How To Set Up An Online Business?
Do you want to…
- Work flexible hours from anywhere (with an internet connection),
- Have an automated way of making money, and
- Work once and get paid over and over again for years to come?
If YES, you are in the right place!
InMyHomeOffice.com gives you the step-by-step strategies and help you need to set up an online business.
But first, why would you set up an online business?
Why An Online Business?
I don’t know your reasons for wanting to set up an online business… The usual reasons are to have a 2nd income, a need to be self-employed and escape a job, to promote an existing business online, or it could be something different.
My reason was because I realized that as a self-employed electrician my income was capped by the amount of hours I could work. I tried employing other electricians to leverage my income, but that was a disaster as I turned into a manager of people, and actually made less money.
I wanted to create an information product that would sell worldwide and deliver automatically 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. In 23 months I made $359, 515.79 from what started with a simple model train ebook for beginners. The full story is here.
What do You Need?
You don’t need much technical knowledge to build an online business, but you will need determination and persistence. Building a profitable online business does not happen overnight and requires hard work.
Just like your local supermarket has items strategically placed to maximize sales, your website needs to be tweaked and tested to maximize conversions.
The easy part of your online business is building your website. From my experience, I have found the best solution is to use a content management system called WordPress.
WordPress is free and gives you a blog environment with hundreds of plugins. These WordPress plugins will provide the exact functionality and customization you require for your online business.
Where Do You Start?
The first step to owning your own profitable online business is to read this free report.
In the report, Terry explains the “Internet Lifestyle” in great detail…
- Work WHEN you want
- Work WHERE you want
- Work HOW you want
- Work with WHOM you want
It’s important to understand the “Internet Lifestyle” you are about to create… Get the report here…
Planning Your Online Business
Planning your online business, like any business, is the most important part. It can be very tempting to skip the planning process, because of the low startup cost, but there are still risks.
For less than $100 you could have a live website up and running by the end of the day. But, start that online business in the wrong niche, and you could be wasting a huge amount of your time for very little reward.
Planning well could mean the difference between a $5,000 a year business and a $250,000 a year business, which both take the same amount of time and effort. I think I know which one you would prefer.
You should start by considering your own buying habits online and offline. This will give you many clues of how to, and how not to, plan your own online business.
If you have bought a car in the last few years… Think about the research you did, before you bought that car.
Did you research cars online? Which websites did you trust and which didn’t you trust? Did you buy a car based on your online research, or based on the car salesman’s recommendation? What brand and model did you settle on and why? Did you buy online or offline, and why?
Then, think about the last time you had a problem that needed solving… You had a toothache, a sore elbow, allergies, or something different like your hot water system started leaking!
Did you go online to find a solution? Did you trust the advice and why? Did you buy an information product to help solve the problem…
The answers to all of these questions are why some online businesses are successful and others are not.
You don’t want to be in a niche that people go online to get information, and then buy from their local store. You could make some money from advertising on the website, but that income is very hard to scale.
I started my model train site because I overheard beginners asking the same questions over and over again at the Perth model train show… “Which scale do I choose?” “Which brand is best?” “How do I operate more than 1 train?” “How do you make the trains look aged?”
There was a definite need for a downloadable guide for beginners to model trains…
Then I saw all the model train magazines for sale in the newsagents, which is a positive sign that the market will accept subscriptions. But, best of all, were the complaints in the model train forums about the information in the magazines being too advanced. A beginners guide was desperately needed.
When there is desperation in the marketplace like that, there is a high probability of success.
I created the ebook which sold very well, and I also created an online membership for model train beginners at $27 per month. Thousands of members joined the online membership for $27 per month even though they could buy a glossy magazine every month for less than $8.
This is an example of how I identified a desperate need and then provided a solution.
I must also add that I have not owned a model train set since I was about 12 years old. I was also not passionate about model trains at the time of owning the business, but I was passionate about providing a solution and marketing that solution. This proves that you do not need to be passionate about the subject. There are thousands of experts in every niche that will happily give you the information you need for your website or product (mostly for free). I used to give them all credit, which also sent more visitors to their YouTube channels and sold more of their books on Amazon.
If you need help with planning your online business, then you should consider joining us in the Monthly Mentor Club so we can help you.
Building Your Website
A website is made up of different html pages which could contain text, images, video, audio or various scripts. These pages need to be hosted on a server.
The easiest way to host your website, is to pay for shared hosting space on a server managed by hosting professionals. An example of this is Hostgator who provide shared hosting for less than $4 a month.
As you go through the hosting order system you will be required to pick your domain name. A domain name is the inmyhomeoffice.com part of my url https://inmyhomeoffice.com/
Once you have hosting and a domain, the next step is to create your content management system.
A content management system (CMS) like WordPress allows you to create and edit a website without coding it by hand. Once installed, you can easily add content and adjust the look and feel of the website through a browser based user interface (dashboard).
WordPress is quick and easy to set up using fantastico in your cpanel.
WordPress is reliable and continually updated with thousands of plugins (usually free) which add a huge amount of extra functionality to your website.
To adjust the look and feel of your website there are free and premium themes available. Our favorite is OptimizePress because of the extra squeeze, sales, membership and blog functionality. Watch this video for a demonstration.
Once you have your website built with WordPress, you can then easily add your content which can be in the form of text, images, video, audio, or a combination.
The next step is monetizing your website…
Selling Online
There are many ways to monetize your website…
Monetizing your website (or blog) means putting ads, products or services on your website that could earn you money.
