Eager to start an online business or start a new blog but don’t know where to start? With advancements in technology including great online tools and lower costs it has never been easier to get your business online and start making money online.

Whether you’re looking to earn extra income or completely replace your income with an online business you can quickly and easily put your ideas into action build a web presence and start driving traffic to your website and generating it in no time. Sale.

With that said let’s take a look at 10 simple steps you can take to get a successful online business up and running quickly and easily.

1. Know Your Market

One of the biggest keys to successful online business is knowing the market you are in (or want to enter).

What are their greatest desires and needs? Where do they go online and how do you contact them? What are the right words and emotional hotkeys you want to use them to solve?

The more you know about your market the more successful you can be at communicating the right message to them and offering them the right products and services. You don’t have to be an expert in your market you can learn as you go: but it’s better to have some knowledge about the market The market you want to enter as a base. If not you should have a keen interest in learning more about the market you will be entering.

If you are new to the market or willing to learn about it (but know it is profitable) another option is to work with or collaborate with familiar subject matter experts. You can start a business with them or simply pay for their content expertise.

Either way instead of trying to reinvent the wheel you’ll start with a niche that has proven to be lucrative. If the market is already competitive that’s a good sign that profit potential exists. Although most people avoid A competitive market Seasoned marketers know that a competitive market is where the money is.

Don’t try to reinvent the wheel just go where the money already exists.

2. Register Your Domain Name

So you’ve decided which market niche you want to enter. The first step after that is to register a domain name for your new online business.

Your domain name is your unique address on the Internet. It is your intellectual property just like a patent or trademark. There are many domain registrars (companies that register domain names) online where you can buy your domain name.

Some registrars even offer free domains with hosting packages or other purchases. One such company is Bluehost Web Hosting which offers a free domain name with the purchase of a hosting account. HostGator SiteGround and LiquidWeb are also popular choices.

While many of them are legitimate be sure to confirm that the domain is registered in your name. If the domain name is registered in the name of the registrar it can be difficult to switch to another hosting company without losing the domain name. This is why I usually recommend you Buy your domain name with one company and buy your hosting account with another company.

Also if you outsource your website to another company you need to make sure that you actually purchased the domain name and that it is registered in your name and not owned by the company you outsourced. I’ve seen horror stories of people being held hostage by them Webmasters who actually have a business owner domain name are no good!

Two very popular domain registrars are GoDaddy.com and NameCheap.com

Here are some other options for registering a domain name.

When registering a domain name there are two common methods.

If you prefer personal branding then you can simply use your name or some variation of your name (if already used). For example if your name is John Doe you can sign up for JohnDoe.com If JohnDoe.com is already taken then you can use something like If you happen to be a life coach visit JohnDoeLifeCoach.com

Another common method is to register a domain name that describes the product or service you offer in the marketplace. A good example is FreeCreditReport.com The exact meaning of the site is evident from the name itself.

Their key is that your domain name should be easy to say say and remember.

Also try to avoid cute and creative names that don’t really explain to the market what your value proposition is.

See also: How to buy a domain name without getting ripped off

3. Find a Web Host

A web host is a company that essentially rents your space on their servers to host your website. These companies usually offer domain name registration and it’s often easier to register with the same company – although many people will buy their domain name with a company and host it other.

Basically your web host is where you upload web images videos etc.

Web host features such as storage capacity percent uptime domain-based email and server security should be important considerations when evaluating a web host. Additionally the ability to host a blog provide responsive forms marketing tools and e-commerce tools are important criteria to consider. When choosing your web host.

Additionally you’ll want to make sure your web host offers WordPress compatibility (the most popular website CMS software) and keep your website secure (technically an SSL certificate).

Another and probably the most important key to consider is easily accessible 24/7 customer support.

Some popular web hosts include:

  • Bluehost
  • GoDaddy
  • NameCheap
  • HostGator
  • iPage
  • SiteGround

In general most web hosts offer the same service features and benefits; and all generally cost about the same. While I’m a big believer in supporting local businesses in this area you’d be better off choosing a big company that can provide 24/7 support problem event. Do not recommend any husband and wife hosting company!

4. Designing Your Website

It’s not as difficult as it sounds. You have two website creation options:

  • Create the site yourself
  • Hire a designer to create it for you

There are at least three options for creating your own website.

  • Many hosting companies offer free website building tools.
  • WordPress is a popular free blogging platform – for websites and independent blogs. This is a very simple installation and many hosting companies have WordPress-only installation tools. You don’t need years of study and thick manuals to use this software. literally thousands You can find WordPress templates to further customize your website.
  • Another option is to use a high-end program like Adobe’s Dreamweaver (visit Adobe’s website) which does everything you need but has a very steep learning curve. One of Dreamweaver’s training manuals is an overwhelming 1000 pages thick.

Hiring a professional designer may be an easier option. It doesn’t have to be expensive. There are several sites where you can find freelancers including CraigsList.com UpWork.com and Fiverr.com You might even consider hiring a local high school or college student at a bargain price. In addition to the visual design work you also need to put a lot of thought into your website content.

