Online Business 101 Archives - Page 4 of 4

Why you should own a domain in your own name?

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www.godaddy.com (Leader for Domain Booking)

www.bluehost.com (Buy hosting and get a domain free[su_tooltip position=”north” content=”Recommended” behavior=”always”][/su_tooltip])

www.hosting.netmantis.com (Get Domain privacy free)

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Why should you own a domain name in your name is a question you will ask sooner or later. A lot of people think that owning a domain name in my business name is much better and keep their own name in last priority. The most common reason for that is generally that people are not sure as to how they will use the domain name or what benefit it will bring in. Some are not just comfortable having there own name for domain.

Truth be told you should not miss a chance and book your own name as domain name and think about how will use it later. There are a plenty of reasons for that and most important being that top level domains are running out if you have not booked your own name as domain now is the time to check if its still available. IF you lucky to have an unusual name you might still have it available. If not you need to look at the next best option like including meet,workwith or know before your name depending on how you are planning to use your domain name.

[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlNyb_Go_-Y” controls=”no” showinfo=”no” rel=”no” fs=”no” theme=”light”]Here are top 5 reasons why you should book your personal domain.

Personal Branding: The best branding you will ever do is personal branding. There are many reasons for that. You wont realize but there are ways to exploit your own brand for your own good. Including but not limited to promoting your own business, promoting what you stand for, promoting yourself as an Leader, Hobbyist or an Activist. [su_spacer]Once you develop certain level of clout in the online space in the area of liking you would be in a position to effect general opinion of people following you. You may be able to help them, solve there problem, sell them or promote a product or service to your liking. [su_spacer]One has to remember that people like to buy from people and its easier to establish your own brand than a company any given day. People like it when its real, When somebody real is behind something in flesh and blood than buying or getting influenced by what is promoted by a company of corporation. [su_spacer]If you have not noticed just observe how celebrity endorsements or always in demand and they promote the biggest corporations in this world. The reason for that is that the companies behind the brand development are seeking an identity in flesh and blood to stand by with what people can identify with. [su_spacer]You have an option to do it much easier for yourself. Just in case you are thinking well I am no way a celebrity or Brand and who will be interested to associate with me? Let me tell you it will remain that way until you keep pondering. To establish yourself as an brand booking a domain is just the first step. To truly become a brand and influence people you will have to add value, solve problems and show the path to success.[su_spacer]
Potential Business Partners, Employers, Hiring Parties need you: It is known fact that today many people including the hiring managers/customers put a name search particularly if you are into freelancing or a consultancy to see what throws up. [su_spacer]Your own domain in front of the people who are your business prospects is an immediate authority booster. Many people will interestingly browse through your portfolio, Bio and What you have to say about what you do in full detail. [su_spacer]Needless to say this immediately strengthens your position in the eyes of prospects if you have taken care to brand yourself in the line of your product or services.[su_spacer]
Your information headquarter: You need a information headquarter online that stands up for all the information that you want to pass on to the public domain. This may include your Portfolio, Bio, Products, Services, Recommendations and even image albums to keep it real. [su_spacer]You wont realize until you begin but if you are someone with a hobby, business or interest you are already sitting on lot of valuable information that people may be willing to access or pay for. [su_spacer]Once you have your own name as domain it is easy for you to build know, like, trust among your tribe and move forward in your own endeavor.[su_spacer]
Personalized email: Well we are all used to having a public free email id. Most of us don’t realize how we can tip things in our favor if we had an email id like yourfirstname@yoursecondname.com or email@firstnamelastname.com instead of having an email id like gmail or mail.com [su_spacer]A personal email id is a great tool for you to differentiate from the crowd and build an instant repertoire with the person you are interacting with. Every time someone receives an email from your personal id he/she shall unconsciously feel compelled to open and read what you have to say. [su_spacer]This is almost like the fact that you just cant ignore what your friend has to say about something and you almost always get influenced from what your friends have to say. [su_spacer]A personal email heightens the sense of talking to someone trusted and gives you a definite advantage over gaining attention and email open rates that you desire.[su_spacer]
You can use it as custom domains on web 2 platforms: Now this one is particularly interesting. Did you know that some of the worlds busiest platforms with social capabilities like WordPress, Blogger or Tumblr allow you to host custom domains. [su_spacer]This is a great advantage as you can have your own custom domain on free hosted blog and a super active community at the same time. This can go a long way promoting yourself and your business for free in most of the cases and you have option of scaling up into payed features when you deem fit.

