One of the most common questions that I’ve been asked since I’ve started this blog is ‘How do I start an online business?’ and unfortunately there’s no one instant answer, no one magic bullet that I can say to help answer that question.
You see, starting an online business takes a bit of thought and planning, a lot of work and a little bit of luck.
I can help you with the first 2, but luck you’ll have to work out luck for yourself.
What Kind Of Business Are You Starting?
Yes, I know, you said ‘online business’, but an online business is still in essence a normal business and there are a large variety of businesses out there.
· Are you starting a new business selling a physical product or service online?
· Do you already own an existing business and want to bring it online?
· Or maybe you want to start a website that only brings in income online, with no physical product or service, just electronic products or advertising?
Each type of business has its own ways of making money, but when it comes to starting or bringing the business online, they all start the same every time.
Research, research, research.
Depending on which country you live in, the competition you will face from other websites in your niche will vary greatly. If you’re reading this in America, starting a website on making money online, food, cars, insurance, finance or sports is going to bring you face to face with some big players.
If you’re reading this from less internet established countries, such as Malaysia (which you probably are) then there’s still a lot of room to maneuver and get your website into the eyes of the public.
One of the benefits about living in Malaysia is that we have a relatively under-developed internet space, where local businesses still advertise the traditional way (such as brochures, newspaper adverts etc.) and those that start up websites do so with no real purpose, just as an after thought.
Regardless of the country you live in, research is important, as it helps you plan out your strategy, what type of content to publish on your website and even if you should bother starting up in the first place.
Do A Google Search
The first thing you should do is a Google Search on the category that you’ll be starting your business in. For example, if you’re starting a company selling fishing rods, you would google ‘buy fishing rods’ or ‘buy fishing rods online’ or even ‘fishing rod shops [insert country here]’.
Next thing is to see the types of results that you get from the above search. Pay close attention to the main results (on the left hand side) as well as the advertised results (on the right hand side).
Open up the first 5 results from the main results and study them each carefully – you’re looking for the quality of the content, how many pages of content there is, how nicely the website is designed and if possible how often and when was the last update to the content of the site (in the case of a blog).
As an Internet marketer, there are certain tools that I use to help me shorten this process and get a quick picture on how big my competitors are.
SEOQuake
SEOQuake is a free add-on that I have installed on Mozilla Firefox that gives me a range of web statistics on the website that I am currently viewing all in one handy toolbar at the top of my browser window.
SEOQuake allows you to get an instant picture of how big a website is at once glance, using a range of key web traffic/ search engine parameters.
Get yourself the toolbar at http://seoquake.com/ and install it as a Firefox plugin, select ‘SEO Toolbar’ when it asks you which type to install, I find it better than the ‘SEObar’.
NB: Install the SEOQuake toolbar before continuing on this post. It will make it much easier to understand what I am talking about.
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