How to Start a Business Online

AUDIO VERSION: My guide on how to start a business online is nearly 7000 words. I created an audio version to make it a little easier to get through.

My name is Sam, and I’ve been creating online businesses since 2009. I’ve had the opportunity to build numerous businesses online and have done pretty well in eCommerce, blogging and on eBay. If you’re new to the world of making money from home or the whole online world altogether, then you’re in the right place. I’m grateful that you are being proactive in researching how you can start an online business.

Whether you have a case of techphobia, tech deficiency or tech savviness, I’m going to do my absolute best to simplify the whole process and get you kick started on your new startup. This guide paired with my story should give you a good idea that anyone can work from home by adding their own unique flavor to their online business.

I have designed these three steps specifically for those that want to have their own website and be the only person responsible for their successes and failures. I’m a big believer in owning your own web property because you will control your business’ destiny and success. If you want to build your new start up from scratch, then let’s get started on our orientation. How to start a business online.

Before we get started, I want to address a couple questions you may have and one thing you should know about my approach to starting online businesses.

Q: I really don’t have much money to start a business. How much will it REALLY cost to get started?
A: The bare minimum cost to start your own website that is designed beautifully is about $65 in fixed costs, and about $4/month to keep your website live. If you don’t have $65, then the bare minimum to start with is about $15 + $4 every month. These costs are necessities to own your own Domain  and Web Hosting.

Q: I need $1,000 by the end of the month. Will I make money fast?
A: No one knows how fast money will start coming in and I’m not going to provide you with any false guarantees. Don’t let this be your primary drive to start an online business. One thing you should know about me is that I’m not an advocate of making a quick buck and then letting my income fade.

My mentality is all about building lasting, scalable businesses that will continue to generate greater revenues for you.

• I am not into artificial or dead traffic, but traffic that will convert.  
• I am all about serving people who can benefit from your product and/or service regardless of the price tag attached to it.
• I believe in under promising and over delivering.  

If you can resonate with anything that I’ve said so far, I think we’ll get along great. Without further ado, here are my three steps to starting your online business with a bang.

Planning your road map will be crucial to the success of your new online start up. I’m not going to go into a “formal business planning 101” because the majority of you will run away screaming with your arms flailed high in the sky. I do not have an MBA, but I have created and have been using this very procedure to build all of my web businesses. I can tell you that there is no better feeling than seeing your plans come into fruition. When your website is the puppeteer and your visitors become the puppets, you know that you have done a great job in both planning and executing your strategy.

Always document your plan. Keeping detailed and organized notes will ensure a more effective strategy.

Choosing your Niche

Defying other information you may have already read: 

Before you read through this section, I want NEED you to know that I’m not going to spit out what these other so called “SEO gurus” are talking about. If you’ve read through other how to start up online business articles, a lot of them focus their attention solely on Keyword Research . A lot of Internet marketers, including myself, have gone down this road before. We find low competitive keyword phrases with high cost per click (CPC)  values and try to rank the site organically , hoping people will click on the ads on your website. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this if you are providing a great resource for your visitors.

Here’s the big butt:

If your only goal is to make money and not build a lasting business, then maybe it’s the right path for you. Your monthly residuals in ad income will likely decline as your non-existent interest in that particular niche plummets further into the grave. If you create a blog about how you heart spiders and the thought of any living thing with more than four legs makes you tinkle, the chances are, you’ll abandon your project before allowing it to meet its full potential.

Building a lasting business:

Choose a niche that you are driven by.

I believe that passion is a catalyst to drive. Passion can be found in thoughts, but drive pushes you forward. When you are passionate about something, you can’t help but to talk about what you know and what you are learning. To bring this into context with starting an online business – you want to transfer that verbal diarrhea into high quality content that other enthusiasts can resonate with. When that energy is converted into text, graphics, video and/or audio,  you will be on your way to a lasting, growing and thriving business. Your drive will propel you, while a passion will motivate you.