Some monetization methods are easier to implement than others. However, easier implementation usually results in lower rewards… So, it is important to test them all…
Monetization could be as simple as using Google Adsense ads or selling advertising on your website (high conversion rate with low returns), to more complex monetization like selling affiliate products, or creating and selling your own products (lower conversion rates with higher returns).
A quick way to monetize your website is with Google Adsense. The Google Adsense program is a free and simple way to earn money, by displaying targeted Google ads on your website. You get paid when your visitor clicks the ad.
The amounts you get paid depend on the amount the original advertiser has paid per click. Google shares this revenue with you.
Another way to monetize your website is with affiliate products. Affiliate products are other peoples products and they pay you a commission if you refer the sale.
This is done by using an affiliate link on your website. This link tells the product owner that the visitor was referred by you.
Digital products usually pay 50% to 100% commission, while Amazon pays 4% to 8.5%.
The most profitable way to monetize your website is by selling your own products.
Having your own product, or portfolio of products, means you make 100% of the profit and you can recruit affiliates to sell for you (this is huge).
It also means you are in complete control of the sales process and can test different things…
A great example is my model train ebook. Each person was spending $27 to buy the ebook, and then I would have to find another person to sell the next ebook to. That’s hard work…
So, I added on a membership site (which is very simple to do by the way… AND it was started with OTHER people’s YouTube videos)… But, I went from earning $27 one time, to $27 per month.
I turned my business into a recurring (passive) income machine for a small amount of work.
Some members stayed for more than 12 months, but the average stay was 4 months. I had improved my income from $27 per person to an average of $108.00 per person.
Marketing Your Website
The proper planning and research will ensure your chances of success (with an online business) are very high.
You can build the best looking and converting website to further improve your chances of success.
BUT, if you don’t promote your website consistently and effectively to the people who are interested in your product or service… IT WILL FAIL!
There are thousands of amazing websites and high quality products on the internet which have failed, because the owners did not know how to get their products and services in front of the people that needed or wanted them.
My research highlighted that people new to model trains needed a basic step by step guide that could be bought and downloaded at the spur of the moment.
The same information in my ebook was available from numerous high quality physical books on Amazon, but it would take a day or 2 (or weeks if you are in Australia, like me) to get to them. My ebook could be bought and delivered within 2 minutes…
My ebook was $27 (get it within minutes), the physical books are $10 to $15 (get it in a few days)… The convenience of getting it there and then gave me an advantage and justified the higher cost to the buyer.
My research showed that most model train beginners would pay the $27 rather than have to browse 20 or 30 websites to get the same information for free.
My research also showed that the market demographic was men over 65 with very little computer experience…
My research all pointed to a success and I had built a website to capitalize on that. But, if none of those model train beginners had seen my offer, I would have made no sales.
So, how did I get my product in front of these potential buyers?
I Googled what I thought they would search for – model train help, model train set, how to build model trains, what scale model trains, etc…
And for every search, I made a list of the advertisers on the Google search page and a list of the top 10 websites. I noticed there were a few websites that appeared over and over again for each search and that the majority of them had Google Adsense ads.
So, the quickest and easiest way for me was to create a Google Adwords campaign. My ad started appearing across all those websites with Google Adsense ads and in the Google searches.
I had found a quick way to get my product in front of the people that needed it… However, that was short lived because over time the bid price increased and it became too expensive.
So then I focused on recruiting affiliates to sell for me.
I went back to the same websites I had found with my Google searches and offered 70% commission for recommending my product.
I gave them the product for free so they could see what they were selling, and in many cases I installed my banners (with their affiliate link) on their websites.
It was a lot of work, but at one stage I had over 400 affiliates selling the product, which provided a huge amount of leverage.
I worked very closely with the affiliates and constantly tested and tweaked the sales page and process to maximize conversions. This was hugely successful.
There are hundreds of different ways to get your product or service in front of the people that need it, but often I have found that choosing 2 or 3, and focusing on those will bring very good results.
If you need help with marketing, promoting or getting traffic to your website, you should consider joining us in the Monthly Mentor Club so we can help you.
A Few Last Tips
Tip #1 – Don’t sit at the computer for more than an hour at a time… It’s unhealthy and most people can’t focus effectively for more than an hour. Work for an hour and then go for a walk, or do something completely different for 10 or 15 minutes. You will be surprised how many good ideas will come to you in those leisure times.
Tip #2 – Always question why you are doing what you are doing… It can be easy to get into a rut and do the same thing for a small result. Question the task you are doing, is it really necessary? And schedule 20 minutes a week when you sit down and think about your strategy, think about what tasks need to be completed in the next week, think about your goals and needs.
And Finally…
It’s exciting and achievable for almost anyone to have a profitable online business which can provide a radically different lifestyle to what you have now… But, I have seen too many people start and then spend hours, days, weeks and years pounding at the keyboard for very little return. PLEASE don’t be one of those people.
If you have the right strategy, do the right planning, build a high conversion website and promote your website, you are guaranteed to have a very successful online business in the next 12 to 24 months.
It takes hard work and there will be plenty of frustration… But, in 12 months time you could be incredibly successful.
Success is now in the palm of your hand and it’s up to you.
If you want to start with the right strategy then I highly recommend Terry Dean’s Monthly Mentor Club. It will be the ONLY training you will ever need… PLEASE don’t make the mistake of buying training product after training product, because you will just go around in circles and accomplish nothing… I guarantee it!
If you need someone to coach you, hold you accountable, make sure you do what you say you are going to do, help you track and improve your results… then have a look at my coaching offers here.
Please leave your questions, comments and feedback below… Or alternatively you can contact us here. Your feedback is always appreciated!