Just as importantly if you outsource website design you actually buy and own a domain name and hosting account; a web designer is just designing your website.

If you’re not technically good or don’t have the time or patience to learn how to build your website then you’re better off outsourcing it to a professional so you can focus on the important things like product creation marketing and promotions and other higher value activities.

The point is that you absolutely want to prevent any technology that gets in the way of you starting and running your business. You are in the business of online marketing and sales not a professional coder.

5. Accept Online Payments

Gone are the days of printing and faxing orders or mailing checks. It is critical that you be able to accept payments and process transactions directly on your website. This allows customers to act as they wish and get instant gratification.

The two most popular options for accepting online payments include:

  • PayPal.com
  • Stripe.com (see this article comparing PayPal vs Stripe)

Once you become more advanced and decide to create more advanced sales funnel upsells and other shopping cart experiences you might consider upgrading to shopping cart software such as:

  • 1ShoppingCart.com
  • Infusionsoft.com
  • Samcart.com

Be sure to check the required features and their terms. Minimum monthly fees affect startups. It’s best to choose a capable service provider that allows for growth so you can start with basic service and low cost and upgrade as the volume increases.

Most people start with a less feature-rich and lower-cost solution; then upgrade to a more robust shopping cart solution as the business grows.

Unless you’re an e-commerce store with hundreds or thousands of products you’ll probably avoid a more complex shopping cart solution and use it as a simple payment processor for online payments (like PayPal).

Many people will start by accepting payments online using methods like PayPal and then as their business grows they will add a more feature-rich shopping cart/checkout system.

6. Determine Product Delivery Methods

Depending on your product type your delivery method can range from very simple (downloadable informational products or online services) to more complex (using a fulfillment company to ship the goods through a courier company). For downloadable products consider an e-fulfillment company like E-junkie.com or Clickbank.com

If you haven’t already you should seriously consider promoting digital information products as an affiliate.

If you’re dealing with a physical product business you might want to consider an online dropshipping business model so you’re not actually dealing with any inventory.

7. Get Traffic to Your Website

Even cutting edge designs and amazing new products will be worthless if buried by millions of other sites. In order to generate online sales you have to drive a lot of website traffic. Consider the following basic ways to promote your new website:

  • Register with the three major search engines (Google Bing and Yahoo)
  • List your blog in major blog directories
  • Content Marketing Video Marketing and Podcasting
  • Online Advertising: Google PPC Twitter Ads and Facebook Ads
  • Direct mailing (print, not email)
  • Offline marketing (billboard company vehicle fixed print advertising promotional products)

While there are various ways to drive traffic to your website you don’t want to be overwhelmed by all the options. Start by focusing on just a few ways to maximize these traffic sources then keep adding more ways to drive a lot of traffic to your site.

If you’re already in this market you really should know where your market congregates what websites they visit what magazines they read etc. If not then you will need to spend a lot of time doing market research to understand exactly which platforms you should advertise on exist.

If you have a limited budget start with free methods to drive traffic to your website. Once you start generating profits you will want to reinvest in paid methods of increasing traffic (such as pay-per-click advertising) as paid methods are generally faster and more scalable than free methods.

8. Publish an Email Newsletter

Capturing the email addresses of website visitors is critical to the growth of every online business. However a large and growing list is only valuable if useful relevant information is regularly sent to these people. The goal of an email list is to turn prospects into Customers and clients become repeat customers and ambassadors of your company/product.

Try to keep in regular contact with your email list emailing them at least weekly with updates or some type of offer.

A great email marketing service provider is AWeber.com

The best way to get people to subscribe to your listing is to offer some kind of valuable free offer. This can be a free report white paper or a discount/coupon code. These types of offers are more effective than a simple “subscribe to our newsletter” offer.

Implementing an email marketing strategy in your business is absolutely critical as email marketing remains the highest ROI activity you can use to market and sell products online.

9. Track Growth

Provides simple (and free) tools that allow you to see who is clicking where and when. Many web hosting companies offer traffic analysis tools.

Google Analytics is a free tool – it tracks:

  • Popular pages
  • Traffic sources
  • Popular keywords
  • Location of clicks

These reports can be customized with a number of variables including date range page views and time on site.

Another thing you might want to consider tracking is how many people are opening your emails and clicking links back to your website.

While visitor traffic provides an interesting measure what you’re really looking for is transactions. Whether you’re selling a product or a service success is measured in sales.

Tracking and analyzing these key metrics on your website is absolutely critical; otherwise how will you know what’s working and what’s not and what you need to do to increase conversions?

10. Other Business Considerations

In addition to specific online considerations you also need to consider:

  • Taxation
  • Banking
  • Licensing and trademarks
  • Legal business structure
  • Business location
  • Product warehousing
  • Accounting
  • Legal matters, among other things

Note that these items are listed last. While important you don’t want to let these things hold you back. The idea is to choose your market get a domain name build your website and start generating revenue ASAP and work out the details along the way!