Recently, I was with some old friends, doing a Hilton Business Workshop.
We talked about starting a business, with a focus on growth, funding and Internet marketing. A number of folks did not have a business or internet presence. Gave me pause to think, what are some simple steps to get a Product sold on line. Here are some thoughts for you newbies.
1. Pick a product.
2. Buy a domain name
3. Set up a wordpress site
4. SEO.
5. Social Media
6. Paid Marketing
7. Develop upgrades.
8. Scale the business.
Each of these areas, requires a little discussion.
Pick a product. If you have one great if not, become a distributor of other peoples products. If you don’t have a product consider:
- You can become an Amazon distributor.
- Source products off shore. www.aliexpress.com
- Join Affiliate programs. Public or private networks.
- Join www.clickbank.com
Buy a domain name. Ok lots of thoughts. I have made money on domain names. If fact, Dec 2017 sold clickandgrowrich for $6,000. Domain names can be profitable just buy themselves. But we need one for our product or business. When you are buying domain names you must think how people search. How they plug in words to search called “key words”. Your domain name should include, the key words they search. It will rank you much higher.
Set up a WordPress site. Google loves wordpress. Whatever the hosting company you decide to place your web site, ensure they have a wordpress option. It is fairly easy to use and flexible. Many free templates, as well as, paid templates too.
SEO. If you use the key word in the domain name, you are likely to on the first page of Google. However, that is not the end of the story. You need to do some SEO activities to improve your raking on Google. A strong, title, description, and key word. Write articles. List in various search engines. Add youtube video (sister company of Google). Back links. And more.
Social Media. Mandatory are YouTube and Facebook. But you want to get on others too (twitter, instagram). You need integration with your website. And hopefully automated. So posts go everywhere.
Paid Marketing. You need a marketing budget. Spend money to make money. Target potential clients. Facebook is likely your first paid marketing plan. It will drive traffic.
Develop Upgrades. Once you have a database, you should plan for additional sales of products and services. Either I can find additional products, or become an affiliate for others, like Amazon or Click Bank.
Scale the Business. How do you automate the business? Replace myself, so I am no longer working in the business. The business runs by itself. Either I contract out the work, hire folks, find funding for growth, or hire a partner.
Rinse and Repeat!
Get work. Put that first web site and product together.