How to Start an Online Business

Dwayne Graves

Have you made it your goal to start an online business?

Congratulations!

You’re about to embark on an exciting journey toward more independence when it comes to your time and income.

Starting a new online business has the potential to help you:

Quit a job you no longer enjoy
Put your children through college
Pay off all your debt
Save for retirement
Establish a sizeable emergency fund
Go on wonderful vacations

You should understand, however, that building a successful business on the Internet doesn’t happen overnight or without a lot of hard work.

Get prepared to grow as a person and learn new skills.

Be ready for some frustrating days to go along with the fun times. Growing in life and business teaches all of us that it’s not always easy to make our dreams come true.

The great news is that if you commit to learning what you need to do and implementing what you learn, then you’ll come out the other end of the journey with a successful online business…

…and a business that can grow as large as you decide to grow it!

The other good news is that anyone with the desire to do so can start an online business. This is an opportunity for men, women, college students, retirees, single moms & dads, and couples to create income from ideas on the Internet.

Ready to get started?

Let’s go.

Affiliate Disclaimer: I earn commission (get paid) if you click on the links and purchase a product below. My earnings do not impact the price you pay.

What Is An Online Business?

An online business isn’t that different from an offline business.

Your business needs to solve a specific problem for a target market of customers who desire to have that problem solved for them.

Many people fail to build profitable online businesses from the get-go because they think the fundamentals of business somehow don’t apply to the Internet. They believe there’s some sort of “magic button” they push that produces income.

If you’ve been led to believe that, then the first thing to understand is that nothing could be further from the truth.

It’s critical to figure out what problem your business solves for others and whether enough people out there want and need that problem fixed.

A good example is Kodak. They focused on “product” more than “problem solving”.

This worked when everyone depended on film to use inside their cameras. Kodak went bankrupt when the digital camera was invented because their product wasn’t needed anymore.

If they had focused on solving the problem of, “people want to store images of how beautiful the world is” (problem focused), instead of “we sell film” (product focused), then they would have listened when one of their very own employees wanted to create the world’s first digital camera.

The lesson:

Always allow the problem you solve to guide you inside your online business. Then, market or create products that help solve the problem.

Online Business Ideas

Decide what type of business to build as you start an online business. Here are the various types of Internet businesses to choose from:

e-Commerce
Blogging
Affiliate marketing
Selling online courses
Freelancing
Network marketing
Becoming a coach
Selling a done-for-you (DFY) service
Lead generation (selling leads to businesses)

Do you now see why focusing on solving a problem helps here?

If you want to keep people safe from 5G technology, then can you see that you’ll most likely not join a network marketing company or try to figure out a DFY service?

Instead, you’ll likely find products that do this already and become an affiliate marketer for them. Or, you might source them and sell them on Amazon (e-Commerce).

What if you’re a relationship therapist and you want to solve the problem that most single women want solved: finding their perfect “prince”.

You might decide to become a relationship coach and sell 1on1 coaching services or create an online course to sell.

Again, let the problem you solve guide you into the type of business and product or service to offer.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to get started with your online business.

This is because you find products or services that other people have already created and market those to your audience.

It takes a lot of time and money to test products to the point that they convert well online. Save yourself this time and money by finding products that others have already proven to convert.

Your job from there is to build an audience of interested prospects, measure the process and place those products in front of them to consider buying.

One way to build your audience is via paid ads. For example, you can start a Facebook (FB) ad campaign and funnel interested prospects from your ad over to your affiliate sales page.

To be more clear:

The company that sells the product you become an affiliate for will give you their sales page to use. This page is already proven to convert a certain percentage of visitors into customers.

The sales page link you get is “coded” so that anyone that buys from it is attached to you. This means all sales from your affiliate sales page result in a commission that gets paid out to you.

Do you see how simple the process is?

All you do is place an ad on FB and provide the people on FB with your coded affiliate sales page link to click on. You’ll receive a commission each time someone decides to buy the product that you mentioned in the ad.

