I wrote this article years ago but wanted to get it out. It’s unfinishedd.
What’s up! Welcome to my personal blog :). My name’s Sal. In this post, I’m going to share how I built an online business that’s changed my life.
I’m going to break it down into the stages that I went through and share everything that you’ll need to get started.
1. What type of business should you launch?
Since you don’t want to spend any money (or very little), you’re limited to a few different types of online businesses.
But, before I talk about how you can “make money” or monetize what you’re about to do, let’s talk about what you’re going to have to do to reach potential customers.
You’re going to have to take advantage of content marketing to start building an audience, or a tribe, which you can eventually sell something awesome to.
The good thing is that it doesn’t cost any money to build a tribe online. The bad thing is that it takes time and effort.
You can build a tribe by:
- Blogging (like me)
- Podcasting (like me)
- Creating YouTube videos (I’m getting into this)
- Creating a popular social media account.
- Doing webinars (usually viewers are acquired by paid traffic though).
Ultimately, you’re going to be putting out free content that either informs or entertains.
When marketed properly, the free quality content will attract visitors, and a certain portion of those will elect to “stay in touch” with you by subscribing to your email list or by following you on a social media platform.
The more you put out quality free content and market it appropriately, the greater the chance that more people will discover your content and decide to “stay in touch.”
After you’ve done this enough, you’ll start to get some traffic and a list of followers or email subscribers.
You can then monetize in the following ways:
- Advertisements
- Affiliate marketing (get a commission for sales you refer)
- Your own digital products
- Your own physical products (these usually cost money to produce)
- Services
The fastest income will come from consulting or services that people can purchase from you online. This is usually because when you put out great content on a subject, and people like it, you position yourself as an expert with knowledge that can help someone.
2. How long will it take?
Great question. This is the same question that I had when I just started out and no one seemed to be able to answer it.
The speed at which you’ll be able to set up an online business comes down to two things:
- How quickly you can learn core skills, like SEO, social media, copywriting, etc.
- The quantity and speed at which you put out content.
The person who puts out 365 pieces of quality content a year (emphasis: quality), is going to likely going to have a larger audience than the person who puts out 52.
The reason isn’t because of the sheer quantity. It’s because the more you do something, the better you get at it. If you pay attention to analytics and stats, you’ll figure out what your audience wants, what their searching for, and what their problems are.
I went full-time on my business a year after launching. I could see someone doing it in 6-8 months, but there is just going to be more uncertainty about the income stream.
There are a lot of variables here, like the niche that you choose to get in, the actual quality of your content, and how you can help with services or other means.
I will say one thing. You need to be 100% focused on your business.
Don’t spend time on emails. Just keep creating awesome content. Make your content the BEST in your industry. And market it relentlessly.
I can’t say this enough. You will fail a lot and most of your efforts will not succeed.
The goal isn’t to not experience fear, it’s to figure out what works, which means lots of trial and error testing.