You don’t need passion to make a successful online business, but you will need drive.

How I chose my Niche and how you can choose yours:

Before building moneyjournal.com, I narrowed my passions down to two that fit well together:

1. building online businesses
2. teaching

The one thing that drives me is making an impact in others’ lives.

When putting my passions together, the direction of moneyjournal.com seemed pretty obvious. As a man who loves numbers, I quickly made some projections to see if it would be worth my time. I saw great potential with multiple streams of revenue, but was not driven by money alone.

Here are the first three niches that popped into my mind.

1. Business/website consulting
2. A digital marketing company
3. Make money from home

My goal was to have the greatest reach while being impactful in others’ lives. I didn’t necessarily have an interest in being contracted as a private consultant. I wanted to have the creative freedom to teach whomever wanted to learn  how to build an online business with hopes in making some kind of positive impact in their lives – big or small.

What has allowed me to actually get the website up and running with a ton of starter content – all free – is knowing that people can actually benefit from this. The final questions I had before choosing the make money from home niche were:

• Are there any gaps in this industry at the present? – most definitely.
• Can I fill in these gaps?  – I’m quite certain I can or at least will die trying.

1. Start with your passions and interests because they’re usually easier to think of.
2. Find a relationship or relationships between them.
3. From there, think about what drives you. This will keep you going through the rough patches.
4. Finally, look for gaps in that niche that you can fill.

Keyword Research and its importance:

After you have chosen your niche, you want to equip your website with a solid strategy backed by hard data. If you didn’t read the tool tip above, keyword research is a strategic method that Internet marketers use to find actual search terms that people type into the search engines. By targeting keyword phrases that real people are searching for you are heightening your chances of being found organically in search engines and earning that traffic.

Rather than guessing what your potential audience is looking for, keyword research allows us to know with more certainty the exact keyword phrases people type into the search engines. It is vital to make your decisions driven by data and not a gut feeling.

Keyword Research Resources:

I personally use Market Samurai for 95% of my keyword research and Google Adwords Keyword Planner for the other 5%. Keyword research is crucial to your website’s success in the search engines. If you don’t have at least 30 minutes to intensely dig through my Market Samurai review and tutorial or my Google Keyword Planner tutorial, then I’d recommend coming back to it another time. These resources will always be available for free on my website, so if you need a few hours, days or weeks to solidify your potential niche opportunities, you can always come back to this page or have me email you some of my personal resources.

If you’re a commute reader, stay at home mom/dad, print reader, or offline reader, then I would love to send you all of these resources plus some of my very own business templates to your e-mail. I understand that you’re probably a busy person, so you can at least have them with you on your phone, computer and tablet.

Monetization Methods – Where your Revenue will come from 

Choosing your method to monetize will be the key to your revenue source and something you should know before setting your niche in stone. Here are a few examples of how I have made money online from some of my present and previous web businesses.

1. Selling Services, eBooks and Products
2. Ad networks such as Google Adsense
3. Membership sites (Basic vs. Premium vs. Platinum levels)
4. Affiliate marketing

I have never been into filling out surveys or anything that requires more time than the money is worth. Time is our greatest asset and the thought of wasting it filling out surveys has never appealed to me. I like to have full control of how my money is made, where it comes from and providing value through my products and services worth far more than its dollar value.

Selling your Services, eBooks and Products:

A service is an intangible good. A few examples include web design, graphic design, programming, voice overs, consulting, editing essays and the list goes on.