[su_box title=”Booking a Domain Name” style=”soft”]

www.godaddy.com (Leader for Domain Booking)

www.bluehost.com (Buy hosting and get a domain free[su_tooltip position=”north” content=”Recommended” behavior=”always”][/su_tooltip])

www.hosting.netmantis.com (Get Domain privacy free)

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How to Build My Business Online – 14 Steps to Success

[su_note]You might be a person willing to start an online business, already in online business or someone who has a brick and mortar business. In any of the case building online business is of paramount importance as that is what will enable you to reach more customers. Much better if you want to beat time-zones, geography and want that your business tirelessly works for you day and night.[/su_note]For lot of people money seems to be a limited factor when starting a business or thinking how to build my business. And in a way they are right for they are referring to the investment they would make in terms of setting up the business location, office, store to stock the products or may be delivery vehicles to carry the products to the customers and even employees who shall take care of the things like accounts, sales, marketing and collection of payments.

My question is, is there a way to circumvent all that and start a business? Well that’s what exactly an online business does. You have a website or store where people can check on your product range any time and understand what you are selling or servicing, they can even place an order…and guess what? a logistics carrier will pick up the product from where it is stocked and get it delivered to the customer. Even better if you sell information products…that need no space to store or a delivery vehicle to deliver. You have capability of delivery products right into customers computers or mobile devices right of after they make a payment…any where in the world. That brings us to the most important point.

Idea no 1. Sell an information product.

That being said you might say- Ok great I am ready to build my business but which information product should I chose and where would I get it. My first advice to you is to build your own information product. Think about it, almost everyone has a hobby or a favorite pastime, you might well write a short report or a book on that. It just can be anything under the Sun.

Idea no 2. Build your own information product.

Just in case you still feel you have no hobby or interest worth writing a book, always remember that you can actually sell other peoples products and make money. Sign up for receiving a free report – The Affiliate Marketing Mastermind and some great tips to promote affiliate products.

Idea no 3. Sell other peoples products

When selling other peoples products, you will have to zero in on what to sell and that again calls for something that you have interest in as you will be naturally driven to work on it rather than thinking that it is purely something that is your “job”. This can eventually beat lot of frustration and boredom as you would be excited to learn more on the interests you have and possibly bring in information for people who might be happy to have your support.

Idea no 4. Choose products in your interest area

Choosing a product also includes the consideration that it has a profitable market. And that means the niche should be not just be interesting but have a lot customers who are willing to put money on the table for getting a product.

Idea no 5. Choose a profitable niche

Alright so you have most of the things sorted out now you need a online headquarter. That would mean you need a domain name. The domain name is just like a business name with which people can identify you online. You need to book a domain name that may be branded. You may pick up a domain name that is holding your keyword if possible but don’t be too particular about it. Pick a domain name that may be easily branded than something that looks like a bunch of keywords for domain.

Idea no 6. Pick a Domain name for a Brand

Once you have your domain name that next step is to look for hosting. But worth mentioning that you may buy domain hosting from a service provider like http://www.bluehost.com that also provides you with a free domain. When choosing a hosting plan pick up something basic for the starts. You can always upgrade your plan once ramping up.

Idea no 7. Pickup a basic Hosting plan

Once you have your Domain and Hosting plan in place you are all set to take the grand leap of joining the select group of people who don’t just exist online but also go way beyond in creating content that’s engaging and remarkable. Well and to do just that you have WordPress. You might hear a lot of people saying why WordPress and that to use other CMS or just not use them. The choice is yours…But if you ask me I will go for WordPress eyes closed.

Idea no 8. Install WordPress

Once you install WordPress you would want to customize the look and feel of the website. And be care full of the catch here. You might end up in giving a lifetime on look and feel but that’s not the right thing. Consider this as just a stop. There are more important things you need to do before you really invest good time on look and feel.

Idea no 9. Kick it off with a basic website

The real power of website is about the structural design and visual appeal that should help you get more customers period. Have that as a single aim when investing time on look and feel and the fancy plugins you want to use. Sign up here to get the list of must have plugins that I install on my websites including the ones that are paid and take you miles ahead on SEO and SEM/SMM game.

Idea no 10. Install the “known list” of plugins

Once have reached this step its about putting the “real meat” on the website the Content. if you have brick and mortar setup you might want to look at how you want to use website to your advantage. If you are building a information product business online you may want to communicate that well so that people know what you are about as soon as they land on your webpage.

