7 Essential Steps To Any Online Business

 

I just listened to a really good audio by top copywriter Ray Edwards about the 7 essential steps you need to start any home business.

I'm also going to summarize some of the points here so you can get the "fruit" of it all, plus add a few additions that we've learned here on our team as well:

STEP 1:  HAVE THE RIGHT MINDSET

You have to have a positive mindset that displays directed, purposeful thinking. Instead of asking "Why won't this work?" you should be asking "How can I make this work?" If you don't have this, you're done before you start.

STEP 2:  HAVE THE RIGHT ACTION PLAN OR MODEL

You have to have a blueprint that's proven to work. You don't need to reinvent the wheel - just find someone who's done it before you and do what they did. 

Make sure that whoever you are learning from:

• Knows what they're talking about

• Has actually DONE what they're talking about

• Is able to teach that to others

You want to have a proven blueprint so that you know where you're going at all times.

STEP 3:  HAVE THE RIGHT MARKET

The market you're looking at should:

•  BE BIG ENOUGH - so that your efforts aren't wasted. You also want to have a good amount of competition in the market, cause that means that sales are being made.

•  The market should ALREADY BE OFFERING SIMILAR PRODUCTS  to what you're thinking to sell.

•  Those in the market should ALREADY BE SEARCHING for these products and  ALREADY SPENDING MONEY ON THEM.

STEP 4:  OFFER THE RIGHT PRODUCT OR SERVICE

Identify yourself with some segment of your market and develop a unique product, service, or true story you can offer.

Since your market may have a lot of competition (which is good), you have to find a way to be different in some definable, quantifiable way. Ask yourself: "Why would they buy from me as opposed to someone else?"

STEP 5:  SEND TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE

You have to find a way for people to find your website. If no one sees your site, no one will buy.

There are three main ways to get traffic:

1. Buy it - using PPC,  Google Adwords, MSN, Yahoo, etc.

2. Borrow it  - just ask for it - e.g. find experts in your market who have a list of people interested in that market, and do a joint venture with them to offer your product or newsletter to their list. You should offer your joint venture partner something of value to them in return, so that it is a win-win situation for both parties.

3. Create it for FREE - using Web 2.0 strategies such as Youtube, MySpace, Facebook. blogs, forums, classified ads, articles, press releases, etc.

STEP 6:  CONVERT TRAFFIC INTO BUYERS

1. OPT-IN PAGE:

You want to get them onto your list by having them sign into an opt-in page (landing page), using these PROVEN strategies:

• Make the opt-in page clean and simple.

• Don't have a bunch of other links to other sites on it.

• Format it with a white background, with nice, clean looking 10 point Ariel type, centered in the page with a column of no more than 700 pixels wide, with headlines and subheadlines in 16 point Tahoma or Impact (but not the bold version of Impact - too hard to read)

(Ray was very specific with these points. He said he's tested EVERYTHING - right down to the punctuation! And this is what he says works.)

Just model pages that sell a lot of stuff - e.g. Amazon, Google, etc. Just look at success and you'll see that there are observable patterns.

To find out more about opt-in pages and what you should actually write on the page, check out our recent post on that:

Landing Page Basics

2.  CONFIRMATION PAGE: 

Once they opt-in, send them to a confirmation page to make sure they gave you the right email address.

3.  SALES LETTER:

Send them to the actual sales letter.

4.  ORDER PAGE:

There should be a link on your sales page that'll send them to your order page.

5.  THANK YOU PAGE:

Once they fill out their order, they should automatically be sent to a thank you page (or OTO  (one time only offer) page, or upsell page, etc.)

STEP 7: FOLLOW UP WITH THEM BY EMAIL:

Not everyone will buy the first time they see your site. This is why you want to have them op-in to your list so you can follow up by email with them.

There are more details than that, but this is the simple overview of how to get started.

Ray also went into market research and product creation,  which I'll be summarizing in upcoming blog posts.

It's really easy to get up and running with this strategy, and that's the reason so many of the online marketing experts are "scoffing" at the economic downturn - cause THEY aren't feeling it at all!

Why not take action on this TODAY and create a nice additional income stream for yourself.

Create massive success,

Carolyn Carey

For more tips and training on how to make money from home using the Internet, hop over to:

www.GlobalSuccessCreators.com