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12-Point Checklist For Building an Online Business

Building an online business is never an easy task. Either if you are a business veteran or a beginner pursuing a dream, there are numerous challenges to overcome, trends to keep an eye on and a need for tremendous preparation. To make it at least a tiny bit easier, we decided to put together a 12-point checklist, covering all the essential steps for starting an online business.

1. The idea

The most crucial part of becoming an entrepreneur in the online business is to have at least a rough idea of what you could offer for your audience or customers. Are you thinking about offering a complex service? Would you like to generate revenue from an interesting topic and an audience? There are numerous business models out there, which you can follow and which can help you to visualize the future of your online business. Brokerage, advertising, infomediary or affiliate services are a few examples of online business types. With some research, you might find yourself coming up with an idea that fits one of these categories and seems like a real profitable one. On the other hand, if you are lucky enough to have at least a broad idea of what you would like to do, you are ready to move on to the second point.

2. Make ideas great again!

You wouldn't want to fall into the mistake of establishing a business, which offers services that nobody cares about. I know that you probably think that this isn't so, however, sometimes we can easily get carried away by our own "great" ideas. Your next step is to make sure that there is an actual need for the services that you would like to offer. How is this possible? Gather as much data as you can, ask people on the street, send out a bunch of emails to the ones who you think would be your target audience, run polls in online communities, etc.

All in all, try everything you can to get as close as possible to having a representative data. This will not only get you closer to confirming the "greatness" of your idea but will also help you to identify the real target audience. For example, if you create an online questionnaire and share it in a group chat, make sure to have people share their age and gender with you. This can be later used to narrow down your target audience.

Obviously, don't share your whole plan while talking to people, as you should be keeping your "great" idea to yourself. Share the most important aspects and features of your future product or service and have them rate your idea. It is even better if you ask for their email addresses, which help you create your initial email list. Not everyone will be interested or will be willing to share it with you, but it's a start!

3. Money, money, money

As mentioned earlier, there are numerous business models out there which you can follow with your next online business. However, picking one in the early phase is a must! You need to be aware of how will your future business generate revenue - and I'm not only talking about having a broad idea. No! You need to know the exact steps before setting up your business and throwing the whole idea out there. This will help you to stay on the top of your game, create your detailed business plan and most importantly, give you better chances at not failing - especially financially. If you will not be selling products, this can be tricky, so make sure to dedicate enough time to this topics. There are numerous solutions, so it's the best time to get back to the lab and start your research.

4. Take a look around

Okay. You have an idea, which seems to be interesting and also figured out a business model, that would generate constant revenue for your online business. Now it's time to turn the focus on the other players. Dig up everything on any other online companies, or solo entrepreneurs who are offering the same service as you will be. The chances are high that you will bump into a bunch of future competitors, where the best scenario is ending up with a few big names who are doing something similar. Why? Because it proves that your idea is already working - only it's making others successful at the moment and not you. Don't get nervous about discovering that your idea is already out there. In these cases, you can either get back to the first point and think of another one (not the easiest thing), or alter your present idea, so that it can offer something better, faster, cheaper, easier compared to your future competitors. Also, if it seems like that there are hundreds of others doing the same as you are planning to, don't simply just give up on your idea, but start thinking about how you could make it unique. Surely if there are hundreds like you, they were able to do the same, so why give up? The next point might come in handy in this case.

5. Analyze and learn

It's time to get back to the lab! Gather every detail that you can on your future competitors. Know them and know them well. If you are going to join the competition for online success, it is vital to know the business model of the others. How do they generate revenue? Who is the most successful? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What is their target audience? It might take considerable time but these insights are vital in the long run. Why? Because this can help you create value and transform your idea into an actual piece of art, that offers better capabilities compared to others. Furthermore, it helps you to make your future product or service: UNIQUE!

6. Uniqueness

If you have done your homework, you should be aware of the similar services out there. The information can help you to hone your future product or service and make it more unique. All the data that you have gathered in point five and two, will get you a bunch of vital insights on your target audience, the best business models out there, the various pricing possibilities, and on the unique functions, services or extras which are needed to differentiate your own service from your competitors. This is your way to uniqueness.

