How to Get Started Online

I wanted to take a little time to explain how I am going to be conducting my experiments and how I am going to set them up so I keep money lost to a minimum and money made to the maximum! By explaining and sharing this with you, I am hoping some of you might generate some ideas of your own that you can use, or maybe even just steal mine! I really don’t mind, just as long as it helps you on your way to getting started setting up your own business online.

Let’s get started….

Why People Never Seem to Get Started (The 5 Obstacles)

One of the biggest problems many beginners and intermediates face is deciding on HOW they are going to make money online. Three months into buying information products and reading up on money making systems on forums, most people could probably talk at length about 3-5 systems/methods that they know about for making money online. Despite that, a lot of the time, the same people never take any action and get started. Why is this?

Usually, the reasons why people don’t get started on building their own online business can be distilled into the following;

1. They want to make sure 100% something is going to work before they do it. If they spend money on domain names, they NEED to know they will get that money back and make a profit.

2. They need some one to tell them EXACTLY what to do. They don’t take action because they are waiting for some one to hand-hold them through the process. Usually these people can’t afford to hire a mentor, the help they are looking for never comes and they get stuck.

3. They have read so many ebooks and courses online, they have no idea what system they want to use. They are spoilt for choice and don’t know where to focus their time, energy, money and efforts.

4. They are afraid of failing and becoming a laughing stock.

5. They are waiting for their circumstances to be “perfect”. They take their time “planning” and preparing, but when it comes to taking action, they remain paralyzed, waiting for the “perfect set of circumstances”.

I know the above thoughts and problems affect a lot of people in this market, because all of the above has affected me significantly at some point, and one or two points from the list have been affecting me as recently as the last few months! Everyone has these thoughts initially, so don’t feel embarrassed, ashamed or depressed if you do too. It’s all part of the process, and as long as you get past these fears and thoughts, then you are on your way to starting a successful online business.

How to Overcome the Five Obstacles

One of my biggest obstacles has been deciding what I want to do. I have been a bit of a jack-of-all-trades and I have never focussed on one system. I have made money with several projects and revenue models (affiliate marketing, information products, SEO, offline consulting etc) but I have never stuck at anything long enough to develop it into a system or a full-time income, and a year or two on I am kicking myself.

Kicking myself never made me any money though, so I decided to focus and get serious.

I know a great majority of the ways to make money out there, but I need to find something that is right for me so that I can get out of this “rut” and move forward. I have been doing this planning for the last couple of months, and I have setup a small online “infrastructure” so I can begin moving forward and making money. I think my plan will help a lot of people out there struggling to overcome any one of the five obstacles, so I am going to share it with you now.

The 6 Month Battle Plan

Before it puts you off, 6 months is only a rough time frame. The reality is it could take longer or quicker to implement this plan.

Here is my mission statement for the next six months:

In the next six months I intend to test and trial a number of revenue models, identify one with the greatest potential and automate it and use it as the core money-maker for my business going forward.

(When I mention revenue models, I am talking about money-making systems/methods).

Basically, what I am saying in my little 6 month missions statement is that I am going to try some stuff out, see what works and see what I like, and then scale it up so it makes me more and more money consistently with minimal input from me.

So for example, in the coming months I am going to try and have a go at affiliate marketing, list-building, Video marketing and information publishing. Once I have tested these methods out, lets say I enjoyed list building the most and also got the best return on my investment from it.

I would then look at what I did with my list-building and identify what worked and what didn’t. I would keep the parts of the list-building that worked for me and get rid of the things that didn’t work (poorly converting traffic sources etc). I would then focus all my attention, time and money on working on my list-building.

I would then try and automate it as much as possible, so my list-building will continue with minimal input from me. I could do this by outsourcing work, or using clever software to automate processes in my business.

If this all works well, it should give me enough money to live, pay the taxman, and still leave me with some money left-over. With this extra money, I can either re-invest in my list building and dramatically scale it up, or I could diversify my business by trying other things.

I truly believe that in order to find out what system you want to use and in what niche, you have to try things out and test them. A lot of the time people are afraid to do this because of the risk of investing too much time or money in something that doesn’t work.

