Eager to start your online business, but not sure where to start? Want to know how to start an online business for free due to limited money?
Well, there are many options with which you can start a thriving and scalable internet business. And a great idea is a dropshipping business, which allows you to start your e-commerce without investing thousands of dollars in inventory in advance. With dropshipping, in other words, anyone can get into an online business!
For more details, there is a proven sequence of 6 steps that you can follow to provide some guidance when you are looking at how to start an online business.
Step 1: Build a professional website or blog
To make money through an online business, whatever product or service you want to sell, you need to create a professional site, something that gives your customers confidence. If you are looking for how to start an online business in California or wherever you are, it is best to use this WordPress platform.
This is a fully functional platform for you to use as a blog or website. WordPress allows you to easily create and modify the appearance of your site without having virtually no technical experience.
How do I build a professional blog?
Using WordPress, the investment you must make is minimal. The annual cost is a little higher than 100 dollars. It is practically the only mandatory investment to start selling products in a virtual store.
There are social networks where you can start creating your virtual store for free through these platforms, such as Instagram, although it can also be an extension of your own website.
Always remember to create a site that you would like to visit yourself.
Step 2: Find products to sell
This means that you will register with affiliate networks, and you will promote/sell products that other people or companies have created on your website. It is a proven method that knowing how to use it can produce good profits for your business.
How do I find products to sell?
Register for free in affiliate networks such as ClickBank, Commission Junction, Amazon, and others to find products. Also, you can add products to your store by cooperating with some great suppliers, such as SaleYee, a professional cross-border E-commerce dropshipping platform. If you have no idea what to sell, SaleYee dropshipping platform is there to offer top-selling product recommendations based on big data analysis. What’s more, customized product service is also available for those who want to be more competitive among similar dropshipping sellers. All you need to do is to add the products to your own store and focus more on driving traffic!
Important note: if you are someone who already has a business outside the internet, you want to expand and promote it online, follow the same steps, but skip steps 2 and 3 because obviously in your business, you already have your products.
Step 3: Legally regulate your business
You cannot legally sell products unless you do it as a freelancer or as a company. In addition, in most cases, it is advisable to create a Limited Liability Company (LLC), especially for civil liability.
Creating a limited company is a process that, although we can carry out ourselves, we are likely to decide to leave it to a company.
Make sure you have all the papers in order, take out insurance and comply with all the laws in force before starting your adventure; A fine or financial penalty for not acting correctly could make your company and your project disappear.
Step 4: Choose a niche
Find a need and fill it by choosing one from the variety of products offered by any of the affiliate networks mentioned in step 2.
To increase your chances of success, start with a specific market. The trick is to locate a group of people who are actively looking for a solution to a problem that they have not been able to solve. The Web helps you make this market research easier.
How do I choose a niche?
• Do keyword research to discover the terms that many people are looking for, but for which there is not much competition. This can be done through the Google Keyword planner.
• Use Google Trends.
Learn more: 8 Best Dropshipping Niches in 2020
Step 5: Learn to master SEO and write useful content about your niche
Mastering SEO (Search Engine Optimization) means knowing how to get a web page to have a good position for certain "search terms" in search engines such as Google. When a web page occupies a good position, it gets more relevant traffic; therefore, it can generate more revenue.
You should also write really striking content. Through your page, you need to give information about the product or service and say how you are going to solve the problem of people or make their lives better.
You must publish unique, useful, and compelling content. Deliver what you promise, don't drive readers to irrelevant pages.
You can use search engines to direct buyers to your site. For this, you have two options. Free organic traffic that takes a while to get and the pay-per-click advertising traffic, this is the fastest and easiest way to get traffic to a new site (you must pay).
What is organic traffic?
Organic traffic is the free traffic that you send to your website from search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo; because they like the content of your site.
Although it takes time to get traffic, the advantage of organic search marketing is that organic listings give more confidence than paid ads. Most Internet users are smart enough to realize that Google has something to say in what appears in their searches.
Step 6: Incorporate other ways of monetization
When you have mastered the sale of products online, you must include other forms of monetization to earn more money, such as putting AdSense advertising, ads on social media.
AdSense is the Google advertising network that places the sponsored ads that are seen on many websites. Google automatically checks the Web page on which it places its advertising and displays the ads that are relevant and highly targeted for the page.
If everything has been done well, this produces greater profitability for the advertiser, the advertising network (Google), and the publisher (you).
The importance of a good website
About how to start an online retail business, we mentioned earlier that you should create a quality website. People want to hire a service or buy a product online, the first thing they do is search on search engines like Google to find solutions and options to buy.
Having a good website allows your potential consumers to find you and know everything you offer.
When a product has beautiful packaging, it is much easier to sell. The website is the packaging of your Internet business (online course, e-book, blog, etc.). Then, pay attention and put effort into creating a quality site. If you want to start a dropshipping business, check out the 10 best dropshipping suppliers here!
Good luck!