How To Write A Business Plan For An Online Business
Starting Out As A New Online Business What Is Required
With the business landscape continuing to change quickly almost on a daily basis it brings plenty of opportunities for online entrepreneurs.
Considering the tools and cost-benefit involved in building and marketing an online business have become easier, cheaper, and faster than before this would be the time to think about starting an online business.
With technology, a huge part of our lives now continuing to grow on a daily basis you need to make your business idea, model, and plan stand out to succeed in the long run.
Today people have shifted how they relate to their technology, people are no longer looking at their computer as a computer screen or their smartphone as just their phone.
Instead, they are using these as a gateway to how they now live their life. Everything we have a question about the first place we turn is the search engines for an answer to what we want to know.
It can be as simple as the best place to eat dinner or what kind of toothpaste is recommended by most dentists. This means there are now more opportunities available for online entrepreneurs and internet marketers.
People today are willing to attach themselves to new products and services providing you with loyal consumers if you can find a way to capitalize on their enthusiasm.
Bringing in a new customer for good building yourself a brand around a product or service you can turn that customer into a brand advocate helping to spread the word to others.
When planning for an online business it is all about your understanding of the target market helping people find solutions to a problem they are searching for. Also, you must be willing to adapt and change with the times.
Deciding What Online Business to Build
The first thing that you are going to need is a business idea because there are 4 Billion people online today and growing at a fast pace it can be one of a million things.
I would like to discuss today my own business model which is “affiliate marketing”. Why? With affiliate marketing, you do not need a product or service of your own. It involves promoting other people’s or companies products and services.
Building a website around these products and services from other companies as people purchase from your website you are paid commissions for them. Meaning a passive income stream for years to come especially on the service end.
How hard is it to create a business website for affiliate marketing? In reality, this can be done in a matter of minutes getting everything set up and ready for the content you will be placed on it for the products and services you are promoting.
When it comes to the risk of operating a business online of this type financially it is highly minimal. But what if you do not know how or what to do?
That is why I created this particular website in order to help you find the right way of getting started in an online business. Writing a business plan is not a real requirement until you have the first website up and running successfully.
I will be leading you to the training that is necessary to gain all the skills you will need to become successful. With the training, you will be getting free websites, hosting, and other benefits to getting you started.
What you need to remember is an online business is no different from building an actual brick and mortar business. It will take time, work, trial and error, patience, dedication, and commitment.
Online entrepreneurs must focus on the innovation part of planning first, getting that idea up and running, being observant and open to changes as needed.
The content of the business plan will change based upon your specific business situation. You must be flexible in producing content in a consistent manner to reach the final destination of success.
Your first website may not be a home run and it does not have to be, you need to be willing to look at it as a learning experience. Never let failure stop you and never give up keep going even if you must change directions a couple of times.
Think about all the successful people in the world if they had quit after failing the first time they attempted something, would they be where they are today?
Creating Your Business Plan
Above shows you the four main steps to building an online business. This can apply to any business model you can think of, I am using affiliate marketing as my example here in this article.
Step 1: Choose an interest. In other words, find a need and fill it. Most people who are just starting out make the mistake of looking for a product first, and a market second.
To boost your chances of success, start with a market. The trick is to find a group of people who are searching for a solution to a problem, but you can only find a few results.
The internet makes this kind of market research easy. Visit online forums to see what questions people ask and what problems they are trying to solve.
Do keyword research to find keywords that a lot of people are searching, but for which, not many sites are competing. Check out your potential competitors by visiting their sites and taking note of what they are doing to fill the demand.
Then you can use what you have learned to create or promote a product or service for a market that already exists — and do it better than the competition.
Step 2: Design and Build Your Website. With the training I will be recommending for you this is a simple step in building your online business.
They will be providing you with 2 Free Websites on the siterubix.com subdomain with free hosting for both of these websites. WordPress Website Builder is included along with your choice of 12 Free Themes that are able to be customized to your liking.
You will need no prior experience or technical knowledge concerning building or designing a website. Video step by step instructions are available for you to follow along with the whole way through to completion.
There is also a community available to help you with any questions you might have or should you get stuck during any part of building your website or during the training.
Remember to keep it simple. You have fewer than five seconds to grab someone’s attention — otherwise, they’re gone, never to be seen again. Some important tips to keep in mind:
- Choose one or two plain fonts on a white background.
- Make your navigation clear and simple, and the same on every page.
- Only use graphics, audio or video if they enhance your message.
- Include an opt-in offer so you can collect e-mail addresses.
