Online Business Basics and Tips

I am not ready or I am too busy to start. please keep those stories out of this thread. I remembered Napoleon Hills in his book titled "think and grow rich" when he said "the right time to start is now, either or not you are ready because the time will never be right for you to start. If you do not start now you may end up never starting." these words of his are usually a fire gear for me. lets get in to our today's job.

Anyone can build an internet business from scratch with very little guidance and slim budget, If you read how many of those that have made it big in Nigeria started, you will understand what I mean. To cut back on start-up cost, many people choose not to have a website yet and post their products or services in different classified ads sites, auction sites and even blog sites. this strategy works very fine especially when you are selling physical products online. selling on classified ads site is still being overlooked by many but for person like me, I take it very serious as between 2014-015 they have earned me not less than 4million Naira.

this form of online business needs next to no start up capital. I know you may be thinking ImportExpert you are an importer and you already have your imported products to sell. you are right to an extent but you also have something to sell. I have an uncle that sells cars, we were discussing and he told me that their market is going very low. I told him I understand that things are changing he needs to upgrade by marketing his products online but he was arguing that he has done everything so I called a neighbor that just graduated from the uni and is in search of job. he had laptop and I bought him modem. I thought him within 30minutes how he can sell my uncle's cars on classified ads sites like olx, jiji etc just google classified ads site in Nigeria and you will get many. the deal is that for every sale he makes, he will have his own commission which can be from ten thousand naira to hundreds of thousands of Naira. in a nutshell, that is how my neighbor started his online/offline business selling people's products by just snapping their pictures. you can also start like that. just get the pictures of what you are selling, upload it on classified ads site, when buyers call you, take them to the owners that you have already discussed your commission with. the product you can apply this technique to include, cars, lands, houses, houses for rent, home properties etc.

Other people choose to start their business together with the launch of their website. If you are starting an internet business from scratch, either option is viable and must be your first step.

Before launching your business online

Any business launch requires careful planning to improve chances of achieving the expected result. So prior to launching an internet business, it is important to identify two things:

1. the nature of the business

2. the strategies in order to maximize your presence online.

If you are offering a service, identify what is that service. Same thing goes If you are selling a product. For a service-centered business, drawing from your existing skills is the best way to go. It is pointless to consider offering services which you have little or no idea at all. If you are selling a product, either you make your own product or get products offline and sell them online. Either way, you have to make sure that whatever product you are going to sell has a demand online. There are also affiliate products you can offer and network marketing companies you can join.

Once you have identified a service to offer or products to sell, your next task is identifying where you want to place them. If you don't have a website, your products would have to go to classified ads sites such as olx. jiji, jumia and konga also have such facilities that you can sell your products on them. If you will need a detailed guide on products that you can buy and sell on those sites, my importation guide can see you through. just look through my profile

Whether you have a website or not, make sure that you market your internet business through different means. Since what you are offering can be similar or identical to those that are already online, you have to make sure that you reach as many people as possible. This is where good online marketing strategies come in handy. Selling a product or offering a service is one thing; making sure that people know it is another.

There are lots of different ways to promote your site, your product or your services. Take note of these since the bulk of your work will revolve around online marketing.

1. Marketing through forum. nairaland and other related Nigerian forums are a good place to get started.

2. Article writing and article distribution. Submitting quality articles with backlinks to different article submission sites.

3. Advertisement. Pay-per-click ads, banner ads and textual ads.

4. Blogging. Promoting your business through blogging can generate lots of leads If done right.

5. Social media. Almost all businesses have presence in Facebook because of more than 800 million Facebook users as potential market.

6. SEO. If you have a site, there are different search engine optimization strategies you can use. This should be done consistently to make sure that you get higher chances of success. If you don't have a website, maximize your web exposure by registering to different service/product exchange portals.

6. Constantly improve your skills and products. The market is changing every day and you have to be a step ahead of the competition.

i know you will still complain of time so let me narrate a little. I remembered when I was working with one of my freelancer/virtual assistant from u.k, I think it was Sunday or so and it was already late at Night so I told him that he should continue the project tomorrow so he told me that he will be on a different job the next day. I told him that I really want my job done by tomorrow and it was then he told me that he works in the bank that was why he will not be available for online work tomorrow. the question here is how many of our Nigerian bankers are willing to work 2 extra hours online a day? the last time I checked even our primary and secondary school teachers think they are too busy to work online. until we change such perspective, we will be loosing millions online yearly.

Culled from: http://www.nairaland.com/2798048/how-build-online-business-scratch