Idea no 10. Bring on the unique and real content

I know a lot of people among us don’t want to write our own stuff. But I have a suggestion. Do some homework understand what you are selling, what is your USP (Unique Selling Preposition). How are your competitors selling in the market you are. What are they doing differently. At this stage it will greatly help if you will write down yourself the core aspects of your business. Like what is your business in not more that 3 sentences. What is the Business background like when was it established, who are promoters, where is it located, How can someone get in touch with you. Any interesting story/fact you want to share with your customers that will make it interesting,what is your product and how it solves a problem.

This will greatly help you all your Business Details captured and easily shareable with the people who are either interested in your business or helping you develop the content.

Idea no 11. Outsource content development and writing

Congratulations now you have your business online but remember this is a beginning and remember that ” Well begun is half done” Now is the time you set a measure on how you will measure the success of your business. Yes in the beginning its just about how many visitors you get. But one has set realistic targets like number of optins generated every month or number of sales. This shall keep you closely tied to the goals without spending much time on things that are less important.

Idea no 12. Set your goals.

A lot of people never go beyond this point. What we have done so far is just the foundation. Any online business is useless until it has traffic. And a traffic that really converts (buys). Getting traffic is the major part you should involve into your self. The more you learn and spend time on this area more successful and in demand you will be. Traffic is the single most challenge every business faces. There are a lot of hoops you need to cross before you may really understand what works for you. You may keep on buying those $7 products for a lifetime and never actually master a way to generate traffic. For really becoming a traffic ninja you need to learn from the experts and do exactly what they are doing. I recommend you try out The Traffic Academy.

Idea no 13. Get Traffic

Well now you have the machine running. Its time to critically look at how things have shaped up. Where can you start to optimize things. Now is the time to test everything. Look at which pages are most visited. Which pages are the ones that most people are visiting time on. What are people searching when they land on your page. Optimization is a never ending process and you should be looking out for any and everything you need to get more visitors, engage with them, solve their problems and possibly convert and up sell them as much as possible. Over to you…Take action!

14. Improvise and Optimize your online business.

Starting an online business

Starting online business involves few major steps.

The Niche – Product, Service or offer you want to promote
Promoting – How to promote the offer
Generate Leads- How to generate leads
Convert and Sell – How to convert leads
Scale up, Rinse and Repeat

1. The Niche – Product, Service or offer you want to promote.

This is a step that lands a lot of people in as state of mental block. Don’t spend a lifetime deciding what you want to promote. or get into a road block of having a product before you progress.

Just do a bit of due diligence on what you want to pick up in congruence with your liking or knowledge.

Some examples

What are your hobbies?
Did you one time like debating, essay writing or even aero- modelling
Do a bit of research to find “whats on” is it related in any way with your liking or your hobbies
Pick up a area, niche or category and see how deep you can go
Pick something with less competition and high profitability.

2. Promoting – How to promote the offer-

When starting don’t build up constraints. If you cant have a website immediately, start building Facebook or Twitter followers on the subject this will also tell you how sought after your interest area is and gives you a great opportunity to start testing offers.

When you can don’t make any delay in booking the domain you want. Do your research in advance on a list of domains you would like to book in advance.

Best way to promote a offer any day is having your own website. This is advantageous in many ways.

You own online real state.
It helps you get identified and gain authority
You operate as an online entity with great focus on the subject

3. Generate Leads- How to generate leads

Leads are generated when you have an ultimate offer and you need a system that ties up with your website and preferably works 24/7 without tiring out. There are two parts to lead generation.

Get traffic
Capture leads

You generate remarkable and unique content to bring in visitors to your website and then make them leave there contact(mostly email) so that you can revert to them and pitch yourself or build a brand or sell a product. This is generally achieved using optin forms and offering a lead magnet and then building a list with an email marketing application.

4. Convert and Sell – How to convert leads

There are multiple ways to convert leads one of the effective automated method involves taking people to a landing page or a squeeze page. You may even call back leads or send automated emails pitching your offer. Conversion essentially means that leads buy something on offer. This also includes creating funnels based on testing and specific needs of the market.

5. Scale up, Rinse and Repeat

Once you start seeing some success coming, mainly start generating some leads. Its time to celebrate but immediately raise the bar. Look at generating double number of leads that you generated this week or this month. Continuous effort to reach out to audience via the mode you select or a combination of them needs to be done consistently to build a authority and following. What ever small success you achieve its important to optimize it and test it to scale up. Now all that you got to do is just rinse and repeat.