Starting an online business is not a new concept people have been making money via the internet for years. But, with the recent world events, it’s totally apparent that having an online presence for yourself or your business is paramount.
Some businesses can only survive offline, but many can easily adapt and keep trading when things don’t go according to plan. If you don’t already have a business, this doesn’t stop you as an individual from future-proofing yourself and your family by starting your own business from the comfort of your own home.
Whether you already have a business or not I am going to show you what you need and how to start your own business online. A business that you can start today with minimal costs and that with time and effort you can build into a part-time or full-time income.
Ready let’s go…
Before I explain what you need to do to start your own business read right to the end as I will be telling you about 2 things that will benefit you hugely on your journey.
1. Is Hard Work Enough…
No matter what business you are starting, whether offline or online the one thing you need to know is that it’s hard work. Yes, I know these gurus say you can earn this in just a few minutes, well, let me tell you building a solid business online takes three things…
TIME
MONEY
and HARD WORK…
If you are not prepared to invest in these then you might as well stop reading now and close down this page.
Still here… Great!
Now, of course, there are things you can do to speed up the process and I will show you the important ones that every great business owner has used to succeed.
2. Your Home Online
The first thing I would recommend is creating a home online, so what do I mean by this. Simply it’s a website, building a website is a great way to brand your business. Now, this could be yourself or a business this choice is yours.
Hey, you have never built a website, that’s great as these days you don’t have to be a computer programmer. In fact, you can start without any tech skills and have a website live on the internet in just a few hours…
Read this article on how to build a website from scratch in under 10 minutes
Yes, you can learn more as you go, but that’s all part of the journey. Stay tuned as I will be talking about training shortly.
Before that let’s quickly run through some pointers when sorting your website.
Build on WordPress
The best platform to build your website is WordPress. WordPress is the most versatile and easiest way to build amazing websites. There is no coding to write it’s a simple point-and-click process. There are thousands of different themes to choose from and most of the free ones are more than adequate to get you a great online presence.
Hosting Your Site
Now you can use WordPress for free and have them host the website for you, but I strongly recommend that you have your website on a separate hosting account. This will mean that you are in full control of what happens to your website which is the best way to be.
If you are looking for the best hosting for WordPress sites check out Bluehost I have used them before and so have my clients.
I have been building websites for clients now for some years. Shh… I don’t advertise this though LOL
Read more on the best hosting for WordPress websites in this article
There is another free option for hosting which I will cover shortly so keep reading.
3. Ongoing Training
Creating a successful business online is, unfortunately, more than just created a website, if only that were true…
There are many things that you will need to know about in order to be successful so, having the chance to access training on all aspects of online marketing and sales is another recommendation to take onboard.
Here are just a few of the things that you will probably need to know about:-
- Getting Traffic to your website
- Creating products to sell
- Monetizing your website when you have no product to sell
- How to produce great content
- How to use the power of video
- Generating leads and sales
- Finding your audience
- Social media marketing
- Email marketing
- How to create sales funnels that work on auto-pilot
- How to recommend other companies’ products and get paid
And this is just the start, so as you can see when I first told you about dedicating TIME, & HARD WORK I wasn’t lying.
Now you could try and figure out all this on your own, but as I mentioned there are a few shortcuts you can take and this is where you can quicken the learning process.
By learning from people that have already been through the process and come out successfully the other end. Now, I am always happy to help anyone wishing to start their own business but my time is limited so, in order to help as many people as I can, I recommend doing what I did and joining a community that is overflowing with like-minded people who are only too happy to help.
Plus, in the community, I joined I was not only able to access all the training I ever needed in bite-size chunks, but they will even teach you how to build your website and host it for you for free. See told you there was a free option available.
Check out the full training programs in this article
The membership community is free to get started and includes free training and support, however, to gain the most out of the training upgrading to their premium membership will give you ongoing training, live events, support, and of course hosting for your website.
The site in question is Wealthy Affiliate and currently has over one million members many of which are earning a full-time income with their businesses.
You can take a free starter membership here and have a look around, there is totally no pressure to upgrade and you can even build your first website for free.
Now, you could buy courses from other successful people. Any decent course will normally set you back anything from $200-$2500 and that will only cover just one topic. But, of course, that is your choice and there’s no pressure from me to tell you otherwise.
4. Support & Guidance
When you are building your very own business online it can be a very lonely place so having a source of support is always a great thing. I continue to get enormous support from the Wealthy Affiliate community and in return, I help as many new members just starting their online journey too.
Yes, you can go and pay to have someone mentor you but, frankly having tried this I was actually disappointed with the service and advice. I am talking about one of the top internet marketers based here in the UK and it cost me thousands of pounds.
