How to start an internet business without investing a kobo

Online (or internet) business, according to Wikipedia, is a business where all marketing and selling of products and services are done through the internet including blogs, e-mails and web pages.

If you have ever had an idea for a product or service that you think could net you a fortune, you may well have considered setting up an internet business with the aim of sitting back and watching your money roll in. The internet has really revolutionized the way we live our lives and offered a place where individuals can compete with global organizations.

The main question now is this: “How possible or easy is it to start an online business without investing any money?” The answer to this vital question is contained in this article.

Start up Requirements

To start an internet business, you need the following:

1. A website or blog to advertise your products or services.
2. A GSM phone for information.
3. An e-mail account to send and receive messages to and from your customers.
4. A bank account where your customers will pay into.
5. A computer that is connected to the internet. Since this article is all about how to start an online business without investing anything, I will advise you to start in the cybercafé if you do not have a computer of your own. However, you will still need a personal computer of your own later.
6. The most important of all the requirements is the ability to operate the computer. You do not need to be an expert. Just a simple knowledge of the internet is enough.

What Kind of Business?

The most important thing in internet marketing is how to get quality products or services to the market. Many people fail here because they do not bother to ask themselves these two questions:
i.   What are the major problems or needs of the people in the society? 
ii.  How can I provide solutions to the problems?

These are the two basic questions one needs to ask and answer before venturing into any online business.

Many people surf the internet looking for ways to satisfy their needs. While many are searching for free solution, some are willing to pay. So, if you can provide solution to those needs or give information on how to get the solutions, you will make money. Another important thing is that you must identify a need that you are passionate about in order to give a reasonable solution. What you are passionate about is what you always do or can do without stress or supervision. Some times you could even find yourself doing it when you did not intend to. I must state here that you can also develop passion in areas like football, for example, even though you are not a footballer.

Let us use my blog, www.bizschoolonline.info as an example. I designed it because I am a Niogerian and I know that Nigerians need to be educated on how to make money and I am so passionate about it because it has been my research topic for long. How do I know that Nigerians need this? Simple! Because of the increasing level of unemployment and poverty. I therefore decided to research into an area where an average Nigerian can start a business with little or no startup capital. I have other sites but I am just using this as an example because it is a free blog. Yes! I mean I did not pay for hosting or domain name and it looks professional. The only money I paid was the money for the domain name www.bizschoolonline.info which cost me less than $6 but you can create a free one if you do not have money for the domain name.

Having answered the two questions above, you are now set to go into the business. Now, sit back and learn how you can set up your own free blog.

Setting Up a Free Blog to Start an Online Business

To set up a free blog for your online business, you can use any of the free resources available on the internet. For best results, I recommend www.wordpress.com and www.blogger.com. Any of these two will give you a free sub-domain name and a free hosting plan. Please note that it is a sub-domain name not a domain name. Your free sub-domain will look like www.yoursite.wordpress.com or www.yoursite.blogspot.com. Note that “yoursite” means the name you give to your site.

Without being biased, I strongly recommend www.blogger.com because of some other features they allow and word press does not allow. All you need to do is to visit the site and create a Google account and that is all. All other steps required to create your free blog are self-explanatory as far as you can read. You will automatically be taken through the remaining steps.

The good news about these blogs is that you can create as many as you want.

However, it is possible for you to buy a domain name and still host it with blogger. In fact, that was what I did with www.bizschoolonline.info . It is called pointing your domain name to your blog. If you visit my blog, you will see that there is nothing on it to indicate that it is a free blog because I have cleared off everything that associates it with blogger including the navigation bar.

Creating a blog is not the final step because an empty blog will not generate any money. You need to start posting articles that are related to your niche to the blog so that anybody that visits the blog will find it helpful. Post enough articles to the blog so that it will climb up in Google ranking.

How to Make Money with Your Free Blog

I believe you have known how to find your niche. I mean your area of interest or passion. You have also learnt how to develop a blog on that area. The next step now is how to make money with your passion.

The main reason you created your blog is to make money so I am going to tell you three different ways by which you can make money with your free blog. There are other ways but I will restrict myself to three different ways of generating money without investing a dime.

 Selling Information: Having known people’s needs or problems, you can research into the solution or proffer a solution. Type the information using Microsoft word and package it in the form of a book in PDF format and start selling it. You can convert word to PDF using MS word 2007.

What you just need to do is to talk about the problem on your blog and tell the visitor that you have the solution.  This is where your bank account e-mail address and phone number come in. They are to pay to your bank account and send their details to your phone number. Your own part of the business is to deliver the package to the buyer’s e-mail box. Mind you, do not let your price be on the high side else people will not respond. 

    Google Adsense: You have probably seen Google ads on other people’s websites and blogs. This is a free programme where Google pays you for anybody that clicks on Google adverts on your blog or site. Google sends your cheque every month that your commissions are $100 or more. You can combine this with information marketing. 

  Affiliate Marketing: In this type of business, you are to help other people to promote their products and get paid whenever customers buy the product through you. The most popular affiliate marketing site for now is click bank. All that you are required to do is to open a click bank account with them and copy links from products you want to promote and paste it on your blog which you have created for that purpose. With this, visitors will see the link and buy the product depending on how you advertise it.

How to Promote Your Business

Newspapers adverts and hand bills have proved to be very effective for people who have the money but since you are starting small and with my promise that you will not invest a dime, I will show you some other media of advertisement.

     Social networking sites: You will agree with me that almost all internet lovers have facebook accounts.   This is an opportunity for you. Just add as many friends as possible and write on their walls. You need to be tactical when doing this. For example if I want to sell a package on how to start an internet business, I can post this on a friend’s wall. Finding it difficult to start an internet business? Visit this link. The link will be my blog where I have advertised my product. You can use other social networking site apart from facebook. 

      Article directories: For affiliate marketing, the surest way is to write articles on the products you are promoting and post them to article directories. You are allowed to put the link to your blog in the resource box so that anybody that is interested in your article will click the link and be taken to your blog.

Millions of people visit article directories daily so you have the chance of making money provided your product is a needed product. An example of an article directory is www.ezinearticles.com. You can search for others using Google search. 

    Forums: Forums are places where opinions are shared. Many people get their problems solved through forums. Join forums and make replies to topics that are related to your blog. You are also allowed to post your own views or contributions. Just like article directories, you have a resource box where you can add your blog.

With all the information on your fingertips, you can now start your own internet business without investing a kobo. What are you waiting for? Now is the right time to start.