7. Branding

You have to look at your online business as a brand. The previous points can help you identify your message, and with a powerful message comes a strong brand. Think of the various aspects of branding strategies, from the smallest ones (picking the colors and fonts of your web page) to the more complex challenges (creating a logo or slogan). You might consider talking to a professional who can help you to create your own brand identity, which will make connecting easier. Once again, thorough research is indispensable and don't stop until at least you have a few sketches or names that seem to be catchy.

8. Online foundation

With all of these at hand, you should be ready to create the core of your online business, which consists of a well designed and attractive website, an email address, and social media profiles. You can set these up basically without launching the whole project, which gives you some buffer time to ensure that everything will go smoothly. Designing your website should be your top priority, as it will be your main tool to convert your readers/users/visitors into potential customers/subscribers. Make sure that your website has rockstar content, that helps you to connect with your audience and turn them into rabid fans.

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How To Start a Blog For Profit

An Easy To Follow Blogging Guide For Beginners!

A blog needs to be monetized to generate revenue. It should be a successful blog with a growing base of subscribers to keep generating more revenue. Only then would you have a profitable blog. Any blog can be monetized but there may be no revenue. Any blog can have some revenue but only consistent and sustainable revenue over a period of time will ensure profit. The fact that anyone can start a blog with little or no capital, the availability of a plethora of free tools, the ease with which one can get started and equal access to the audience ensures only the best would win. The competition has never been this stiff.

In this comprehensive guide for beginners we lay out the simple steps one must take to start a blog for profit.

Setting up the Blog

You can design a website from scratch, which should be easy if you are a programmer. If you have no expertise in coding or website design, then you should consider a content management system like WordPress. WordPress is free and it is the most popular blogging platform today. The open source software which is used by more than a hundred million people can be hosted for free using the WordPress platform or you can host it on your own. You can opt for shared hosting or dedicated hosting.

You may have your own server and configure it to host a site if you know the technicalities. The best strategy is to go for a WordPress site and shared hosting. You can move to dedicated hosting in the future when you make more money as it is substantially more expensive than shared hosting.

Getting started with WordPress is pretty simple. You can download WordPress directly from the official site and start building your blog using the simple guidelines. Or, you can choose a webhost and a shared hosting plan that supports WordPress. The control panel of the hosting account will get you WordPress. Thereon you can build your blog from within the website builder offered by the webhost. Even as you pay for the shared hosting plan, WordPress would still be free. If you don’t wish to pay for hosting, opt for WordPress directly and use its free hosting platform. This will have its limitations in term of bandwidth, storage and site features but you can keep your initial investment contained.

The following steps will illustrate how you would start a WordPress blog using a webhost.

• Choose a webhost and a shared hosting plan. Go to the website of the webhost and sign up for the plan. Provide all the details you are asked for, get a domain name if you don’t have one already and make the payment to get access to your exclusive control panel. Most webhosts will offer a free domain with a shared hosting plan.

• Set up your account, choose the password, the features you want and check into the Site Builder section. You will get the WordPress icon. There will be many options in the Script List such as Backups, Utilities and Blogs. You would find WordPress in the Blogs section. Click it, get redirected it to the installation page and install it.

• Use your domain name and set up your WordPress site, the blog which will be blank at this stage. You would have to work on the layout, design, features including plug-ins and everything from font to the unique elements of your blog. Don’t worry as there are drag and drop options from WordPress and from most webhosts that you can use to create your blog. You don’t need to write a single line of code.

Monetization of the Blog

You could use your blog for paid blogging. There are companies and individuals that want their products, services or entities to be promoted. These would normally pay a price for every blog post. You could take this route or you can write about what really interests you and think of monetizing the blog using advertisements. You can consider affiliate marketing, which is essentially blogging to promote and endorse certain products or services. When the audience you are targeting or your readers check out the post and click on links redirecting them to the official pages of those products or services, you would get paid. There are programs paying you for every user that clicks on the links and gets redirected. Other programs pay you a handsome commission should the users sign up for the service or purchase the product after being redirected from your blog.