The first service that I sold using an online source was in the cell phone niche. I happened to have what others found to be a great skill in negotiation. While studying in my third year of my undergraduate studies, I began advertising through my school’s website and Craigslist that I will lower your monthly cell phone bill by at least 50%, otherwise my services are free. To my surprise, there was a ton of interest and I began meeting my new “clients” in the school library. I would rent out one of the library common rooms for the hour and would review my client’s bill with them. From there, I would let them know whether I could bring it down by 50%. If I couldn’t, then I would let them know how much I could bring it down by with additional services they did not have. My rate was 30% of your savings over a 3 year term (contract period) paid upfront. From there, it was up to them whether they would want to retain my services or not. Before cellular data became a “necessity”, other students were paying in the range of $50 – $200 per month before tax, while I was paying just under $20 – taxes in, with double or triple the features they had. No, I didn’t have an insider at any of the wireless corporations, but I knew my way to talk them down without offensive or obscene comments.

My target demographic were people who needed to save money (students), there was a great demand (cell phones were now in full motion) and I had the confidence to repeat my streamlined process again and again. With great referrals and my initial clients, I was able to pay off my tuition that year.

A few years later in January, 2009, I started a website in the cell phone niche again. Rather than providing consultation services, I began selling cell phone services that were beneficial for international travelers. This was during the “roaming fees” bust when people were getting charged up to $30,000 on their cell phone bills while using wireless services abroad. I began to educate cell phone users on how they can beat roaming charges. The service I provided was in the form of an email with an 8-16 digit number that they could enter in their phone with a simple video showing them how to do it. There were thousands of other companies out there trying to do the same, but the gap I filled in the industry was why. This business took off with a lot of effort to get started, but eventually became a great source of passive income generating over $20,000/month with about an average of 45 minutes of work per week.

Checklist for Selling your Online Services:

If you’re looking to sell an online service, there are a few things you should evaluate:

1. Is there a demand for this service?
2. What will make you stand out compared to the rest of your competition?
3. Do I have the knowledge, skills and drive to continually repeat this process?

Always give more than you promise. It will leave your clients feeling better than expected which will add to your drive to be bigger and better.

eBooks

Let’s face it. The world has gone digital and is only becoming more and more digital. The very fact that you are reading this page shows that people are searching for information online. The differences between your eBook and the books released by big name publishers in your local Barnes and Nobel or Chapters/Indigo stores are…

• You have the creative freedom to write whatever you want
• It doesn’t cost you a penny to publish it
• There really is no risk involved.

An eBook is a great introduction to let your website viewers know what you are about, and how the information and experiences you have can help them in that specific niche.

Whether you are selling the eBook or providing it for free, there is value in both. Generally, more established writers sell their eBooks using third party sources like Amazon or directly through their own website. Those that are in the process of establishing themselves as writers tend to provide this information for free – usually in exchange for an e-mail address. Neither are bad models, but it is important to understand what you would like to achieve after the person has purchased or signed up to receive your eBook. There should be a greater plan in mind than ending your relationship at – “Cool – Thanks. Here’s your copy of my eBook.”

Products

I’ve journeyed down this road before, becoming a platinum eBay seller with over half a million dollar in sales in my first 9 months. eBay, Amazon, etsy, Rakuten, Kijiji and Craigslist are a great way to get started in distributing your products, however, it should not be your end all.

Establishing a brand through a personal website, social media and e-mail marketing will act as your strongest assets in recurring business. The one thing that I have seen hundreds of eBayers and Amazoners of the like doing is selling their product, and then hoping the customer will come back.

For example, when using eBay, you gain access to each of your buyer’s e-mail addresses. Chances are, you are selling products primarily in a specific niche – I sold in the area of consumer electronics. Now you have a targeted list of buyers who have trusted you once, and if they have left you positive feedback, they will most likely trust you again.

By using simple methods such as packing slips with coupons, a personalized letter in the package or a follow up e-mail are great ways to keep your customers happy and have them purchasing directly from your website without paying the commissions to your third party vendor. You build a brand, promote trustability and increase your ROI.

Ad Networks – Google Adsense:

After getting my first check from Google, I thought it was pretty cool to see MY name as the recipient from the sender Google Inc. They were paying me to put advertisements up on my dinky little website. Although the check wasn’t a fat one, it was a start to completely passive income. Monetization through advertisements are most prominent on blogs, informational sites, mobile applications and online tools. The one thing that you’ll see in common is that these ads tend to show up on places where things are free.