Using a Blog Inside Your Online Business

A blog is another useful marketing channel to add to any paid ads you might run inside your new online business.

Your goal as a blogger is to add useful content that your target audience loves reading.

Why would you want to do this?

Because it builds trust and authority with your audience.

Think about it from the other side:

Don’t you feel good about influencers who provide useful content for you to read when you need to learn something about solving one of your problems?

If you need to build a fence, then it’s likely that you’ll buy materials from a blogger’s Amazon affiliate links after they’ve provided a fence-building tutorial.

If you suffer from diabetes and find a blogger who sells a network marketing company’s diabetes-fighting health product, then you’re going to consider buying that product after reading a well-informed and researched blog article.

You need to become that blogger so that your target market buys from you!

Decide what problem you’ll solve for people and then build a blog that educates them about that topic.

Do you want to help people understand the best prepping strategies? Start a blog, educate them with helpful tips inside your blog posts and then point them to affiliate products, such as generators, food and other prepping products.

Are you great with personal development? Start a blog and educate readers about how they can make their lives better. Then, start a 1on1 or group coaching program and earn $1000, $2000 or $5000+ per client. Or, create an online course and sell that to your readers.

How To Build An Online Business For Free

What if you don’t have money to invest in paid ads or even hosting for a new blog?

There’s no need to fear because there are ways to get started for free.

Did you know you can go to a different platform and do the same method I just explained above when discussing a blog?

You can use YouTube instead.

While a blog takes a little bit of an investment, you can start a YouTube channel completely free.

Guess what?

You can duplicate the blogging idea except now you make videos instead of writing blog posts.

The concept remains the same:

Create video content that educates your audience and then move them into looking at your products and/or services.

Don’t like making and being seen in videos?

No problem…

Create a podcast instead. A podcast allows you to speak your content out to your audience. You can even do it on days when you don’t look your best because no one will ever see you.

One simple way to start a podcast is to use Anchor.fm. It’s free and their platform will distribute your podcast out to all the distribution channels, such as Apple, PodBean, etc.

The overall strategy remains the same no matter how you get your content out to your audience.

Teach a little and then show your audience why your product (or an affiliate product you’re promoting) will solve the problem completely.

By the way, I recommend you start with affiliate marketing. It simply makes the entire process that much easier.

There are affiliate products in every niche imaginable. There’s no need to create your own products at first.

Get good at creating content for free on a YouTube channel or podcast. Or, invest about $100 and get blog hosting.

Using these methods allows you to start your online business for free (or almost free) because you aren’t spending any money on market research.

Affiliate marketing combined with YouTube, podcasting and blogging avoids costly testing as you try to find something that converts well. Find affiliate marketing products that are already proven and show your audience those proven sales pages.

Use your chosen content channel to generate a passive flow of visitors, viewers or listeners. Then, convert a percentage of them into email subscribers.

Choose The Offer(s) Which Suits You Best

Elevate from a Beginner to a Pro Entrepreneur with Online Business Simplified

Create Stunning Landing Pages & Websites with Leadpages

Send Your First Email Campaign with Aweber

Build Sales Funnels & Membership Sites with Kartra

The Role Of Email Marketing Inside Your Online Business

You can’t start an online business and ignore the impact of email marketing on your overall success.

Let me ask you this:

How often do you buy instantly after hearing about a product on a blog, video or podcast?

Not too often, right?

Normally, you need to hear about a product or service a few times before you decide to buy.

That’s why you need to build an email subscriber list as a business owner.

It allows you to market over and over to your target market until they feel enough trust to buy from you.

You must focus on building an email list the minute you start an online business.

The process is relatively simple. Ask yourself what your audience needs to learn after reading a blog post, listening to a podcast episode or watching a video.

Create a free resource that teaches them this information. These free resources are called lead magnets and can take the form of:

Short video
Cheatsheet
Worksheet
Short audio
Case study
Checklist
Template
Script
Tutorial
App
Calendar
Resource list
Planner
Printable
Spreadsheet
Calculator
Guide

Set up a landing page that asks for your prospect’s email address and then give them the resource after they submit their information.

