Starting a internet business can be frustrating
Starting a business on the internet can be a daunting task, especially if you are not a developer and have never created a website. Some folks often get frustrated when trying to start a business online because most of the instructions , guides, and demonstrations, are geared towards people who already have a grasp on creating websites and therefore beginners cry out…
“hey wait… I don’t get it, your talking about terms and practices that I am not familiar with. FTP what? HTML who? Publish, permalink, keyword, niche, huh?? HELP!!”
So where do you start? How can you get the experience you need and get your feet wet on the internet? It’s a catch 22, you want to get started on the internet but you need to have internet skills to get started! You could always take a course at the local community college or buy a few books to read but if you are like me you don’t want to wait. You want to start right now! Well, this article is for folks who want to get started right now, today, tonight, as soon as you are done with this article! (heck, you don’t even need to finish the article if you don’t want to).
The best way to start an internet business is to start a blog. The word blog is short for web-log (this website is an example of a blog). A blog can be about anything: news, special interests, satire, politics, opinion, or merely personal experience (like a diary). Picking your topic is very important and I will talk more about that later. The reason why starting a blog is such a great way to get started on the internet is there are several free tools that are extremely easy to use, the best two are WordPress and Blogger. With tools like WordPress and Blogger you can create a free account and be bogging within minutes!
For those of you who are still reading this article and haven’t left to start their own blog, there is still some important information you need to know.
Starting a blog is a great way to learn about creating and maintaining websites
Creating a blog helps you to learn about picking a good niche (a niche is another way of saying… subject). Any successful website fills a gap on the internet that folks might be looking for. Therefore it’s important to pick a overall subject for your blog that is limited to one area of interest. The smaller and more narrow the subject/niche the more likely the blog will be able to get organic traffic to your website. (organic traffic is traffic that comes from people searching for topics in Google, Yahoo and Bing). For instance, if you pick the topic: digital cameras your competition on the internet will be massive, your competitors will be huge companies such as Best Buy, Amazon, eBay, etc. Yet if you pick a topic such as: digital camera tips and tricks you might have a much better chance of ranking higher in the search engines (although I recommend even tighter niches but you get the point). Your niche is the overall topic of your blog, all of the articles within your blog should be relevant to your niche. It’s also important to pick a topic that people are actually interested in and are searching for. There are great tools to find out what information people are searching for but that’s beyond the scope of this article (we will touch on those topics in future posts). For now, just pick a subject or niche that you are interested in and have some knowledge about. If you are a golfer, start a blog about golfing. If you are a bowler, start a blog about bowling! If you like to sew, start a blog about sewing! It’s not that important that your first blog is a huge success, because all you are doing at this point is getting a feel for web publishing.
Creating a blog helps you to learn about publishing, editing, adding pictures, links etc. (most blogging tools have excellent built in tools to help you create and edit your content). Create a story, use your own words don’t steal them from another website, just pick a topic within your niche and start typing! Your stories don’t need to be long, just whip up a few short paragraphs and publish it! Don’t add more than one story per day yet don’t let your blog go too long without adding new content (search engines like to see sites that are being updated regularly). Play with all the tools that the blogging software has to offer, don’t be afraid… you can’t break it.
Once you start your first blog you are officially a web publisher and you will learn a ton about the web business just from fooling around with your free blog. Don’t worry too much about the quality of your content or your websites traffic. At this point you are just getting your feet wet, and heck it’s free… so have fun with it!
Once you become more familiar with web publishing you can move on to better more effective tools and web strategies that we will cover in future articles. Now you have joined the ranks of “web publisher”. In fact, at your next family party you can brag to your uncle that you have your own internet business, uncle Bill doesn’t need to know that your blog doesn’t make money yet. The bottom line is… you need experience on the web, and the fastest way to get that experience is by starting a blog.
Once you start your blog leave a comment below (with your link) and tell us a bit about your blog. Not only does that encourage us that our words are useful to you but it will also represent a nice backlink to your site with might help your site rank higher with search engines. Welcome to the internet business!