You may already have a great blog with a great following and you’re looking for a way to make money online with what you already have. Your content is key. With Google Adsense, your CPC will largely depend on your niche, your content, geographic location of visitors and how your users find you. For example, let’s say Visitor A landed on MoneyJournal.com searching for “How to make money online” and Visitor B came to Money Journal directly by typing in the domain name in the address bar. There is a higher probability that the payout from Visitor A will likely be higher since it is targeted traffic and the CPC value is quite high in this niche.

With that being said, if you choose to use Adsense in your monetization arsenal, SEO will need to be a part of your online marketing strategy. Having ads on your site doesn’t have to be intrusive and they can actually act as a great way for people to find a product or service that you’re writing about. While you are making money, you are helping your visitors find a potential source for a product or service that you are not offering yourself.

Membership Sites:

More and more membership sites are going with the “Freemium” model. “Freemium” refers to a basic level of membership with limited access for free with options to upgrade to premium levels with more features for a fee. This is a great way to get sign ups with the goal to convert free members into paid members. Other membership sites provide a money back guarantee within a specific number of days if the buyer is unsatisfied.

Membership sites are a great source of revenue as they provide residual income each month, or year by having buyers on a recurring payment subscription. Getting paid members is not as easy as you may think it is. The buyer tendency is to read reviews, test it and if it’s invaluable, buy a membership. As much as I love membership sites, there is a ton of work required on a daily basis to keep evolving the site. If you are selling “premium content”, then you must be on top of the most current information in your industry as well as to be able to teach how to apply it. If you are providing software, you and/or your developers should be working on evolving the software to meet the needs of your clients.

Again, with membership sites, it is important to give more than you promise. No one wants to pay for a membership that provides little value or falls behind current trends. People will jump ship once they find something that’s better and more affordable if you do not nurture your relationship with them throughout the process. Make your members a part of your development and be open minded to their suggestions.

Affiliate Marketing:

Affiliate marketing is when you promote another company’s product or service. If a sale or lead is made through your referral, you are generally paid a small commission as their way of saying – thanks. Referrals are generally tracked by a link to the company’s website which contains parameters in the URL identifying that it is your lead.

I use affiliate links as part of the Money Journal monetization strategy. There are rules that I personally abide by and will not compromise no matter how tempting the commissions are. Here are my rules for affiliate marketing, and something that you should consider following if you decide to use affiliate marketing in your online strategy.

• I never promote a product or service if I have not used it myself or am not presently using it.
• I never look for the highest paying commission and promote that one only. I look for the best quality product and or service and promote it if I feel it is worth sharing.
• I learn how to use my affiliate products/services before promoting it. If it’s not invaluable to me, I won’t make it sound like it is.
• Don’t try to trick your viewers into clicking through your link by saying something like “Free download” Honesty is the best policy.

If you provide great content and are promoting an affiliate link, I don’t see why people wouldn’t want to click through. If you’ve helped them out, why wouldn’t they want you to get a little piece of the pie when it comes at no additional cost to them?

If you have ever purchased anything through one of my affiliate links – thank you. The commission is one thing, but the most important thing for me is that you are using the same tools that I use to build my online businesses. It shows me that there are others out there on the same journey as me.

From the bottom of my heart: Thank you for your support in building Moneyjournal.com

Key to Choosing how to Monetize your Website:

The key to choosing how you monetize is in understanding who your audience is. For example, if you are selling sunglasses through your online eCommerce store, your primary source of revenue will most likely be in sales from your own products. By adding a revenue source like Google Adsense, you will most likely hurt your sales as you are sending traffic directly to other online sunglass stores. Yes, you may make a couple bucks on the click throughs, but you could have potentially made a whole lot more on the initial sales, recurring sales and referral sales.

