Starting an online business is an exciting and invigorating activity that can lead to great success and prosperity - just ask the founders of two year old online startup company, YouTube.com. It was recently sold to Google for $1.65 billion.

There's certainly no guarantee that your online business will raise to those levels, but the sheer thrill of creating and launching a project of your own is often well worth the effort - even if it never becomes an Amazon.com or eBay.com. Below are listed several steps to help you get started in launching your own online business - including considerations related to small business hosting.

1. Harvest an idea. To begin with, in order to start an online business, you must have a good concept, product, service, or good content. If you already operate a traditional business, logically, this would be a good place to begin. The web site may become an information showcase, as well as an e-commerce vehicle for your business. If you are unfamiliar with online businesses in general, it would be a good idea to spend some time learning about the nature of online businesses.

2. Develop a business plan. Even if you are looking at a very small company with one or two people, the benefits from using a business plan demonstrate the critical first step, and continuing process for any business. The small business administration has free templates to get started with, and there are numerous types of software that provide virtually every type of business scenario, to ensure that your business starts off with an adequate business model from which to grow.

3. Domain Names. Choosing a domain name, or "web presence," is a very important part of developing an Internet business, because it will contribute to how the search engines that consumers use to find businesses, recognize your business. It may not be best, however, to use the same name as your existing business exclusively; it may be beneficial to use two (or more) domain names - one with the actual business name, and one for finding the product. In any case, whatever name(s) you chose to use, must be checked for availability from a domain registration or web hosting company, such as www.dotster.com.

4. Legalities. It may be necessary to seek legal counsel, depending upon the type of business that will be launched online. Typical business situations to consider might involve incorporation, or another legal entity under which to operate. Another reason to consult with a lawyer, is concerning intellectual property issues, licenses and contracts and the liability implications of them. It is important that, before spending money on a domain name, building a web site and promoting a new business, that any legal issues are resolved beforehand.

5. Choosing a web host. One good method to find a suitable budget web host, is to refer to a web hosting resource, such as Web Site Host Directory, which presents a variety of high-quality web hosts to choose from, with links to web sites. See Selecting Budget Web Hosting Services for more information. If you are unfamiliar with designing web sites, it is also a good idea to utilize a product developed to do so, such as the ReadyWeb product at: ValueWeb's ReadyWeb. With over 200,00 business owner clients, ValueWeb's parent company, Affinity, has a strong reputation for assisting entrepreneurs to develop their web presence.

6. Marketing and Search Engines. In order to get the most out of an online business, maximizing traffic is a must. This means, that your goal should be to generate traffic that will increase your business. To start with, developing a short marketing and search engine plan, can assist in ensuring that advertising delivers targeted traffic to the web site.

7. Establish Customer Base. Every web site should include a visitor form, to gather email addresses, and perhaps physical addresses and phone numbers. Though only a small percentage of visitors will share information, those that do can be developed into future customers and repeat visitors. In order to make customer feel comfortable with leaving their information, a customer/user privacy statement should be listed. Another tactic to grow clientele, is to offer "tell-a-friend" incentives, such as discount coupons.

8. Finances. Accounting records should be analyzed, just as web site log reports or traffic, in order to determine if advertising and marketing is profitable.  The information can also be used as a tool to discover seasonal trends, a hiring schedule if needed, or inventory requirements.  Good accounting records are essential at tax time, as well as if there are plans to solicit investors or borrow money to finance future growth. If you are not familiar with accounting, it would be a good idea to consider hiring an accountant early on, so that business finances are set up properly, before tax time, and before any bad financial habit has a chance to develop.

Good luck in creating and launching your own small online business. Keep at it and you may find that someday your dream has taken wings!

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Published on: 2006-10-17 (12504 reads)