Your prospect likes you even more because of the extra value you’ve provided and you now can market your product to them until they decide you’re the best solution to their problem.

Ideas For Blogging Or Affiliate Marketing

OK, let’s lay out some specific ideas that you can use to start your online business with.

There are three core markets to pull your ideas from:

Wealth
Health
Relationships

Almost anything you’re interested in marketing will most likely fall somewhere within these three large niches.

For example:

Wealth > Real Estate > Flipping Properties
Health > Lose Weight > Eating Plans
Relationships > Single Women > Dating

The best thing about these areas:

These are three main areas where people are willing to invest their money into. You can expect to do well with traffic, leads and sales if you “play” somewhere within wealth, health and relationships.

Here are a few areas that will prove profitable when it comes to blogging, podcasting, YouTubing and affiliate marketing:

Niches For Women
- Battered Women
- Single Moms
- Dating
- Be a Better Mom
- Be Better Wife
For Men
- Be a Better Husband
- Be a Better Father
- Single Fathers
For College Students
- Study Habits
- Tutoring
Other Ideas
- Golf
- MLM
- Board Game Design
- Mindfulness
- Spirituality
- Discus Drills
- Football Drills
- Basketball Plays
- How To Be a Better CEO
- Facebook Marketing
- Photography
- Dog Walking
- Interior Design
- Healthy Snacks
- Etsy Selling Methods
- How To Buy An Investment Property
- Overcome Emotional Abuse
- Google Marketing
- Website Creation Services
- Sleep Habits
- Javascript Tips
- Family Relationships

Books To Help You Start An Online Business

One of the exciting aspects to building an Internet business is that there’s always something new to learn. You could do better if you tap into the “learner” inside you who craves understanding new concepts.

Let’s look at books to consider as you start your online marketing journey:

Starting a Business QuickStart Guide

The Simplified Beginner’s Guide to Launching a Successful Small Business, Turning Your Vision into Reality, and Achieving Your Entrepreneurial Dream

The author of this book, Ken Colwell, uses his experience of working with entrepreneurs for over 20 years to teach you core fundamentals about building a business. You’ll discover key points about planning out your business, giving true value to prospects and finally seeing conversions into your first sales.

Starting An Online Business For Dummies

This is a friendly, fun guide that will help you turn your Internet connection and laptop into your dream business. It helps you identify the problem to solve and how to market your chosen solution. You’ll learn about customer service, analytics, domain name selection and working with vendors.

Mind Your Business

A Workbook to Grow Your Creative Passion Into a Full-time Gig

This book, written by Ilana Griffo, takes you through important business steps such as tax and legal issues, upfront planning needs and figuring out your long-term business roadmap.

Books Written By Russell Brunson

Russell Brunson, who is the creator of ClickFunnels, has written three books that you should strongly consider reading. This is a trilogy of books, so it’s best to read them in the following order:

DotCom Secrets

This book starts your education about the importance of setting up online sales funnels. You’ll learn about the “value ladder”, how to communicate with scripts and frameworks, how to manage sales funnels and how ClickFunnels helps simplify things by helping you easily get your own sales funnel created.

Expert Secrets

This book builds upon what you learn inside DotCom Secrets and shows you how to infuse your own personality and skills into your online business. You’ll discover a methodology for discovering your “brand” voice, creating a tribe of enthusiast followers, becoming an expert in your industry and profiting by sharing your message.

Traffic Secrets

The last book in the Brunson trilogy shows you all the different ways to generate traffic to your sales funnel. I gave you traffic ideas above such as paid ads, blogging, podcasting and building a YouTube channel. There are many other ways to generate online traffic for your business and this book shows you all of them.

Blogging and YouTube Books

Essential Habits Of 6-Figure Bloggers

The author, Sally Miller, interviewed 17 bloggers and you’ll learn important topics, such as how to pick your niche, monetize your traffic and stay on track with your blogging goals.