Think through your whole strategy before finalizing how you will decide to make money online. Find what works and push it hard. Find what doesn’t work and push it out.

Setting up Tiered Phases 

Before starting your business, it’s easy to think of the end goal instead of everything in between. This is sometimes my Achilles heel. It’s important to think about where you want your business to be, but twice as important to strategize on how you will get there. Throughout the process, it’s important that you are flexible and creative in your building.

I generally like to start with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). By definition, this is the highest return on your investment vs. your risk. You may have an awesome idea to be the next YouTube or Instagram, but it will probably take you hundreds of thousands of dollars to build anything remotely close to it, as well as a whole lot of time. Although you may not be selling a product, it is always a safe bet to test the waters with the minimum product or service you can provide and to see how your audience responds. From there, you can implement your next phases after the market has proven itself to you.

If you are new to the world of at home businesses and you have a stable job, don’t make a rash decision and quit your day job quite yet. I’ve seen some friends invest their life savings into something they have very little knowledge in with high hopes that they will see a return in 3 months. Yes, there are many success stories like this, but it’s always a good idea to phase yourself in and phase yourself out when the time is right.

Set up your business strategically knowing what your MVP is, and how you can start building towards your vision.

You do not need to know how to code to make a beautiful website

Does it help to know how to code? Absolutely. And I encourage you to at least understand the fundamentals of HTML5 and CSS3, however, you do not need to know how to code to make a beautiful website. Learning these basics will allow you to make further customizations to already great websites, but it is not an absolute must to get started.

Here’s a link to the book that I bought for my wife a couple years ago. I use it on occasion for reference and it’s a really easy book to follow for beginners.

Domain & Hosting

Yes you will need both of these. Your domain name is exactly what it sounds like. It’s your domain, your terrain, your home and your brand. MoneyJournal.com, is my domain name.

Hosting is kind of what it sounds like. Your web hosting gives power to your domain, allowing it to be live on the Internet for your visitors to visit and interact with your content. Without a hosting service, no one will be able to see your website. Both are crucial to get started with your own website.

Free Hosting:

There are two types of “Free Hosting”.

• One: that has ads plastered all over your website in which you get no revenue from.
• Two: by using someone else’s domain and hosting services and getting a subdomain (ex. yourname.wordpress.com).

There are four reasons why I do not recommend going with either of these routes.

1. You don’t want to ruin your user experience with ads all over your site in places that you would have never put them. On top of that, you don’t get a single penny for any click throughs on the ads.
2. By creating an account on Wordpress.com, Tumblr, Blogger etc., you do not actually own your site. What if one of these sites decides to shut down their services, loses all of its data or sells off to a company that does not have the same vision? You will lose everything that you have worked for.
3. You will have limited access to customize your site.
4. Lack of brand recognition. I wouldn’t want to give anyone a business card that says moneyjournal.notmydomain.com

Where to get your domain and hosting

There are obviously hundreds of companies out there that provide these services. I presently own 37 active domains on 3 hosting accounts. With all things considered – quality vs. cost vs. up time, I recommend Bluehost. After three years of using their services, they have yet to fail me. Their prices start at $3.49/month on their starter plan. Their package includes a free domain name as well, so you can get started with your web business for virtually no money at all.

MoneyJournal.com is currently hosted on Inmotion hosting. The only reason why I have stuck with InMotion is because I purchased a dedicated server years ago which runs me about $300 a month. I have every intention to move this website over to BlueHost once my contract is up. If BlueHost’s shared hosting at $5.95/month for their plus plan is good enough to support the over 100,000 cumulative visitors I get a month on a couple of my sites, I trust that their dedicated server will be even better.

If you’re new to hosting, I strongly recommend starting off with the plus plan and not a dedicated plan. There’s no need to drop hundreds of dollars each month unless you have more server intensive needs and know advanced languages like Apache or Unix.

