Before you start your free online business, think about what you like - what moves you? What are you passionate about or good at? Are there areas where you can share your valuable knowledge that may be interesting to others?
The more you love what you do, the more passionate you are and the more you know about a specific topic or topics, the more you'll enjoy doing the work necessary to make your online business successful.
Match Your Interests with What's in Demand
As you go through this first step, you may identify topics that are hot with the general public or within a certain segment of the population. The next step in starting a free online business is going to be doing some keyword research, and what you discover during that step may alter your thinking slightly. Don't get locked in at this point, remain a bit flexible so you can combine what's popular with the masses with your personal interests, skills and abilities to make starting your free online business worthwhile.
The best part of keeping your costs at zero when you are starting a free online business is that you have nothing to lose except your time. Also keep in mind that you are starting your free online business for the long haul - this is not something that will make you get rich quick. In the end though, as you improve your online business savvy you can make a go of it, just be patient and be smart.
Determining if there is sufficient potential traffic to bring business to your website or blog is key before you start a an online business.
You'll want to generate as much traffic as you can - it's not going to come to you automatically. Use a free keyword research tool like the free version of WordTracker to help you with this step in setting up your online business.
Free keyword tools like the free version of WordTracker will tell you which keywords people are using every day that relate to your topic. When you find a related search engine keyword, note its average daily search volume, but dig deeper. For example, if you discover a good volume keyword phrase related to birds, such as bird identification, dig deeper and continue using the tool to find phrases related to bird identification you may not otherwise consider.
Once you have a list of potential keywords for your free online business, search for those phrases to see how many results are being returned. I recommend using Google for this purpose as it is by far the most popular search engine used today and is likely to result in the most traffic to your site.
The keyword phrases that best combine the highest volume (popularity) with the fewest results returned in a search (competitiveness) are your best bet. Because your free online business will be starting small, you will not be able to rank well for search terms that return millions of results - those keyword phrases are just too competitive to waste your time targeting.
You know you've hit pay dirt when you combine high volume with very low competition. An example I recently discovered was the phrase web seo ppc ny for which WordTracker estimated a daily volume of 1,598 against Google competition of 90,000. Examples like web seo ppc ny are definitely the exception and not the rule.
A number of free blog sites are available where you can set up a free blog you can use to start an online business. The two biggest free blog sites are WordPress and Blogger.
You'll get input from a variety of sources about which free blog site is best to create your free blog. From a search engine optimization standpoint, WordPress is highly regarded. However, when it comes to simplicity, it doesn't get much easier than Google's Blogger in my opinion. Selecting and modifying your blog layout in Google's free Blogger is a matter of selecting and dragging and dropping elements around on the page. And, because a later step to start an online business business involves opening and setting up a Google AdSense account, a free blog from Google's Blogger can be an excellent choice for starting a free online business as it integrates very nicely with AdSense.
When you set up your free blog you'll need a title and will likely have an option on creating the URL that will be used to access your free blog. Use your findings from Step 2 - Search Engine Keywords to create a title and URL that will blend with your selected keywords.
While many will tell you that when you start an online business you'd be better off with a website for traffic than a free blog, website's come with hosting fees and considerably more maintenance than a free blog. The easiest way to start an online business is definitely with a free blog from a free blog site. As you grow and your knowledge increases, you might consider other alternatives.
Develop Your Blog Content
Create some content for your blog. Blog content may consist of text, audio files, video files or feeds from other sites. Google's Blogger allows you to easily add news and blog feeds right on your free blog.
There are a number of sites that offer free content for your blog, but be careful. You really want original blog content that isn't duplicated somewhere else that's related to your targeted keywords.
Label your content in your blog posts. Create labels from the keywords you targeted in Step 2 and then apply them to each blog post.
The length of each individual blog post is pretty much up to you. Too long and your readers will probably lose interest. Too short and you probably won't have enough of your keywords in place to attract the search engines. A good way to handle blog post length is to let it vary so that you have some short and some longer pieces.
Don't forget that you can use videos on your blog. You can embed code from YouTube in order to display most videos available there right on your free blog, or you can create your own videos to place on your blog. The possibilities for blog content are pretty much endless, just keep your blog content focused, clean and to the point. The more blog content you create that others might want to link to (serve as linkbait) the better.
Set Up Google AdSense or Similar Accounts for Your Free Online Businesses
The next step in starting free online businesses is to create one or more revenue streams. Google AdSense costs nothing to join, yet it can result in an income for your free online business.
What is Google AdSense?
Google AdSense is Google's online advertising program in which advertisers agree to have their ads placed on websites and blogs that contain content that's relevant to the advertiser's business. For example, if you had a blog on cars, those who were advertising items related to cars, such as accessories and car parts would want to advertise on your blog.
With Google AdSense, Google does all the work for you. If you don't like one or more advertisers whose ads are being placed on your blog, you can block that advertiser from having ads displayed on your blog.
Qualifying for a Google AdSense Account
Google AdSense is not the only program out there, but it is by far the most popular and it's free. Your blog or website must meet AdSense guidelines by providing content that's acceptable to Google.You can't qualify for a Google Ad Sense account until your website or blog is already in place with content. So you need to get the blogs for your free online businesses set up before you can take this step.
Google AdSense issues its payouts each time you reach at least $100 or monthly, whichever occurs sooner. It's very important that you follow the AdSense guidelines to the letter, otherwise you risk losing any earnings you've already accrued.
Optional: Add Other Income Streams to Your Blog
Besides AdSense you might consider adding affiliate programs or creating and selling eBooks on your free blog to add more income streams to your free online businesses.
Include links between your blog content using the keywords that apply to the post that's the target of the link.
Use Website Promotion Techniques to Promote Your Blog and Build Traffic
You can promote your blog using website promtion techniques.
Like website promotion, promotion your blog involves building your traffic through a variety of sources and techniques. Secure links to your blog and its individual blog posts.
Become active in the blog community for blogs related to your topics and post insightful comments on other blogs, linking into your blog posts where you can using the keywords you targeted for that post in the anchor text of your links.
You might also contact other blogs related to yours to see if you can get included in their blog rolls - linked lists to related blogs. You might offer to exchange links with them. You might also consider placing links to related blogs within your blog roll.
It's easier for blog operators to know when others are linking to their site. Sometimes, by placing a link to another blog in your blog roll, you can get the attention of that blog operator who might in turn consider linking to your blog or to individual posts that might be of interest to that blogger's audience.
You'll also want to create a feed of your blog so that others can subscribe to it. Each time you post new content it appears in your feed. Services like Technorati and Feedburner are useful to bloggers.
You can also consider additional website promotion techniques, including but not limited to article marketing and email marketing.
In time, effective promotion techniques will bring more traffic and get you better search rankings, which will lead to more income for your online business.
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online business