I would not go down that route ever again, well I don’t need to I have my friends in WA. They have all been in the trenches so to speak for years and earning some serious money online, heck why do I need anyone else.
Take a look around on Wealthy Affiliate and see for yourself.
There is also another great place I have found which gives you free training, in fact, you can earn your first $20 in less than 60 minutes. Check it out right here
5. Tools
Every business needs loads of tools to make life easier in business right? Wrong!
Now, having all the tools can help but can also drain your bank account.
You can buy tools for nearly every job but the truth is I only use three tools in my business and only one is 100% essential.
That is an email autoresponder I use this to collect potential customers’ names and emails. It then means I can email them on autopilot and send traffic back to my website or to products and services that might be of value.
This is the ONE tool you must get. End of… It will help you build your business and your income super fast. Hell, even Macdonalds use these tools.
I have been using AWeber as my email marketing service for years and in fact, recently qualified as an AWeber Certified Expert (ACE). This means I can help others set up and run email campaigns, sales funnels, and optin forms.
You have probably heard the saying the money is in the list, well this is referring to your email list and it’s true if used correctly a good email list should generate a great return on investment every month.
There are many of these services around so do some research before committing to one of them. AWeber allows you to sign up for a free account and there is no time pressures to upgrade enabling you to test drive without it costing you a dime. That’s what I did ten years ago and I am still using them.
The other tools I have paid for is Thrive Themes Membership this gives me access to paid WordPress themes and plugins, which help me build my sales funnels, and optin forms much faster and easier, they also have plugins for building quizzes, and online courses. Well worth a look to build my email list even quicker.
More information on what you get in the full Thrive Themes Membership here
The final product I use to help me grow my YouTube channel (currently 11,000 plus subscribers) is a website and Google extension called VIDIQ although there is a free version it’s very limited at only a few bucks a month I use one of the paid versions. It’s still amazing value.
YouTube also gets me a huge amount of free traffic every day, why wouldn’t you use it!
Check out VIDIQ if you are thinking of using video in your business.
Quick Recap & My Gift To You
Firstly, amazing that you have read through the bottom of this article, now all your need to do is take action which is the hardest part really, so many people fall at this final hurdle. Don’t let this be you!
Let me quickly recap what you have to do…
- Be prepared to invest time, hard work, and some money into your business
- Build your online home (your website) where you can grow your business from
- Seek out training (Wealthy Affiliate would be my recommendation) it’s free to take a look!
- Look at getting support and guidance you don’t have to do this alone.
- Arm yourself with the right tools to move your business forward, not drain your income.
- Finally, TAKE ACTION NOW!
I think you are destined for greater things and I look forward to helping you start your own business. With this in mind, I just wanted to share a couple more things with you.
First, if you do join me in the Wealthy Affiliate community then I will commit to helping you. You can message me privately, on the website 24/7 and I will even organize a 40% discount on your first month’s premium membership I can’t say fairer than that now can I.
Still undecided! That’s okay, there is no pressure from my end. While you’re making your mind up grab my FREE 7-day email Bootcamp which will run through everything in more detail. You can work through it at your own pace.
Whatever you decide to do have fun and enjoy the journey.
Disclosure:- Affiliate links may be used within this post. This means that if you purchase
through my site after clicking a link then I get a small commission, at NO extra charge to yourself. This helps
me to continue giving great free content. Thanks.
Hie Martin
Thank you for letting us know that it all wont be just a walk in the park as far as online business is concerned. I am really grateful that you shed light on the hard work that you will go through if you need to make it online.
I have to say many people can drop and leave their online business if they are not told what it is that really awaits them.
But with your post surely someone can get refueled. Thank you
Glad you found it a useful post 🙂
Hey nice article you have there, your analysis are quite unique, there are questions that seeks for answers to me, how long will it takes to cover the trainings, after the training is mentorship and guidance given to those who were successfull , how many hours do I need to work before I can earn ?. Anticipating answers.
Thanks for your questions let me answer them one by one. You could go through the training courses I recommend within Wealthy Affiliate in a few days. However, you will need to complete the tasks they show you otherwise you will not make any money. Also, As I mentioned your training never really stops as the internet continually keeps changing but Wealthy Affiliate has you covered on this with their weekly live training. If you maintain your premium account you continue to access all the live training and support. The last question is impossible to say as some people will work for a few weeks and start earning, others may take longer and this can be because of many things, Remember, this is NOT a get rich scheme, and your business should be something you enjoy so work hard, complete the training and the money will arrive.