Full Web Development Tutorial  Try Bluehost

Disclaimer: If you choose to host with Bluehost, I will get paid a commission for the referral. I have tried multiple hosting companies and my recommendations are based on my personal experiences. Good hosting is one thing that is worth the money as it directly affects your site speed and visitors’ user experience. If you purchase it through my link, thank you for your support.  

Design and Build

I use WordPress for nearly all of my websites. It is absolutely free and there are thousands of themes to choose from. There are free themes that come built into the WordPress theme which are okay at best to get a really standard blog going.

The place where I get my themes from are Elegant Themes and ThemeForest. They have a massive community of developers who build amazingly beautiful website themes and sell them at an affordable price.

To give you a better picture, these themes have robust functionality that will give you complete control over your website without knowing how to code.

Building one of these themes alone would probably take me several months or if I outsourced the work, tens of thousands of dollars. The prices range but are extremely simple to implement once you have the right tools.

Before you buy a theme, I’d strongly recommend you have a read through my full out guide on how to design a website. I’ll show you exactly what to look for when buying a theme including site speed, code integrity and which site will be most suitable for your needs and business goals.

 

 

My Full Guide to WordPress Design

Implementing your Web Strategy 

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Making it Easy to Convert:

You are the host and your web traffic are your guests. You want them to be comfortable and make it easy to get around your home with ease. Let’s say you’re hosting a potluck BBQ and  you have just renovated your kitchen. You’re super stoked to show it off to your guests. Your goal is to get people in that kitchen, so they can see your new appliances, backsplash, countertops and cupboards. When the doorbell rings, are you going to send them around the side of the house to the back yard? No! You’re going to let them know that they can take whatever dish they’ve brought and put it in the refrigerator.

The same goes for conversion rate optimization. If you want your visitor to sign up for a newsletter, ask them to. If you want them to purchase something, make it easy for them to find it. If you want to get a lead, make your phone number accessible with other contact options at the tip of their fingers. With any web strategy, you want to ensure that the user experience is seamless and it gets your visitors voluntarily clicking through to meet your conversion goals. There is obviously a fine line between spamming, which makes you look desperate and providing valuable content that will make them want to know more.

Put yourself in the driver’s seat. Does your website lead people to where you want them to go?

Measuring and Analyzing:

What good is traffic that doesn’t convert?

You may think that you have the perfect strategy in place, but there is no such thing as the perfect strategy. Conversion goals are something that can always increase or decrease. The main tool that I use to measure my web traffic is Google Analytics, simply because it is free, robust with features and gives you a good overview of who, what and how your visitors are finding you. It also gives you a good idea to speculate why they are leaving your website as well.

I’ll be providing more training on Google Analytics and showing you how I use it to boost my conversion rates on my sites. In the meantime, you can read my article on what Google Analytics is and the bare necessities to setting it up properly.

Now that you have an idea of how to set up your online home business, it’s time to get it out there. Online marketing is all about creativity, data and great content. If you’ve done your research before hitting my extensive guide on starting your online business, then you’ve probably heard about the following marketing methods:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC)
3. Social Media Marketing
4. Content Marketing
5. Email Marketing

Get Found – Inbound Marketing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

Search Engine Optimization refers to naturally ranking a web site or page in the search engine results. Generally speaking, the higher your web page appears in the search engines for a specific keyword phrase, the more likely you will get natural “organic” visitors to your website. In a nut shell, this is achieved by great relevant content combined with quality back links from other  websites.

Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC):

This is a paid form of marketing. Generally, advertisers will pay a publisher to place their advertisement (text and/or graphic) on their website for a fee. The advertiser will pay the publisher for any click throughs based on a Cost Per Click (CPC) model. As a rule of thumb, the higher the competition, the higher the CPC rate will be for that specific keyword phrase.

There is another model of paid marketing called Cost Per Impression (CPM or CPI). This is a less common form of marketing as you pay for the number of times someone sees your advertisement (an impression) on the publisher’s website, whether they click through or not. The CPM rates are generally much lower than a CPC, but impressions quickly rise compared to clicks.

