Becoming an Internet Entrepreneur

  If you want to be an Internet entrepreneur, this is what you need to do -

 1. Decide your topic
 2. Find your niche
 3. Research existing products
 4. Set up a blog website
 5. Start an e-mail newsletter
 6. Promote other people's products as an affiliate
 7. Create your own information product
 8. Sell it as a vendor on ClickBank
 9. Attract affiliates to promote your product
 10. Use the money earned to fulfill your dreams!

  So let's go through these one by one -

1. DECIDE YOUR TOPIC

   - Choose the topic, hobby or interest that you know most about or are most passionate about - the one that you wouldn't mind turning into a career.

2. FIND YOUR NICHE 

  - It's not enough just to say that your interest is "crafts" - that is too wide-ranging a topic for you to attract a large audience, since there will be thousands of other people addressing this issue - how can you stand out? So you should move one level down and state what kind of crafts you are interested in. Let's say it's "jewellery-making". O.K., that's better - now you have narrowed down the competition to a few hundred blog websites - significantly easier to deal with, but you still haven't really focused on why your prospective customers with an interest in jewellery-making would want to visit your blog post, as opposed to one of the hundreds of others out there. So you should move down to a third level and specify what kind of jewellery you make. If you can make earrings better than any other type of jewellery, then that's a niche you could focus on. You would then be able to attract only customers with an interest in making earrings, which should narrow you down to just a few competing websites. This will then give you a group of potential customers on which you could focus, in order to develop products that fulfill their needs.

3. RESEARCH EXISTING PRODUCTS 

  - Now you should go to ClickBank and sign up for a free account. Watch their videos on how to set up as an affiliate and read the blurb about what they can do to help you get started. After you have done that, check out their marketplace and research products offered by vendors who are in the same niche as you. Examine the pros and cons of these products and spend some time identifying gaps that they have failed to cover or aspects of their work you don't agree with or that you can do better or faster or cheaper, etc.. This will then give you ideas for products of your own that you might want to create later.

4. SET UP A BLOG WEBSITE 

  - This is the home of your business and it is where you can express your passion for your hobby or interest in a range of blog posts, giving information that covers different aspects of the topic you have chosen. The purpose of the blog is not only to sell your products but also to develop your business and you as an "Internet personality". You need to decide a few things in order to do this. You must first choose whether you want to have a personalized business, where the focus is on YOU, or a commercial website, where the focus is on your PRODUCTS, or a CONCEPT website, where you offer some kind of service or product on a website with a meaningless name that, in the future, you hope people will instantly associate with that topic. Google is an example of a concept website (although, of course, it is not a blog). The word "Google" meant absolutely nothing originally. Now it is a word for "search for things on the Internet" and this is because of its fame as a search engine. It is possible to choose more than one for greater Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If you choose a website that is personalized, your second choice is to decide whether you want to develop an image of being an "expert" on your chosen topic or someone who is "still learning" and is trying out different products about the topic to gain more knowledge that you can then share with your subscribers in the form of a review of that product. Having decided all that, you then need to physically create the blog. I recommend the following websites - GoDaddy, HostGator, Elegant Themes and Aweber, plus you need to install WordPress -

(a) http://www.godaddy.com 

  - go here to choose a domain name for your site. A ".com" will cost $12.99 per year.

(b) http://www.hostgator.com 

  - go here to organise hosting. Choose the Hatchling Plan - you can choose to pay annually, every 6 months, every 3 months, etc.. Monthly costs $7.16/month.

(c) WordPress 

  - When you set up your hosting with HostGator, you will have access to a "dashboard" which allows a wide range of add-ons, some of which are free and some of which are not. Choose the WordPress one-click install - it's free. Make sure you type "/myblog" as the destination when you do that, otherwise WordPress won't appear on your website. WordPress is a blogging platform. It is best to go for a one-click install from the hosting company (WordPress even recommend this on their ".org" website when they offer it as a download, for people who "have no idea what to do with this download").

(d) Elegant Themes 

  - go to this website to choose the look of your website. They have 87 beautiful designs to choose from. One theme costs $69 but the good news is that all 87 themes also cost the same price - $69. So you might as well pay that for 87 themes and have lifetime access to download all of them, rather than just buy one - so go ahead and do that! This is a one-time-only payment - no monthly recurring bills.

