Internet Home Business Basics

Put Your Business Online

The good news is that there are some amazingly talented individuals who have taken the time to teach you some of the basics in an incredibly easy to use, easy to read format.

Before I introduce you to my friends, there are a few things about internet home business you should know.

Even though it's possible to open up a business with a free web page, there is no such thing as a free business opportunity or an instant business!

You can join an affiliate program for free and receive your own free duplicate website, BUT you will need to invest time, energy, and even yes, some money into promoting your internet home business! You'll need to bring visitors to your site which takes significant time, effort and investment. (More on this on our Internet Marketing page.)

There's no need to spend thousands of dollars getting started, but expect to make some smart initial investments in your internet home business. Remember, you don't need to 're-invent the wheel' when you start your internet home business.

A few intelligent tools will help you to focus on your business, and to get started right away, instead of having to undergo a long and expensive learning curve.

Now that this is out of the way, here are some of fastest ways get started.

What if, like me, you are not even sure how to operate your computer! Yikes! I could entertain you for hours with my stories of how long it took me to learn how to use my e-mail client (once I learned that this was not some strange form of new customer!) ... or how long it took me to learn to turn it off properly!!!

Thankfully you don't have to suffer the same indignities that I did.

Click here for a full list of free computer tutorials, online discussion boards and other resources available for you to learn about your computer.

Another hyped claim you hear from some internet home business opportunities that there is NO SELLING involved!

Well, you could try to do a business without selling anything, but you will not earn any money! Any business, including an internet home business will REQUIRE that you sell. The only variation to this is if you have an affiliate business, where you need to pre-sell instead.

Selling need not be associated with sleaze and hype, though you will find an abundance of these kind of techniques on the net. Ethical and honest sales methods are the most effective because they create satisfied repeat customers. Effective selling brings internet home business success.

The #1 best way I've found to learn about creating a website that sells is from Dr. Ken Evoy, whose best seller book Make Your Site Sell is written specifically for the internet home business. Make Your Site Sell tells you what sells on the web, how to position a product for web sales, how to create a website that effectively sells, and how to attract motivated visitors who are looking for what you have.

Make Your Site Sell is written specifically for internet home business, unlike some materials that are adaptations of offline marketing techniques.

Ken enjoys empowering people, and he prices products so that internet beginners can afford them! Most importantly, he focuses your attention on which strategies work, and steers you away from those that do not. MYSS is considered an internet marketing classic in it's field, and best of all, it's now absolutely free! Make Your Site Sell is over 1400 pages full of proven advice and strategies, resources and incredibly helpful, up to date tips. It is a $40 value, and many comparable internet marketing materials charge hundreds or thousands of dollars. It is the one resource I couldn't live without. I think every new internet home busness owner needs this. It will save you years of effort and thousands of dollars in mistakes.

Is there such a thing as an "instant" internet home business? Yes and no! There are legitimate opportunities available that provide a free or low cost turnkey business where all you need to do is market, either through internet marketing or eNetwork Marketing (network marketing online).

If you find a legitimate company with excellent products, and if you invest your time and money in some good advertising and promotion, you can do well this way. It takes time, like any business, but it's a great way for beginners to get started.

Remember though that you will still need to market your business, no matter how effective your website is at selling your products. This time, energy, money, and persistence. No one is going to build your business for you! Even in network marketing, where you are paid a portion of your downline's sales, you cannot depend on this ... you must work hard yourself to accomplish you goals.

Every internet home business needs a website. One significant exception is the internet auction business which doesn't require one since you use an already existing auction site.

For a detailed description of the advantages of an internet auction business, visit Make Your Net Auction Sell which is so compelling ... and so TRUE that you wonder why everyone isn't selling on ebay! :-)

For all other businesses, your website is like your business storefront or office. You'll want to make sure it's as professional as possible. There are three basic requirements to having a website:

• An internet address, which is called a domain name or URL. For example, mine is www.homebizwomen.com.
• The actual web site which itself requires some kind of web page building software or a professional web designer.
• A website host, which is a service that holds your pages up on the web and connects them to your URL.

All of these services can be gotten for free on the web, however, I don't recommend using free websites for a business. Why?

• First you do not appear credible as a business if you can't even afford to pay for your own web hosting!
• Secondly, you don't have your own unique web address, so your internet address is harder for potential customers to remember.
• Third, most free website services finance their 'freebies' with advertising, so your site will have someone elses ad at the top! Why would you want to encourage people to click off your internet home business site ?
• Fourth, the search engines who do not rank free websites as highly on the search engines.

So how to you get a professionally designed business website?

You can either hire a professional web designer, or "do it yourself".

The benefits of using a web designer are that you have someone else do all the technical stuff, and you tell her what you want and she will create it for you!

One of our friends Verlie Wynne is a web designer who has written a very helpful article for us on Domain Names and Web Hosting which will give you an idea of how helpful it is to have someone who knows all the details for you.

The limitations of using a designer are that good service usually costs good money, which you may not have an abundance of when first starting out.

Another limitation of using a designer is that you need to work with someone else, and if you're a "do everything" kind of person it may be hard to relinquish creative control of your project to someone else.

If you and the designer have difficulty communicating or if it takes a while for you and she to find the right look for your site, it could end up costing you more.

What if you're like me, you want to do it yourself but you don't know anything about how to create a website?

There are several benefits of doing it yourself, namely that you get to enjoy the creative process and you don't need to depend on someone else to create your site for you.

I originally was not planning to create my own website, as I was very new ro the net and not very good with design ... but when I discovered a tool that would not only build and host my site but that would ensure that I get a lot of traffic ...

And that it did all the complicated stuff FOR me like regular search engine submission and so on ... plus giving me site statistics and organizing all my advertising...

Well gosh I was hooked and now my websites pay me, thanks to this nifty creme de la creme of internet home business tools. This one of my favorite, indispensable "can't live without" business investments, which I recommend for anyone who wants to put a business online. It took me from being a beginner to a webmaster, and instructed me every step of the way. It even taught me what I consider to be the MOST important internet home business lessons of my career. Read my article "How To Build A Website That Ranks Highly With the Search Engines" to see how much I learned.

For more high quality internet home business goodies, please visit our Free Home Business Resources page.