Get Noticed – Branding

Social Media Marketing:

Social media marketing is a form of marketing using social media networks to drive traffic to your website. Social media marketing is quickly evolving and is being used as a place to build community of like-minded people.

Content Marketing:

If you haven’t gotten into content marketing, then it’s time to start. Content marketing is arguably the fastest growing form of marketing in 2014. It is the act of publishing any form of content (video, blogs, images etc.) to attract visitors to become customers or community members. People are interested in reading about relevant content in the industry and are always looking for industry leaders to provide that information to them in a concise and coherent manner.

Email Marketing:

This is the most common form of direct marketing. Emails are generally used to build brand awareness and loyalty to that brand. For companies that are selling products, they generally use it to advertise promotional sales or to solicit sales in other ways. Websites use email marketing as a means to provide updates, release new products and to give valuable information leading them to a piece of content on their website. They can also be used to make a profit by sending sponsored emails.

Get Paid – Make Money

Whatever niche you decide to enter, there is always a way to make money through it. You don’t want to build a reputation of begging people to buy your product or to click on your ads. You want to provide value to your visitors and customers with the intent to build a mutually beneficial relationship. With the proper strategy and monetization methods in place, the money will come.

Which methods should I use to Market my Website? 

SEO is a long term strategy and arguably one of the most profitable when executed efficiently. Although it may not be a part of every business’ goals, I have always used it as a means of gaining traffic free of charge.

PPC is great for start ups with an advertising budget. Since this start here guide is for lean start ups, I won’t dig too much into this now.

Social media is a touchy subject. People keep hearing that social media marketing is BOMB. And it absolutely is.

The problem that I see people getting into is that they try to participate in every single social media network out there. They focus on trying to build a community on every network while diverting their attention from their actual website. If you find that a social media network will be a strong asset to your business, start with one. Maybe two. Or maybe zero. If you think that the time put into building your community will compromise the quality of your content, don’t force it. You can always ease into it at a later time when it is more relevant to your business.

I’m a strong believer in content marketing and believe that it should be a part of everyone’s strategy in some way, shape or form. Whether you are writing information about your industry, providing valuable tips or sharing a funny video or image that industry participants can appreciate, go for it. Content marketing has exploded in 2014 and is only getting bigger.

Finally, with email marketing, whether you are sending out messages daily, weekly, monthly or never, it is always a good idea to start collecting email addresses. People sign up for newsletters because they appreciate what you are doing. If they have voluntarily signed up, they want you to send them an email or two. They’re not necessarily looking for self-promotional emails, but ones that will provide value to them. They have been gracious enough to give you their direct contact information, so please handle it with respect. No one likes a spammer.

Congratulations: If you’ve made it this far down the page, I can tell that you’re serious about starting your career as a work from home guy or gal. It’s not easy to read over 6000 words from a complete stranger plus another 15,000 more from my blog posts.

Find an Accountability Partner:

Starting something new can be overwhelming. If you have ever talked to anyone else about how great it would be to start your own at home business, please feel free to share this page with them using any of the share buttons below. It’s always great to have accountability from others who are on the same journey with you. If you don’t have anyone, no worries. I’ll be here on that journey with you.

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Thank you

If you’ve enjoyed, been informed or inspired by anything that I’ve written, please allow me to send you some of the business templates and get you started on my free crash course.  This page has a lot of information and I’m sure some of you feel bombarded with information overload.

In my crash course, I will send you e-mails over the next couple of weeks to make sure that you stay on course. I generally send a few motivational e-mails and tips as you begin your journey and anything else that I think will be helpful to growing your online business. I don’t send spam, paid sponsored e-mails or junk that I don’t believe in.

I would be honored if you will allow me to journey with you as you begin your new online start up. I wish you all the best as you begin your wonderfully challenging, but rewarding online start up.