5 Ways to Start an Online Business

With the Internet these days, tons of people have switched from their traditional jobs and moved towards Internet-based businesses. The opportunities are huge in this area. Here are a few ways to start an online business.

Online platforms:
1. Starting your own website - You pay for the hosting, design, marketing, & selling. People usually know about designing websites (or outsource it), what they're going to sell, & how they're going to sell it.
2. Blog - fun. A blog is like your own magazine/newspaper. You get to write about your favorite topics, design it, decide which products you'd like to promote, sign up subscribers, sell your own product, sell advertising, host videos. The possibilities are endless. Hosting & design are free. Great for sharing information, writing. Another variation of the blog are the vlogs (video blogs) & podcasts.
3. Ebay store - My favorite. Pay a monthly fee of $15.95. Ebay takes care of the marketing, promotions. Plus, millions of shoppers a day go through Ebay. You decide which products you'd like to sell, then list them. You pay to list, final sale price, & PayPal fees. Check out my Ebay store.
4. Yahoo stores - a variation of #3
5. Amazon stores - a variation of #3.

Once you have your store/website up & running, the next step is to market it. All of the strategies below are topics in and of themselves. So you drive more visitors, more traffic to your site. Market research is also important - what your niche is, who your customers are, what they're likely to buy & for how much, and product sourcing. After that it's refining, tweaking your site so that the people who come there are more likely to purchase something from you (increasing your conversion rate).

Strategies:
1. Affiliate marketing
2. Google AdWords
3. Sponsorships
4. Endorsements
5. Partnerships
6. Drop-shipping
7. Pay-per-click advertising
8. Search engine optimization
9. Social media marketing

That's it!