Starting  business is pretty much a MUST in this day and age. Jobs just aren’t cutting it, pay wise or fulfillment wise. Millennials are ditching the whole buying a home with a white picket fence idea and opting to travel instead. And in order to travel, you kind of need an income. That’s where I come in, and tell you how extremely easy it is to start a business.

The first step to starting an online business is deciding what it is that you’d like to do with your business. Do you make handmade soaps and bath bombs? Are you an excellent writer? A chef?

Whatever it is, you can make money through your skills one way or another.

Decide-So What is it you want to do with your life? What hobbies, skills or ideas can you turn into a profit. Think about it deeply and then, it’s time to

1. Build a Website – A website is your space to create. It’s essential to have a website as a business owner. How will your customers know what you offer?

 

The first thing you’ll need is a business name. Before you decide on a business name, you’ll want to check and make sure that no other businesses have the name that you want to use.

 

I’d highly recommend checking the USPTO’s (United States Patent and Trademark Office) website and run your business name through their database to see if anyone has trademarked your desired business name.

 

If the search comes back clear, then its time to see if your business name can be used as a domain.

It’s always best to have your name as an official domain as opposed to www.yourdomain.weebly.com

It looks tacky, and it tells your customers that your too cheap to care about your business.

 

There are various platforms to purchase your domain name such as Go Daddy, Bluehost, or Domain.com. I personally, have used Go Daddy and Bluehost in the past and find that they’re fairly simple to use.

 

Depending on what your domain name is, your domain name could cost anywhere from $4.99/yr to roughly $13.99/yr.

 

But keep in mind, if you’d like to host your website elsewhere, you’ll have to do what’s called a host/point from the site you purchased the domain from to the sit where your site is hosted.

 

To avoid this, you can simply go through SquareSpace or another site that hosts domains and websites.

 

After you chose a domain name that’s yours, it’s time to either find a website host, unless you’ve purchased both the domain and host from the same company.

 

The reason I chose to purchase separately is because the companies (web hosting and domain hosting) don’t always offer the same features. Therefore, I purchase separately.

 

Finding a Website Hostisn’t easy. But you have to know what you’re looking for when it comes to hosting features. For instance, are you looking for

 

• Unique website templates
• Low Transaction fees
• Unlimited Products
• The ability to sell Physical and digital Products
• Coupons
• Post-Checkout codes
• Flexible Product Variants
• Free SSL Certificates
• Abandoned Cart Recovery
• Real-time carrier shipping

Try to find a good hosting site that will offer these features and more. Personally, I use Shopify over Squarespace because I like the functionality of Shopify. And I wasn’t really fond of the Squarespace website Themes.

But if you’re looking for domain and hosting all in one, your go to’s are going to be:

• Shopify ($29 for the Basic Plan)
• Squarespace ($18 Business Plan)
• Wix ($14 for Entrepreneurs & Freelancers)
• Go Daddy ($19.99 for Business Hosting)

I’ve personally only used Shopify. And I absolutely love it. I’ve tried the trial of Squarespace and just didn’t like the Themes. And in order to use their abandoned cart recovery feature, (which is super important because it sends an email to the customer to sort of nudge them along to the buying phase).

 

2. Create a Product – Your product is one of the most important aspects of your business. It’s the tool that people will buy once they’re interested enough in you and your brand to hit that “buy now” button.

 

Depending on what types of products you’re going to make such as an eBook, classes, courses or other digital products like workbooks, the prices will vary from $0 to about $39/mo.

 

To create my products, I like to design them from scratch. So I use Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloudwhich will run you about $10.80 per month to use.

 

I also sometimes use Adobe InDesignwhich runs me about $21.00 per month.

 

However, if you’re not so great with Design, you’ll probably want to use a program with premade designs. I highly suggest Canva for Instagram graphics, eBooks, and pretty much anything digital.

 

Canva is free for the most part, however, if you want to have access for more workers, you’ll need to upgrade.

For eCourses and Videos, you can use Vimeo, YouTube or Google Slides.

 

And to host courses there are tons of sources such as Kajabi, Thinkific, Zippy Courses, Teachable $39/mo for the basic package, and Udemy (pricing varies).

 

 

3. Building an email list – Building an email list is absolutely essential to build your business. A mail list is how you will communicate directly with your audience and help them take the steps to become your clients and customers.

 

Mail Chimp – FREE if you have less than 2,000 subscribers

Converterkit- $29/mo up to 1K subscribers

GetResponse -$15/mo for 1,000 Subscribers

Campaign Monitor - $9/mo for 2500 emails/500 subscribers

iContact - $14/ 500 subscribers

Constant Contact - $20/mo for 500 Subscribers but FREE for 60 days

Vertical Response - $22 per month/1,000 Subscribers

 

4. Creating Webinars – Webinars are perfect if you want to create live classes and interact with attendees. There are several platforms for conducting live classes/ webinars.

 

WebinarJam – $479/yr or 3 Monthly Installments of $189 for the year

GoTo Meeting – 14 Day FREE Trial - $19/mo for 10 Participants or $49 for 250 Participants

Zoho –$10/mo for 5 Participants: storage for 10 recordings or $39/mo for 100 Participants

 

 

So, there you have it! Let’s Recap:

 

Web Hosting – $14-$29

Domain Name – $4.99 - $13.99

Product Creation - $0 - $21.00

eCourses – $14-29

Email List – FREE - $29

Webinars - $0-39

 

Keep in mind, to start out, you won’t NEED all of these services. To Start you’ll absolutely need Web Hosting, Domain Name, Products, and an Email List.

 

Happy Creating!