Getting Started

If an ad for a business opportunity promises a large amount of money, within a short period of time and requires no skill/time/experience from you then why do they need you?  It may not be a scam but it probably is not realistic business model with any longevity in it.  Before making any decision, research the company you are going to be doing business with as well as the proposed opportunity.  Is the demand for it great?  Is it a growing market?

Still not sure how to get started? Take these steps:

Make Your Plan

1. Relax and daydream for a bit. You need to connect wth your passions. Think about the subjects that intrigue you and the things you yearn to know more about. Also consider your areas of expertise or areas of growing abilities.  A list of these interest will provide the basis for your keyword search so that you can devlop your niche.

2.  This next step cannot be emphasized enough, so I will explain it again. The keyword search is a very critical component in building your web based business.  You should go to: http://affiliate.wordtracker.com/r/699/a/138784/l/dk6rh2 to find some free tools and some more advanced tools to create your keyword list.  Start out with very broad category words that describe one of your interests.  Search on these words in wordtracker and you will see how often they are searched.  It gives you an idea if a word is searched enough to be considered key. 

Next, search on these keywords with an adjective added to it that more specifically describes your interest.  This will create keywords for a niche market and in turn will optimize your chances for being found by the search engines.

Do a Google search on the keywords that you would like to use and check out the sites that come up.  Are they about the subject matter that you are proposing?  Check out the titles of their sites and the descriptions they use.  If the sites are similar to your plans, check out to see how many there are.  If the first search page that comes up is loaded with sites similar to the one you are proposing, then there just may be too much competition.  You may have to define your niche better.  If only a few sites similar to yours show up and the rest are a 80-90% match, you have identified a

competitive niche (providing the words you use also demonstrated that there is sufficient demand - see wordtracker).  Later when you build your web site, you will be able to build meta tags to insert into the html txt.  This is basically food so the search engine spiders will find you.   Don't worry about this now.  You will able to do this without knowing any html (hyper text markup language - which is the language programmers use to create web sites.  Newbies (as well as pros) may prefer to use web site templates).

Create Your Content

3.  Now that you have your key words you can move on with your business concept - write your internet site content.  Remember, visitors are coming to your website for information, not to buy things.  You need to earn their sense of trust by giving them lots of theme based content.  Once you earn trust, you are viewed as credibel and then the reviews and opinions you post about products, truly means something.  Do not steer your visitors wrong.  Honesty will go a lot further than a pretty site with lots of bells and whistles.  If you are able to add that afterwards - well that is just icing on the cake.  If you feel that you need help writing excellent copy here is a some site for you:

A site that has volumes of free resources is: http://hardtofindseminars.com


Build Your Website

4. If your budget is very limited, you may want to start out with the web building and hosting services of GoDaddy.  You can still build an attractive site that serves your purposes. You can start with the 5 page economy plan and add features as you go (storage volume, advanced email features, traffic facts, search optimization,blogs, newsletters).
 
GoDaddy also has short term plans so you do not have to put much money upfront when starting out. 

If you have $300 to spend, an extremely comprehensive service is offered by SellSite.  It will help you clarify your business concept, create keywords, create and register a domain name, build your website (templates, semi-custom, or completely customized), create newsletters, custom forms, bogs, optimize your web pages and submit your site to search engines and RSS feeds and teach you how to monetize your site.   GoDaddy does all of this too but you can pay as you go and add services (overall, if you can afford the upfront expense, SiteSell offers a better value). 

For a GoDaddy site, click on the banner at the bottom of this page. 

For SiteSell, go to:

http://wahm.sitesell.com/Lori26.html . 

Both of these companies offer affiliate opportunities which, if you join, can not only defray the cost to you (which is also a tax deductible business expense) but it can also create significant income for you.

One very important thing to note: copy and save your work frequently, if you are working online, or the site will time out and you will lose your work.  Simply left click to shade the work you have done, press control c to copy and then place it on a word document or notepad with control v.  This will prevent a ton of frustration.  You may even want to write your copy off line and then tweak it after pasting it in.


Monetize

5. Set up ways to monetize your site.  SiteSell is excellent for this. But you can do it on your own.  Spend a lot of energy researching and setting up your affliliate accounts (see affiliate marketing page).  You now simply copy and past the links on to your site pages.  If you are interested in earning substantial money by becoming an affliliate, you must get the Super Affliate ebook by Rosalind Gardner.  Find it at: The Home Based Web Biz Store (see below).
 
Google Adsense is another great way to monetize your site.  Sign up with Google Adsense and it will place topic appropriate ads on your site.  The Super Affiliate Handbook by Rosalind Gardner has step by step instructions for setting up Google Adsense.

If you are considering using your site in conjunction with an MLM opportunity, then a must go to is: http://2blondesandabusiness.com .  It is a free download - you can not afford to miss this. 

Here is a way to convert more visitors to customers and also drive more visitors to your site. You must set up an opt in form for visitors to subscribe to your newsletter (this complies with anti-spam policies.  Once they opt in, an automated response from your site will have they confirm).  A newsletter that is chock full of great content pertinent to your site's subject matter will create a loyal base of customers by providing them the information they want.  It will also give you repeat chances to sell them new products.  You can place affiliate links on your newsletter.  Hosting sites will provide the tools for you to create these automated responses and the sign up forms.  GoDaddy will charge you for this as an add on product (email express) whereas it is all inclusive with SiteSell.

You may also create a blog for customer feedback and interaction.  If you place entries on other content appropriate blogs, you can invite them to visit your blog as well.  This will intorduce more visitors to your site.

Writing articles for for ezines can be written for free or for a fee - but make sure to state your "credentials" by naming your web site.

Tweak Your Site

6. Always be researching and reviewing new products to add to your site and tools that can improve your web site. Explore the links here. If you want to purchase online business products go to The Home Based Web Biz Store (see below)  where you will see featured products that have been reviewed.  This is time saving for you. 

7. Finally, sign up for the Zero Gimmicks newsletter to regularly receive marketing tips and information about affiliate and network marketing opportunities.  

It takes time to build traffic to your site.  So do not worry.  Always be on the look out to see what else you can do.  Remember, one of the best ways to do this is to receive newletters and join the blog community.  May success be yours! 

Great Resources

If you buy the http://AGW.therenegadenetworkmarketer.com you will have the most comprehensive system at your fingertips.

For the 7 Day Free Dropshipping Trial  -  Doba 7 Day Trial

Check out the http://zero-gimmicks.com  blog where you can follow my own ongoing newbie homebased marketing experiences (the real thing).

The International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs is an excellent  organization providing members with information from a wide range of topics (see the banner link below).  Check out the following contributor: http://www.tubetorial.com/create-html-web-page/ - an entertaining and informative way to get a handle on learning HTML.

The Home Based Web Biz Store may be found at: http://www.homebasedwebbizstore.com
The Zero Gimmicks Store link below is a gateway to even more resources.

This site is all about creating great advertising copy, direct marketing and contains business building tips for those concerned with business growth: http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/cmd.php?af=638461

For a  WONDERFUL new resource for web site development go to: http://store.templatemonster.com/?aff=llolson

The self-confidence/self-motivation CD can be found at:  http://www.mymindmakeover.com


Some additional considerations: 
http://luvzfrogs.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net 
http://seotraffictools.com/clickthru.pl?id=llolson
http://www.nitromarketing.com/g.o/llolson
http://www.businessworldlist.com/membersindex.cgi?BTWOB
http://www.ezinfocenter.com/97882628/free
http://www.trafficswarm.com/go/cgi?701665

Check out the Lazy Man's Guide to OnLine Business at:
http://hopclickbank.net/?luvzfrogs/efbook