The ABC's Of Building A New eBusiness

"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail."
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Find a niche market that you have some experience or
interest in. You will be more motivated to research,
create and market a web site and determine the optimum
promotional strategy if you have a 'passion' for the
subject.

For instance, say you are a musician or have interest in
musical instruments, Next, you need to scope out the demand
and competition on the internet. You can find this out in
many ways, one is to go to http//www.altavista.com or
http//www.google.com and do a search which will give you
the number of pages of competition listed. As of this
date, 'musical instruments turned up 2,460,000 web sites!
But 'used musical instruments' only 848,000.

As far as demand, go to http//www.overture.com and do a
search for the number of times musical instruments (68,294
searches) or used musical instruments (2,094 searches) was
requested. Much more demand for the more general term,
'musical instruments than 'used musical instruments' but
also much more competition. You might even want to reduce
your keyword phrases to more of a 'niche' market, such as
Homemade musical instruments or discount musical
instrument.

Now that you have decided on the product(s) you want to
sell online, you need to establish a web site and/or
ezine/newsletter. Decide on a domain name. This is a very
important task as search engines place some importance on
the name relating to what the sites theme is. You can do a
search to determine whether your chosen name is available
at most domain name registrar sites. They call it a whois
search. You will need a web host, the one I recommend is
Host4Profit, http//www.roibot.com/w.cgi?R38406_host but
there are many web hosts available. Make sure you get the
features you need such as bandwidth, POP email accounts,
autoresponders, and total capacity.

You can do a whois search, register your domain name and
start building a web site immediately. Host4Profit also
offer some instant businesses you can start selling when
you sign up. It is affordable and their services are
excellent.

Designing the site can be done using some excellent html
editors, such as Frontpage, (you can get Frontpage Express
for free with Internet Explorer or Netscape) or Hotdog,
http//www.sausagetools.com (they have a shareware program
for 30 days). I use both and though they have a learning
curve, (some frustration and exasperation -), you will have
designed a first class, professional looking site.

You might want to create a mini-website or a micro-website.
These are 1-2 page with Good content and 1-3 keyword or
keyword phrase focused. I highly recommend an Excellent
ebook on creating microsites that the author was able to
get a top 10 listing with Google in as little as 3 days!
Check it out here. http//www.easyseo.com/html/books4u.html

If you decide to spend the bucks for a web designer, and
there are a lot that will offer cheap rates, make sure you
look at their portfolio before giving them you business.
And put it in writing with the price and agreed upon terms
(time, pages and content). I recommend if you do your own
site, to consider having a professional-looking logo done.
It really gives your pages a serious, professional look and
uniformity. I have used Got Logos, http//www.gotlogos.com,
they only charge $25 and do a great job.

You can get much more in-depth information on how to make
online, by taking the Affiliate Masters Course.
mailtotamshomebased@sitesell.net It is a wonderful, 6-day
email course that takes you step by step in building a new
business. And it's free! I have been using Site Build It!
an absolutely incredible way to build a web site that is
soooo much easier than Frontpage or any other html editor.
This in the MOST ingenious software on the 'net'! It
practically does it for you. There are too many benefits to
list but believe me it continues to stun me with its
ability to take the most tedious, monotonous tasks and do
them automatically. No, you still have to think -) You owe
it to yourself to check it out.
http//buildit.sitesell.com/homebased.html

About the Author

Dan Farrell is the publisher of Build An eBusiness On A
Shoestring newsletter with original, money-making ideas. Go to:
http//build-an-ebusiness-on-a-shoestring.com/free-ezine.htm