I used to be like that as well, but it wasn’t a good way of thinking. No time is wasted time. If you try something and fail, learn the lessons from it and don’t make the same mistakes twice. I believe (although I don’t know for sure) that successful people are the ones who pick themselves up and go at it again, even when they have failed 100 times before.

In terms of wasting money, I totally understand why for a lot of people it’s a big concern, and it’s a massive concern for me right now. But I think I have a way to dramatically reduce the financial risk to just about $15. Not bad right? How many other businesses can you test with $15?

The $15 Infrastructure (Test Launch Pad)

I mentioned earlier in the post I have created myself a small online infrastructure that will allow me to test things out with minimal risk. It is like a mini launch-pad where I can launch my tests and experiments from! I’ll show you how to do this and then I’ll share with you a few rules I am going to be sticking to to make this work.

The $15 covers one domain name (from Namecheap.com) and the first month of hosting. Ideally you’ll want to make around $5 a month at first to cover the hosting, but that shouldn’t be TOO big of a deal.

You only need to buy one domain name, and you don’t have to do ANY keyword research. I would think of a domain/brand. You want a domain name that could really mean anything you want it to. Something very general, nothing too long. Try and come up with a little brand.

You are going to use your website to test and experiment in around three broad niches, and you will drill down more specifically into the sub-niches over time. By having a very general website, it allows you to test various niches out without having to buy a new website every time and you can also test a variety of methods out in one place. No need for new websites and hosting etc etc.

I came up with my domain name and then bought it the next day. I setup a wordpress blog on the root domain and wrote an introductory post or two explaining what the site was about (I described it as a blog website that covered topics on a variety of subjects). I then wrote three or four content posts to make the website look busy. I chose a good-looking free theme and uploaded it.

I now have a very general website that covers a few niches and topics. The broad niches and markets I will attack will be wealth creation and management (making more money etc), health and fitness, and dating/adult relationships. The reason why I have focussed on these three niches is because the people shopping in these markets have very strong emotions attached to their buying decisions, and every decision we make (particularly buying decisions) are emotional decisions.

I don’t want to manipulate anyone or their feelings, but I do want to go into a market where the customers and prospects are passionate about the kinds of things I am recommending and selling, and that is why I intend to focus mainly on these three niches.

The next step is to pick some techniques I want to try and test. When I find a winner (something that has made me money) I will then use that money/profit to invest in a new domain name where I can build a full business around the method. So for example lets imagine I do some list-building in the dating niche. If that goes well, and I make some money, I would spend that money on setting up a totally separate website where I can implement the techniques I learnt on my test site, and scale it up into a full-time business.

I like this approach because it seems like I can do a lot of testing and experimenting on one site or one domain, which means you limit your financial risk significantly.

If you were not comfortable setting up a site/blog that covers three or four niches or topics, then you could create niche subdomains. For example:

health.yourdomainname.com

dating.yourdomainname.com

money.yourdomainname.com

By structuring the site like this, you could in effect have three websites under one domain! Cheap and cheerful!

One Final Thing…

I think I have pretty much covered all the main points of how I am going to approach these experiments and my business online. I am hopeful that some one out there gets something valuable from this. And on a selfish note, I am hoping that in a few months time I will be making a post here saying that my experiments have worked and I am pleased to report positive results!

If you are near the start of your journey online, or you are starting afresh like me, then I wish you the best of luck. Feel free to come here and ask questions/leave comments about your experiences. I have received a number of interesting emails, blog comments and phone calls as a result of my first blog post, and I am really pleased people have been happy to get in touch.

My blog posts thus far (all two of them) have been infrequent, and irregular, and this is how I am going to keep it for now. I don’t want to put myself under any “pressure” to keep updating this blog. I will however be coming back here and reporting on the results of my tests, trials and experiments as regularly as possible. To stay in the loop with regards to blog posts, feel free to sign up to my email list at the top right-hand-side of the page. You can learn more about how you could expect to be treated as a subscriber and a friend by checking out the relevant section on the About page.

In the mean time, I hope this post has been useful and given you some ideas about how you can minimize risk and find out what is right for you online. It is important to take those first few steps when starting out on a new venture, and be ready to take the first few falls on the chin. I am off to get started now on my plans, and I hope you are too!