(e) Aweber 

  - This is an e-mail service provider - you will need it for your e-mail newsletter. The first month costs only $1, the recurring months cost $19 each. You can design your own newsletters, they will store your e-mail address list and they have an autoresponder feature where you can write all your e-mails in advance and choose the time and date when they will be sent out to your subscribers, meaning you can plan a marketing campaign in advance, write all the e-mails in one go, then click a button and sit back and let it happen!

  So in the first month, your total cost for setting up your online business will be $97.15, then recurring months will each cost a total of $26.16 for the first year before your annual payment to GoDaddy of $12.99 becomes due again.

  You then need to spend some time creating some blog posts, designing a header, adding stock photos and contacting the vendors whose products you chose from the ClickBank marketplace. Go to your chosen vendors' websites and there will usually be a link somewhere (usually at the bottom on the footer) called "Affiliates". Click on that, read the info and sign up for each vendor (it's free). Your vendors will give you banner ads, promos and other things to add to your blog. These things are called "affiliate tools". Use them to promote your vendors' products on your site. Vendors will pay you a commission of anywhere up to 70% of everything you sell of their products. It's also a good idea to write a "special report" for your e-mail subscribers to receive when they sign up for your e-mail newsletter.

5. START AN E-MAIL NEWSLETTER 

  - This is the most important thing you need to do because "the money is in the list" (as they say in affiliate marketing). On Aweber, you can set up an opt-in page on your blog where subscribers can enter just their first name and e-mail address to receive your "special report", then click a button that sends them to a thank-you page telling them to check their e-mails for a confirmation e-mail. Subscribers then need to go to their e-mail inbox to open that e-mail and click on a link in order to be subscribed (this is called a "double opt-in" - it avoids you being classified as spam by your subscribers and others). You should organise a campaign of e-mail newsletters and send them to your subscribers at least 3-4 times a week. The first e-mail should have a download link to access the "special report", then you can send recurring e-mails after that. In these you keep your content high-quality and every so often include links to your vendors' products. Your subscribers will then click through using the ClickBank link your vendors provided you in their tools to access your vendors' sites for the products they want. Subscribers who end up buying the product will pay via credit card through ClickBank, who will then usually pay your commission for everything you sell via check every two weeks in the mail!

6. PROMOTE OTHER PEOPLE'S PRODUCTS AS AN AFFILIATE 

  - Doing all this is the main work of being an affiliate and you are now an Internet entrepreneur!

7. CREATE YOUR OWN INFORMATION PRODUCT 

  - Once money has started coming in, you may want to try your hand at becoming a vendor yourself. You now need to write an e-book, make a video series, record an MP3 or create some other such form of information product to sell. This should be much longer and more substantial than your "special report", and it should be something that your e-mail subscribers would be willing to buy. You need to research what your subscribers want and create a product that fulfills that need!

8. SELL IT AS A VENDOR ON ClickBank 

  - You can then sell this as a vendor in the ClickBank marketplace! You will need to set up a promotional page to sell the product, plus promote it on your blog, and ClickBank will need to know the cost of the product, commission percentage for affiliates and other details in order to offer it to its customers.

9. ATTRACT AFFILIATES TO PROMOTE YOUR PRODUCT 

  - You now need to maximize your income by finding affiliates to help you sell your product. Your vendors may be happy to do that, since most vendors are affiliates of each other and now you can "join the club", as it were. You will need to develop your own "affiliate tools" plus decide on an appropriate commission and a range of other details before being able to attract affiliates to your blog to offer them the chance to make money from you!

10. USE THE MONEY EARNED TO FULFILL YOUR DREAMS! 

  - This, of course, is the whole point of becoming an Internet entrepreneur, and you can now move your life forward to make your dreams come true! You should also consider using the money to learn how to further develop yourself as a person of value and also reinvest a portion of it back into the business to expand it further. Please also think about doing something to "give back" to others, so that they also might have a chance at a better life!

  I hope this information inspires you to take the first steps on the road to success!

Oliver Chapman is an up-and-coming expert on Personal Development, who specializes in making people's dreams come true by encouraging them to develop themselves in the areas of Health, Wealth and Relationships. This article comes under Wealth. If you would like to know all of "Olly's Six Principles" to achieving your dream life, sign up for my five-part e-mail series, plus ongoing newsletter, by copying and pasting the following link into your web browser -
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Visit my blog at http://www.ollyspersonaldevelopment.com

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