YouTube Marketing: The Beginner’s Guide to YouTube Advertising

Learn the Video Content Marketing Secrets and How to Start a YouTube Channel

Learn everything you need to know about marketing on YouTube, such as understanding your audience, which tools to use, how to create excellent videos and how to monetize your channel.

These are a small sampling of available books to help you grow your Internet business. I have sourced several others for you here inside my Business Book List.

Tools & Resources

There are various tools and resources that make starting an online business easier. Here are some of those tools to consider using as you get everything off the ground:

Host Your Website: You need to host your website if you’d like to start blogging as one of your traffic generation strategies. Several hosting companies exist and I’ve reviewed a few of them for you:

HostGator

Bluehost

GoDaddy

Email Marketing: You need to have the ability to collect email addresses as part of your email marketing campaign. A quality email service provider and a landing page creator are two main tools that help online businesses accomplish this task. Here are some tools to consider in this area:

AWeber

Leadpages

All-In-One-Solutions: Instead of getting separate tools like your blog, email service provider and landing page software set up, you might want to consider software that does all of these things for you in one place:

Kartra

ClickFunnels

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): SEO is the process of optimizing your blog posts or videos so that they show up at the top of Google. Here are some tools to help you in this area:

Free SEO course from Neil Patel – Patel is one of the leading educators on SEO and this free course will jumpstart your efforts in this area.

Keyword basics from Brian Dean – Dean is also a great resource for SEO and this blog post will help you get started with keyword research.

Ubersuggest – Free keyword research tool from Neil Patel.

AnswerThePublic – Free keyword research tool

Ahrefs – A more robust, and paid, research tool

Outsourcing: You might not want to do everything that’s required when building your business, such as writing your blog posts or designing your website. Here are resources where you can get freelancers to do the work for you:

Podcast Hosting: I mentioned Anchor.fm above. Here are other podcasting hosts to consider:

Social Media Tools: Here are a few tools that will improve your efforts on social media.

TubeBuddy – Helps specifically with finding the best keywords to target on YouTube when building your channel there.

Tailwind – A tool to help you post automatically on your Pinterest account.

Flick.tech – A hashtag research tool, this resource helps you get more Instagram likes and followers.

Video Tools:

10 Best Vlogging Cameras For YouTubers – Discover a review I did on the top cameras that will help your YouTube channel look spectacular.

Camtasia Screen Recorder & Video Editor

Screen-Cast-O-Matic Screen Recorder & Video Editor

Canva – Create YouTube channel art

Affiliate Marketing Training And Resources:

Online Business Simplified Membership – This is a free membership I created to help further your online business education. It includes 15+ free online business resources to help you go from a newbie to a pro entrepreneur and I’d love to “meet” you there.

Getting Started

It’s possible that you might feel slightly overwhelmed when you think about starting your online business.

The key to this is to understand that it all begins with that first small step. I encourage you to focus on the very next thing you need to do instead of visioning out too far. This will help you feel less overwhelmed so that you can get small steps done without procrastinating.

Always remember that tiny steps add up to the point where you’re knocking down your biggest goals eventually. Watch this one-minute domino video to see the power of this in action.

Here’s how to start:

Decide on the problem you’d like to solve
Decide if you want to start with blogging, YouTube or podcasting and start that one platform
Decide whether to begin with affiliate marketing or some other path (such as creating your own products)

Then, use the resources I gave you above that are related to your chosen path. For example, get your hosting in place with HostGator or Bluehost if you’re going to blog and use affiliate marketing.

Then, use the SEO resources I gave you to research your keywords and get your AWeber, Drip, Leadpages or Kartra accounts set up.

Next, consider deeper training around affiliate marketing, such as on my affiliate marketing resources, and using my free membership to help you discover more helpful resources.

Take it all step-by-step, go at your own pace, don’t compare yourself to others and soon you could have a thriving new online business.