There are a few quintessential elements of starting a blog for profit.

• You need to attain popularity. You cannot make money when your blog doesn’t have any dedicated readership. You need a loyal audience that would keep returning to your blog and would keep checking out new contents that you upload. The audience cannot be limited to a few dozen people and it cannot be sporadic. You cannot rely on rerouted traffic. Your blog must be popular and obviously it would have its target audience. The target audience shouldn’t have to search for something and then get to your blog. They would follow your blog. You don’t need all those readers to become subscribers or commentators. As long as they follow your blog and repeatedly visit it, the blog can be monetized. An unpopular blog or one that doesn’t have a substantial readership can have ads or affiliate links but the monetization will not generate any revenue.

• You need consistent traffic as that will pave the way for advertisements, paid contents and promotions which will help you to make money with your blog. Without traffic, posting ads or optimizing new contents and sharing of the content will be futile. The nature of the traffic, the target audience and the kind of outreach a blog has along with the focus or the niche will determine the type of ads, promotions and paid contents. A blog shouldn’t lose its value or core in the process of monetization.

• There are many ways to make money with a blog. You could offer free content to entice the audience and then offer exclusive or academic content for those who want more information and would be willing to pay a subscription fee. You could just use the readership and get paid through ads, affiliate marketing links, sponsored banners and all kinds of product and service placements on every webpage of your blog. You need a strategy that will allow you to target your niche readership while monetizing the entire space available on every webpage of your blog. From banner ads to sponsored posts, affiliate links to promoted contents, pay per click ads to paid promotional posts; you should consider every prospect of monetizing.

Targeting Readership/Subscribers

Every blogger can get their friends and family to become the first subscribers. Sharing a few posts will get some lost social contacts to start following the blog but not everyone may be reading all your posts. No one can use their personal contacts and social connects to get the thousands of readers that one needs to actually monetize a blog for profit. You need to target a thousand subscribers or readers, then two thousand and then five thousand till you can grow enough to become a formidable blogger.

Let us first address how you should facilitate the signing up or following of new subscribers and readers.

• There should be social media plug-ins to facilitate immediate following, liking and sharing. There should be opt in sections where readers can provide their email address and sign up for the blog updates, newsletters or emails and other types of communications. Aside from the RSS feed and other obvious plug-ins you should have a simple popup asking if the reader or visitor will want to get notifications from the blog. This may happen on a traditional browser, mobile browser or via social network, media and apps. Notification has become an alternative to the conventional following.

• Don’t ask for more details than what you need. Social media plugins immediately connect visitors to the blog using their existing credentials. Use email authentication or social media authentication instead of asking for email address, first name and last name, city and other unnecessary details. Your blog is not building a database of readers. You simply need a following to get a substantial readership.

• Always have a call to action on every webpage. Many bloggers opt for standard calls to action, suggesting they share the post or like, comment or check out more posts. While these are acceptable, you should think of unique calls to action. Host polls, get people to agree or disagree, encourage readers to write counterpoints so you can take the discussion further. Every blog post can become an asset provided it has enough stuff to trigger a conversation and subsequent engagement with a larger audience. A blog post that doesn’t generate any traction is a waste of space and effort.

• Incentivize your followers to entice more. Offer something to your new readers so they would be inclined to follow you or become subscribers. Give something precious, which could be rare tips or some insider knowledge, to your existing readers so they continue to follow you and read what you post. Today, not many people are interested in following for the sake of following unless they get rewarded in some way.

You will use your social media profiles and presence on multiple social networks to get more readers or subscribers. That would still limit your outreach unless you take a few quintessential steps. These are to be factored in at the time of starting a blog because otherwise you would need to rethink everything, right from your blog layout to the kind of content you are penning down.

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Introduction

Getting pregnant and childbirth are two of life’s greatest miracles.

Most women, when asked the question, “What was the most memorable event in your life?” often cite pregnancy and childbirth.

