Do you want to start an online business? Do you want to know what tools to get? Are you looking for online business solutions?
I remember learning about online business solutions in college and it never felt like we were discussing anything useful. I took an online business course in late-2010 and I swear we didn’t have more than one blurb on blogging or Google’s role on advertising throughout the whole semester. How are students supposed to care about an online business when the textbook is behind the times? I spent most of the class time blogging.
We just covered the best business to start in college. We shared many resources with you here in the past. Today we’re going to look at online business tools that you won’t find in your business textbooks.
I wanted to present you with the only online business tools that you need to get your business started with a bang!
I highly recommend that you check out the easy steps to starting an online business if you want to know how to use the following online business solutions:
Find a place to host your business or blog.
You need to sign up for hosting so that you can have your own domain name. Nobody takes a “.wordpress.com” blog seriously. I totally recommend that you spend the few dollars per month to get a legitimate domain name. This way your business or blog will be taken more seriously at first glance.
When you sign up with Bluehost you can host an unlimited amount of domains for only $6.95/month. This means that if your first business idea to start an ice sauna in a cold city doesn’t work out, you can always try something new out and not have to sign up again.
I don’t recommend getting all excited and buying your own domain right away. Before I started Studenomics I wrote an article a day for about or month or so. One Friday afternoon, I need to kill some time before going out and I found myself signing up with Bluehost. I had plenty of articles ready to go. I had a bunch of articles up when the site was launched.
Once you get your domain, you can move on to the next step.
Get a blog theme.
The great news is that you don’t have to pay for some fancy site design. You don’t have to pay anything if you don’t want to. There are plenty of free WordPress themes that I mention in the easy steps to starting an online business post. A blog theme these days literally does everything for you. I have ZERO graphic design skills and couldn’t put anything together. With the huge variety of themes out there these days, all you have to worry about is writing the quality content. The automated theme will do the rest of the work for you.
Get an online business communication tool.
Do you want to keep in touch with your readers? Do you want to know who your true fans are? You need to sign up with Aweber. This is one of the best online business tools in my humble opinion. I use Aweber to deliver my weekly exclusive messages to my subscribers (you can subscribe to the right of this post). Aweber is helpful for any sort of business or blog. The few dollars that you spend on Aweber per month is worth it because you can collect emails and stay in touch with your most dedicated fans.
Use a research tool.
Just like with any other business, you need to do your research. The beauty of an online business is that you can easily research what’s going on in your field. You can see how many visitors your competitors site is getting, you can see what keywords are popular in Google, and you can see what niches are worth exploring. All the numbers, research, and data that you need are ust a few clicks away.
There are many ways to conduct research. There are many premium tools here, but as a beginner you can get away with using a free resource. The easiest (and free) tool to use is the Google Keyword Tool. With this tool you can see how many people search for every single topic on the Internet.
You can easily determine within a few clicks if that new business or blog is even worth pursuing by looking at the search volume. You can also see what the competition is like to consider if you even have a chance at making it to the top.
These are the essential online business tools that you need if you want to start your new online business with a bang.
Do you need more help?
If you sign up with Aweber or get a domain with Bluehost, shoot me over an email to md at this domain dot com or leave a comment here. I will guide you through the steps and make it as easy as possible for you to get started right now.
If I missed any essential online business tools, please share them below.