How to start an Internet Business?

Despite more than 10 years of experience dealing with Internet technologies, I am still new to Internet marketing. Lately, I have been researching on Internet marketing strategies which leads me some interesting findings. I would like to start my post with simple introduction tools to Internet business.

1. What makes you special?
Internet hosts millions of sites and the number is increasing day by day. What makes your business outstanding? Having a niche product/service will help you in identifying and growing your customer crowd. Surprisingly, simple business such as language translator, grammar tools, connectivity detection tools, Sarawak handicrafts, accessories and cloths are selling like hot cakes. Have you identified yours ?

2. Where is my shop?
You can host your Internet business anywhere. Ebay & Lelong.com provides member storefronts for you to start your "shop". Alternatively, you can even sell your stuff from blogs. Just post your products and services on web! If you want to have a virtual office with hotline number, you can look for various virtual office solutions in town which starts from RM80 per month. If you want something cheaper, leave me a comment and I will share more with you personally.

3. How to collect my money?
Popularised by Maybank, online banking is the fastest and safest way to get paid. Altenatively, you can open a free payment account with Paypal and fetch business from international customers as well.

4. How to promote my business ?
If you do not have spare cash to promote in Google Adwords, Facebook or online newspapers, try the following:

a. 7-11 - There are so many 7-11 shops in town, just post your ads there, you will be surprised about the results.

b. Freebies - Give out some freebies for referrals to your website. Your freebies can be the products that you are selling or simply an RM 20 Starbucks voucher!

c. Forums- Join forums with your website's signature. Be active and get to know friends there. Start with lowyat.net or malaysianbabes.net(if you are targeting ladies)

d. Signature - Design a good signature for yourself, prefebably with some nice graphics. Find good articles online and forward to your friends with your signature. Your friends will help you to forward those.....

e. Blogs - Visit friend's and stranger's blogs. Get your friend who is a frequent blogger to blog for your business.

f. Facebook - Leave comments on your facebook friends' page and start a fan club for your website.

g. Search Engine Optimisation- SEO . This is complicated but can be a good solution which is free of charge, leave me a comment and i will tell you more,:).

h. Youtube - Send your friends interesting Youtube videos related to your product with your website advertisement.

i. Information Collection- Search for info related to your product from the web and filter them.
Publish your findings related to your product on blogs and promote your product there as well.

j. RSS- Keep an RSS subscription for your potential customers to subcribe to your website promotions.

I will share more about my findings in the coming post. Stay tuned!