It’s like a gift from above. There is just no denying the powerful emotions that pregnancy and childbirth can create in parents.

However, while pregnancy is glorious and a rewarding experience, the hard truth is that there is a nutrition and fitness aspect that cannot be neglected.

There is also a flip side to this shiny coin. Many women often end up feeling that pregnancy has ruined their shapely figure and the stretch marks have disfigured them.

They automatically assume that once they’ve given birth, their bodies will never go back to the shape they originally used to be. Weight gain, stretch marks, a loss of sex appeal, etc. are negative consequences that women consider a trade-off to having a bouncy little baby.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes… pregnancy will result in weight gain. This is only natural and in fact, it’s healthy. However, the weight gain can be maintained without letting it get out of control.

All weight that is gained during pregnancy can be lost after pregnancy. After all, it’s just fat and the principles of fat loss are set in stone regardless if it’s a pregnant woman or an obese man.

It will take you time to shed the fat… but there is no hurry. Slow and steady wins the race. With patience and persistence, you can definitely lose the excess fat after childbirth.

If you persist, you can even get fitter and be in better shape after childbirth than you were previously. Your body is a marvelous organism and it will adapt to whatever demands you place upon it.

What truly matters is that you believe that it can be achieved. You must release any false beliefs that pregnancy and childbirth will result in you becoming an overweight, dumpy or unattractive woman.

The natural state of things will mean that you gain weight during pregnancy and you’ll lose it all after childbirth.

Even the world’s most female celebrities have had the following things to say about pregnancy and weight gain.

“You have to eat to feed your baby. And I have a girl, so I want her to see some day why her mom has good self-esteem and good body issues. It gets you down sometimes, I'm not going to lie. I've had days where I'm like, 'Ugh, I wish this was easier.' But it's not, and that's OK." – Jennifer Love Hewitt

"I’m taking it week-by-week so I don't get frustrated with myself. If I had a long-term goal and that's all I thought about, I think it would set me back more." – Jessica Simpson

"I think if you ask any pregnant mom, they're like 'I want my body back. But it takes time. It takes nine months for your body to get that way, and it's putting on that weight on purpose. The second I start to get down like, 'What happened to my body?' I look at my beautiful baby—and I've never been more appreciative for this body that I have." – Hillary Duff

The point to take away from all this is that it is normal to gain weight and it takes time to lose it. Will you feel down and depressed now and again?

Yes, you will. But you will persist and ultimately, you will get the body you desire.

There is much more to just losing weight after childbirth. You’ll also need to know how to eat right during your pregnancy, how to do certain exercises to stay fit and strong, what types of supplements to use, etc.

This book will give you helpful tips and techniques that you can use to get healthy and stay n shape during and after your pregnancy.

Do note that this is all just advice. It will only work if you adhere and apply the information within this book to your life.

You ready?

Happy Reading!

Chapter 1 – Pre-conception: What you need to know!

Before even getting pregnant, you should be aware that your health, habits, diet, fitness level and many other factors will directly or indirectly affect your pregnancy and the fetal development.

One example would be pregnant women who have the smoking habit. This does a lot of damage to both the mother and the child within.

If you’re going to get pregnant, you should eliminate all your negative habits prior to conception.

Ideally, you should exercise more, eat a clean diet, avoid alcohol and smoking is a definite no-no. If you have any issues with substance abuse, etc. you should eliminate all these before planning to have a baby.

Proper nutrition is crucial in the stages of pre-conception and during pregnancy.

The beautiful baby in your belly is physically incapable of providing for itself. All the food and nutrition it gets is determined by you. Surely you want nothing but the best for your baby.

A fetus also does not display any visible signs of malnourishment during your monthly check-ups. That means, even your doctor will not be able to ascertain if the baby is getting all the nutrients it needs.

Therefore, you will have to ensure that you’re eating enough for two and getting all the necessary vitamins and nutrients. Only by being proactive and taking an active interest in your nutrition will you be able to keep both the baby and yourself healthy and happy.