New Internet Business Resources
Anyone who wants to start an online business has a steep learning curve to climb. There are a few things that can help you get started on the right foot. These resources will be beneficial to you whether you are starting from scratch or you already have an existing offline enterprise and regardless of the specifics of your unique business plan.
Since they are all necessary, the order in which I suggest them doesn’t matter that much. Just be sure to follow all three suggestions.
A short course on starting an e-business. Sometimes you can even find a free course on how to start an online business. Whatever course you choose should not promise to reveal some hidden secrets. It should just be a straightforward, honest overview of the major points to focus upon as you begin your Internet enterprise.
Google Account. Just go the Google home page. Below the search box, you will see a short list of links. Click the link titled “Business Solutions.” There you will find a list of more than a dozen resources that Google offers to business owners. I suggest that you simply take a few hours exploring in detail what they have to offer. Eventually you may find some that will never be useful for your business. However, many will be. In my various businesses, I use the following most frequently:
– Analytics, which provides statistics for all of your major website traffic variables–free
– Checkout (a system for processing payments that you receive)
– Website Optimizer (tests your content on your website)–free
– Google Site Search (allows your users to find relevant content on your websites)–free
– AdWords (the advertising platform for Google’s pay-per-click program)
There are other Google services that I also use. I particularly enjoy the Google Reader (for RSS feeds) and Google Docs, which allow me to access my documents from any computer that I use–as long as I have Internet access. Your Google account is valid for all of these.
Perhaps the one thing that I use most often is a free list of Internet business resources. The document has hyperlinks that take me directly to a large list of free tools and to some of the most highly respected software for web businesses.
If you follow these suggestions, you will greatly improve the chances for your long term business success. It is very important to get off to a solid start.
