How to build a home internet business

Wondering how to build a home internet business? Lost in piles of information pointing you in hundreds of different directions?

There's no need to panic. You don't have to make any major decisions right at the start. You don't have to register a domain name and rush into anything at all. Remember - you are in control!

And that's really the whole point of setting up your own home internet business, isn't it? You want to be free of people telling you what to do - and you want to do something that's worthwhile and that you can be proud of. And if you're going to invest time and money in this exciting project, there's nothing like a bit of careful planning beforehand.

Grab a notebook to jot down any ideas that strike you as you go along. And let's start looking at how you can start to build a home internet business.

Who will your business be about?

The internet may be a rather technological looking place... and the word "business" does sound very official and important and tends to make us think of documents, computers, bank accounts and filing cabinets :)

But at the heart of the internet, and business too, are people.

People just like you and me! In fact, we are the ones who make the internet, and the business that goes with it, go round and round.

Every successful internet business focuses on a specific group - whether large or small - of people:

• Google focuses on people who want to find things on the internet
• Amazon focuses on people who want to buy books
• Myspace focuses on people who want to connect with others online

Now - these are the big boys. But there are plenty of small internet businesses - and successful ones - who are doing exactly the same thing. Take a look at your bookmarks or favorites, and you'll see plenty of sites you like to visit that are probably much smaller than the Googles or Amazons of this world.

My bookmarks are sorted into sites dealing with

• parenting
• gardening
• recipes
• webmaster stuff
• forums
• competitions
• Christmas

- and yes, I am a parent, I like gardening, cooking, building websites, entering comps - and I just love Christmas!

Some of the sites are biggies. Others are much smaller websites, offering more specialized information. But if you think about it, a good site is one that gives you lots of useful information and makes you feel right at home.

So if you're going to build a home internet business, you need to build a website that...

• gives your visitors lots of useful information
• - and makes them feel right at home!

Build a home internet business that provides lots of information

You know that there are millions of surfers out there all gobbling up pages and pages of info about all kinds of weird, wonderful and totally everyday topics.

And that is what most of them are doing - reading information.

They're probably not

• sitting at their computers, credit cards at the ready, just looking for some kind of store to buy something from
• searching for you or your business
• reading boring pages full of boring information surrounded by flashing banners and pop-up ads

Nobody wants to visit sites that are simply stores (apart from Amazon or similar sites, which you will not be trying to compete with), or with a few pages of drab, depressing look-alike articles, or full of turn-off ads. And unless you are already famous, with lots of people searching for you or your offline business name at Google, you're only going to be able to attract traffic by using one tried, tested and proven method:

Yes - if you want to build a home internet business that succeeds, it's essential to provide truly worthwhile information for your target audience.

What kind of information could you provide on your website? What can you write about in an enthusiastic, enjoyable way that will enable you to produce lots of pages with loads of information, and that will let your visitors sit back and click happily through your site, thinking, "hey, let's bookmark this, it's fantastic!

Surfers love finding a good site. They'll come back again and again, becoming your "repeat visitors." They'll recommend your site to others, or link back to it from their own sites.

And search engines love good, content-rich sites, too. They'll notice your original, information-packed pages and start listing them in their results pages. And you'll start getting traffic that is looking for exactly what you are offering.

... And that, in a nutshell, is how you can build a home internet business that will set you off on the path to success.

Making money with your home internet business

But have you noticed how money hasn't even come into the picture yet? That's because if you don't get any traffic to your site - you simply won't make any money.

However, built the right way, with the right focus, your site can attract the traffic you need to start making money.

How can you convert your visitors into dollars? Well, here are three examples:

• You can use Google's Adsense program, which provides ads targeted to your site's content and visitors. Every time someone clicks on an ad - you make money

• Affiliate programs are another way of making money through your website. You can join up with a merchant's affiliate program, put links to their products or services on your site and make commission from each sale

• Promoting your own or others' e-goods is another source of income. E-books, printables or photographs can all be sold through your site