use a program like Program Affiliate Manager as this program will also help you keep track of your commissions. This will make it much easier when you are doing your taxes. You can get a copy from my Affiliate Center.

Step 2 - Set Up Your Business

Although this isn't talked about very often online, you need a plan for how you will keep track of your business records, as well as your income and expenses, as well as any other records. Develop a basic filing system, as well as set up folders on your desktop to keep track.

Also, I would recommend you set up a separate bank account, as well as get a Pay Pal account, as many affiliate programs now offer this option. This is also an excellent way for you to accept payments for your business, as well as offer an affiliate program if you sell your own products or services.

Step 3 - Build Your Website

Building a website isn't as complicated as it sounds. You have options like building a blog using tools like Blogger or Wordpress. You can also use sites like MySpace, Lulu, and Cafe Press to help you build a presence. All of these sites mentioned get tons of traffic, and so you can benefit from that traffic by building your site there.

If you hate to write, then I would recommend US Free Ads.

What type of website you build will be determined by how much writing you want to do, whether or not you buy a domain, and whether or not you buy web hosting. If you want others to see you as a professional and buy your stuff, then you need at least buy your own domain and point it at the site you have built.

It will also depend on whether you are selling your own products and services or someone else's.

Here are some sites I built with the various programs listed above:

Blogger

Wordpress

My Space

Lulu

US Freeads

(I haven't built a store on Cafe Press yet to sell my digital products as physical products. However, I have tried the store builder, and it's pretty easy. It will also allow you to offer an affiliate program for your business, as well as track and contact your customers).

Step 4 - Choose Your Marketing Techniques

There's over 100 different ways you can market your business. However, some are more effective than others.

I would recommend you try one or two, tweak them, and see which one you like, as well as what works best for you. It's no good if you don't want to do it.

You need to market consistently. Consistent and bad marketing is even better than no marketing because you are getting the word out about your business.

For help in choosing your marketing techniques, you can visit my Squidoo lens on Internet Marketing for Free.

Step 5 - Write Your Marketing Materials and Start Marketing

The best advice I can give you about writing your marketing materials is to study the marketing materials you receive whether it's emails, or articles, or Google Ads, or anything else.

Here's what I mean:

If you want to do a Google Adwords campaign, then you need to study Google Adwords. Read all of the information that Google offers. They give away a free manual, as well as offering free software to help you with creating and uploading your ads.

Do a search for your topic. Study the ads. Just because the ad is at the top doesn't mean the advertiser paid the most. What it means is that the advertiser has a winning ad. Study those ads.

If you want to write good articles, study good articles. If you want to write good ads, study good ads.

Keep a swipe file. Study what's in your swipe file and copy the techniques you see used. Writing good ads, articles, or any other sales materials is really about practice. The more you do it, the better you will get.