Have you ever felt like the odd one out in your society, always wanting to live life to the fullest, never yielding to the preconceived notion of what it should be? If you feel that a traditional 9-5 simply doesn’t sit well with you and you’d like to try your hand at entrepreneurship instead, this is exactly the guide you need. Follow along as we take you from A to Z on what it takes to start an online business in 2023!

1. Find your reason why you want to be in business

Answering “because I want to lie on the beach and do nothing” is the wrong answer, at least in the beginning. What you need to do instead is think about what problems you want to solve and find a business model that supports your idea. There are numerous options in this regard. For instance, you could be:

- Selling online courses or ebooks

- Coaching and consulting

- Freelancing

- Blogging

- Starting an eCommerce store

- Coding an app

- etc.

In other words, you need to give people a very good reason for them to hand over their money, which means you have to give value far beyond what can be found online for free (only then will your product or service be considered competitive). The business model you choose is only a means of executing that problem-solving approach.

Whatever you choose, don’t get caught in the next shiny object trap. Instead, pick a plan and carry it out to the end.

2. Identify your target demographics

Once you’ve decided on what you want to be doing, the next step is pinpointing who your solutions are best suited for. Try to envision your ideal customer. Are they young or retired? What are their hobbies and where are they likely to hang out during their free time? Answering questions like these will get you a solid idea on how to approach your ideal customers through sophisticated marketing campaigns.

As a general rule of thumb, younger generations are more likely to have some presence online compared to seniors. Middle-aged moms are more likely to be using Facebook than, say, tech geeks who prefer to spend their time alone in their garage, tinkering with their newest gadget. Although these are broad generalizations, they are not to be discarded entirely – for starters, they will help you pick the most suitable platform to advertise on.

Choose your target demographics well. At the end of the day, it makes little sense to sell ballet skirts to male retirees.

3. Launch a website

Before you can start advertising, where can people go to find more about your products or services? It’s 2023, which means you’re going to need a website. As luck would have it, it’s not as difficult as it was 10 or 20 years ago. Nowadays, most hosting providers let you install complex scripts with nothing but a few clicks, and thanks to popular CMS solutions like WordPress, you don’t need any technical knowledge to edit your content.

Don’t forget you’re also going to need to register a domain before you can go live with your website. Pick a name that resonates with what your business is all about. This could be the name of your brand or a keyword that describes it such as “yourgototechconsultant.com” (we made it up for the purpose of illustration). As for the TLD, you could go for a .com or .net, but in 2023, most of the good ones are already taken, so why not go with an xyz domain instead? Not only will you have more freedom of choice, you’ll also find that most registrars let you register them for almost next to nothing in the first year, thus giving you ample time for a smooth digital start.

4. Start funneling traffic to your offer

Without traffic, you can have the best products or services in the world, but you still won’t sell a single unit. Therefore, start thinking about not only how you can target your ads intelligently, but also how to optimize your ad spend.

Certain ad networks like Google Ads, for example, let you laser-target your offerings by bidding for keywords that fit your business well (and have a low competition at the same time). Others like Facebook Ads follow a similar philosophy in the sense that your ads are displayed to the people who are most likely to be interested.

If you don’t have the budget to pay for traffic in the beginning, you’re going to need to focus on other marketing avenues like SEO and social media. The caveat is that, although it’s a free way to promote what you have to offer, doing so can eat into your time because it requires a ton of socializing, plenty of written content, or both.

SEO is technically free, but it can take a considerable amount of time before you start seeing results.

Conclusion

Once you’ve got it all figured out, it’s all about fine-tuning and refinement. Keep in mind that you’re also going to need to register your business, but since the specifics vary from country to country, it’s impossible to cover this in the scope of today’s guide. But don’t let bureaucracy discourage you! Stay on your entrepreneurial path, and eventually, you’ll make it if you’re willing to get up countless times after you fall.

Image Credits:

Get the Latest & Recommended articles in your Inbox

Subscribe!

Image 1: Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels