I have an idea for a small online business, but have no idea where to start?

I've never run my own business, and have no idea about web design, so I really have no idea how to go about starting up. Cna anyone give me some ideas of good websites/books to look at? Or give me some advice

Thanks in advance

PS I'm in the UK
Additional Details
It would be to sell items to outside the UK

Hello,

(ANS) I have set up & run x2 small business's both as limited companies.

**OK! if your serious about setting up a small business (web based or not) my sincere advise is to contact your local chamber of commerce & especially BUSINESS LINK. Why? business link are fantastic at helping people & individuals to set up their own business's.

BUSINESS LINK can be found in the phone book or yellow pages, or in the Thompson's directory (probably find them online too if you look).

**Business link run many courses, day workshops, can give you loads of good advise, help you develop your idea or just tell you if its a dead duck and don't bother as it hasn't a hope in hell of working. They can put you in touch with finance people and advise you on how to deal with all the accounting & taxation stuff, how to earn an income etc.

**YOU should 100% definitely contact business link thats the best place to start off in my opinion.

Good luck regards Ivan

The web offers tremendous opportunities for those who know how to harness it. You hear stories of people who earn thousands, if not millions of dollars for doing business on web. While there are many scams (Same way in the traditional business world) there are various ways you can legitimately make money on the web.

1. Sell products on the web - Big Boys like Amazon or Lillian Vernon online catalogue or smaller business like bigkidsvideo.com or candle4less.com all sell products on the web.

You can either sell:
A) Through your own storefront through your own website or applications such as Yahoo Stores
OR
B) Sell through online auctions like Ebay

2. Information Delivery. Others such as about.com or powerhomebiz.com create content and monetize their content in a number of ways:

A) Advertising - Whether by joining Banner Ad networks Such as Tribal Fusion, BurstMedia or FastClick and display the banners on their site or through contextual advertising such as Google Adsense or Intellxt

- Join an advertising network. Advertising Networks are organizations that aggregate websites that offer advertising space and sell banner ads (and other adveritsing options) across them. Traffic requirement is often a minimum of 5,000 monthly impressions, although many do not accept sites hosted by free page services

Burst Media: www.burstmedia.com
FastClick (ValueClick) www.fastclick.com
Advertising.com: www.advertising.com
Tribal Fusion: www.tribalfusion.com

- Participate in contextual advertising networks. Contextual advertising is text ads delivered based on the content of the web page using an automated system.

Google Adsense: www.google.com/adsense
Yahoo! Publishing Network (Currently in Beta and availiable to US publishers only): publisher.yahoo.com
Intellixt: vibrantmedia.com/site/web_01a5.ht..
Quigo Adsonar www.quigo.com/adsonarexchange.htm
Industry Brains www.industrybrains.com
Commission Junction Evolution www.cj.com

- Sell advertising for your site directly. This is admittedly a more difficult route for a small business site wanting to earn advertising revenues. But hey, as they say, "No pain, No gain!"

B) Affiliate Programs - You sell other peoples products that your audience may be interested in; and you get a certain commission after the desired action was done (Whether a sale, a lead, subscription to email newsletter, or however this is defined)

C) Paid Online Content. hoovers.com or webmasterworld.com supporters forum all require paid subscriptions before acessing the information

D) Content Licensing and Syndication. Some publishers such as the associated press get paid everytime their content is published elsewhere

The best online businesses will depend on what you want, how you define to be interesting. A person may consider an adult site to be the most exciting work in the world, while that may not be your cup of tea. Or someone may design websites but if you don't know HTML then it's not a business for you.

The key is to determine what your interests are, what you want to do, what is suitable for your lifestyle and your overall goals and what can fit with your resources.

Dan Ramsay in his book "101 Best Home Businesses" has a chapter on how to find YOUR best home business. He suggests these 10 steps:

1. List 5 things you do best
2. List how others would benefit from what you do best
3. Find out how to give people what they want
4. Learn the value of your services to others
5. Find out who else offers similar services
6. Learn from the successes of others
7. Learn from the failures of others
8. Plan your own success
9. Make low cost mistakes
10. Enjoy what you do and how you do it

Use this basic checklist to make sure all the important steps are taken before you launch your new venture. This business checklist will make sure that you cross all your t's and dot all your i's before your business launch.

Steps to Starting a Business -
http://www.developer-resource.com/starting-a-business.htm

Other sites you might find helpful are:
SBA - http://www.sba.gov/
SCORE - http://www.score.org
Small Business Resource - http://www.small-business-software.net
Business Link - http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/home (this is good for UK businesses)

Goodluck!

I agree with the recommendations for Business Link.

I have used freewebs and think you will need a considerable amount of expertise to achieve the results shown.

There is a third route with another company which is recommended on the sites below and is also good for starting up your own business. The company recommended does the hard work for you, including getting your sites placed with Google, providing an autoresponder, in fact everything you will need if you are starting an online business.

Hope this helps. Wishing you every success. It is a hard job, but very rewarding.

you can go to freewebs.com and you can make a website for free, the trick is to get people searching the web to visit your site, that what you have to learn, go on line and visit magnetic sponsoring, it gives you Ideas, plus just go on the web and type in how to do Internet marketing, their is a lot of information out there, I have a on line business and I been working on it for about 3 months to get it going on line, if you have any other questions contact danielresendez@gmail.com, this is my son and he has been doing all the work on our web site, maybe he can help you, you can visit my website at www.freewebs.com/blueberryhealth, I made this simple web site, it took me a few day, its a simple web site,,, Good Luck

Please have a look at www.yoursuperstore.co.uk
I am currently designing websites like these for clients and charging a very small fee. For this fee, you will receive the full online store complete with the full product range on the above website, and also a supplier list which you can order products from. Also, you pick your own domain name and the site is usually ready within 72hours of payment, ie, a very quick, easy and cheap way to start your own online store with over 3000 products for sale.
Please email me at, support@nofranchising.co.uk, and i will be more than happy to give you more info on this and give you prices.

I have found http://www.spikesurveys.com to be really good. I have been using them for a long time and make some nice extra cash with them.

what business is it ??

Dear Friend,

"Working From The Comfort Of Your Own Home.... Would You Be Interested?"

Now the time I will show you how i am earning

Rs30,000/month in PART TIME JOBS IN INTERNET.No experience needed.

Click here to get an amazing opportunity:
http://getmoneyfromhome.50webs.com

Enter Your Message or Comment

User Name:
User Email:
Post a comment:

Archive: Forum -Forum -Finance - Links - 1 - 2 - RSS - All RSS Feeds
The Causes and the Results. 0.014
Copyright (c) 2011 Financial Crisis Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - Terms of use - Privacy Policy