The following points I found to be of great importance when starting my businesses.

1. Read and Research

Ensure you have all the necessary information to start building your home business. Research the demand for your product. Do all the checks on legal requirements in your area. Prepare a budget and stick to it. But most of all, ask yourself are you prepared to commit time and effort to your business. Don't for one moment think you can put your site on the web and sit back and wait for a miracle. This is when the work really starts.

2. Choosing a Domain Name and Host

Choose your Domain Name and your Domain Host. Ideally the Domain Name should reflect the type of business, service or product you are selling. Make the name as short as possible, long names are hard to remember and are often misspelt.

There are some great web hosting companies, I use two, but for my main site I chose Third Sphere because they offer so much more than just hosting and when I was just starting out, I needed all the help I could get my hands on.

3. Website Design

If you are not a web designer and would like to do your own website, there are some great tutorials, guides and programs that can make the task a lot easier.

Two of my favorite products are XSitePro an amazingly easy-to-use website design program and Jim Daniels ezWebBusiness Builder, which is a "see and do it" program. Neither of these products require a knowledge of HTML.

You may prefer a book such as "Website Design Made Easy" by Dennis Gaskill, this book is widely used in colleges throughout America.

Whatever you decide, make sure your site loads quickly and check that it loads correctly on a couple of different web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Netscape.

4. Submitting Your Site

Before you actually submit your site to the Search Engines, please check and recheck your content for spelling errors and ensure all your links work.

Ensure you have the best possible keywords and content description to ensure maximum Search Engine optimization. There are many reports and ebooks on this topic alone, you will find free information on this subject so don't pay for something unless you really have to. Search the web for freebies first.

A lot of Web Hosting Companies such as Third Sphere have a Search Engine Submission service, this makes the task quick and easy.

You will also need to decide whether or not you are going to pay for submitting your site to some Search Engines such as Yahoo. This can be quite costly, so do your homework first, before spending any money.

5. Advertising and Promoting Your Site

There are some great ways to promote your site. You can use the pay per click type of advertising with Google, for example. Advertising in ezines using either free or paid ads is another very good way to get your site and products promoted.

Also, do not overlook the "power of the press", it is still a great way to get your message out there. Local papers, magazines relating to your product are worth a try. But, keep a close check on results - track where your customers are coming from - then you can decide which advertising method is best for your business.

Another very effective way is to write your own articles for your website content. To get greater recognition, submit them to the following Article Directories :

• Ezine Articles
• Article Feeder
• Go Articles
• Article City
• Submit Your Article

One often overlooked strategy - add your signature to all your emails, including your URL!

6. Don't Be Fooled

You have no doubt read that once your website is up and running you can sit back and your business will run on its own, automatically, like magic! Not true! A good Autoresponder can certainly make life easier, but you have to feed it with prospects first!

You have to start building your subscriber list. I've used subscriber list generating companies, but in all honesty if you want really good subscribers who are interested in your products, you have to do the work.

Another thing I found with buying subscriber lists, you really are fooling yourself into thinking you have a list of people who have subscribed to your list because they are truly interested in your product only. This is usually not the case. Certainly use these types of lists to get started, but keep in mind that a big percentage will opt out. (And you have paid for them!!)

So as I mentioned previously, you have options -

Advertising, writing articles, or strategies such as Link Exchanging and joining in on Forums will all help.

So, No you can't sit back and wait for the dollars to roll in, you have to put in the effort first.

Finally, the best advice I would give anyone starting an online (or offline) business is this:

Read all you can on your topic of interest - DO NOT get your credit card out unless you are convinced the product/ information you are buying is what YOU need, not what someone else tells you you want.

In the words of Jim Rohn ...

"Let the views of others educate and inform you, but let your decisions be a product of your own conclusions"

Follow these simple tips and advice and you are bound to reap the rewards.

Joan Maughan
Summerset Global Marketing, Owner and Publisher of HomeBiz Leaders & Achievers Newsletter and www.joanmaughan.com

Copyright © 2005 Joan Maughan.