- Make it easy to buy — no more than two clicks between potential customer and checkout.
- Your website is your online storefront, so make it customer-friendly.
I am adding the following additional step that is not included in the diagram above. Why? It is what you are going to be doing to build out your website until the major search engines recognize you as a serious website business owner.
Step 3/1: Write keyword rich high-quality content. There’s a proven sales formula that takes visitors through the selling process from the moment they arrive until the moment they make a purchase.
Arouse interest with compelling headlines. Describe the problem that the product or service solves. Establish your authority and credibility as a solver of this problem.
Talk about the product and how it benefits the user. Throughout your content focus on how the product or service is uniquely able to solve people’s problems or make their lives better. Think like you are the customer and ask “What’s in it for me?”
Step 3/2: Attract/Drive Visitors/Traffic to Your Website. Preferable starting out as a new online business the best and recommended way of attracting visitors to your website is through organic (free) methods.
In order to drive the organic (free) traffic to your website, you must use the proper keywords in your content when creating it for your website. To do this a keyword research tool is vital for success.
Again, the training I am recommending for you will teach you how to do proper keyword research for any interest you have chosen for your online business.
Pay-per-click advertising is another way to get traffic to a brand-new site. It has two advantages over waiting for the organic (free) traffic to come to you.
PPC ads show up on the search pages immediately, and second, PPC ads allow you to test different keywords, as well as headlines, prices and selling approaches.
You need to learn many new skills when it comes to PPC ads it is not recommended for the beginner into the online world. It can cost you quite a bit financially if you do not know what you are doing.
Social Media is a great way to reach new readers for your website. People are using the internet to find information by you share the information on your social media accounts it enables others to share with even more potential visitors.
Sharing your content to any directories, forums, social media sites, and networking sites where your target market hangs out always including a link back to your site brings in even more organic (free) traffic.
Step 4: Earn Revenue. Monetizing a business website with products and services is probably the simplest of all the tasks required for building your online business.
Having products or services of your own that you will be promoting on your website? Then you must take into consideration things that do not occur with affiliate marketing.
- Inventory – keeping the inventory in stock for supply and demand.
- Shipping – the cost of shipping the products out.
- Service – service of products in the event of repairs being needed.
- Returns – how to handle returns from customers and the Refunds.
- Insurance on Shipments – damages during shipping cost of insurance.
- Taxes – collecting taxes on sales and submitting to proper authorities.
These are just the ones off the top of my head for selling your own products and services. That is the main reason I prefer affiliate marketing. The companies that I promote products and services for, take care of all those and more.
When a visitor comes to my website the only thing I need to be concerned about is them purchasing from the link I have provided for them.
Every time they do I earn a commission from the content that I have created to solve the problem they needed help to solve. Passive Income from work that I only need to do once then update as needed. Easy way to make a living today.
Beginners above are the basics for starting and running your online business. As time goes on and you develop your skills then you are going to get into more complicated procedures for your online business.
Expanding Your Online Business
This is going to depend on where you want to take your online business. In the beginning, the most important thing is to concentrate all your energy into one website until it starts producing results.
Due to the major search engines not knowing who you are as a website owner they will be waiting for you to consistently keep adding high-quality content to your website.
As your website matures you will start to see your articles begin to rank for the keywords you have used to write your content about. Ideally, it would be great if you could land in the first spot on the first page for every article but that is unrealistic.
Getting just one of your articles to this rank on the major search engines is quite an accomplishment for beginners in the first six months to a year.
The longer time goes on and the more content you continue to add the more authority your website gains with the search engines. More traffic to your website will also increase your rank in the search engines.
Eventually, you will start capturing an email address to build your email list. Never purchase an email list is not economically effective you want your own. The money is in the list as they have always said having your own is vital to growth for your business.
Everything I am telling you about right now is covered in the training so holding you back from getting started right away was necessary so you do not think of this as a get-rich-quick scam.
In Conclusion
With the internet changing so fast one year online equals about five years in the real world brick and mortar business. But the principles of how to start and grow an online business have not changed at all.
For you to start your own business online with no prior experience then all you need to do is click the box below “Create Your Free Account Now” No Credit Card Required and you are never under any obligation to upgrade.
Hearing from my readers in the form of comments, suggestions, or if they have any questions is great please leave them in the space provided below. I answer these usually within 24 hours.
Thank you for taking the time to read “How to Write a Business Plan for an Online Business”. Here is to your success with your online business.
Best wishes,
Susan