How To Start An Online Business In 7 Steps

This article will show you what a profitable online business looks like and use my new business as an example.

When I decided to create a new online business, I had to sit down and really get serious about the requirements. I needed a clear-cut plan where every step in the process is guaranteed to bring me results, while also helping me avoid all the time-wasting fluff.

I studied successful online marketers like Jeff Walker, agency owners like Sabri Suby, affiliate marketers like Anthony Morrison, email marketing legends like Ben Settle, and a few more like Dan Lok for example.

What I did is, I went through their online material and I looked at exactly how they communicate with their audience. Then I compared that with things that have worked for me so far and projects where I was able to make money online.

This was a process of observing and comparing. But when I did this, writing down the requirements for my new business became crystal clear.

I’m going to share these 7 requirements with you in this guide and use my online business as an example so you can see how it works in a real-world scenario.

Let’s dive right into the 7 requirements that you must fulfill in your online business – and if you prefer to watch me explain this on camera, scroll up to watch the video.

1st Requirement: Selecting Your Niche

The first requirement is this: Selecting your niche (also called your market).

I have made this mistake, too, where I didn’t take this question seriously enough and it hurt me big time.

One of the very first niches that I picked, I picked it because it was easy to make money. But the market did not fit at all with my interests nor with my personality. The niche was designer clothes for kids – and you can probably imagine how ridiculous it was for me to go into that market.

I have also picked niches that were purely based on my passions. And initially, they worked well but I kept seeing it as my passion and wasn’t using my marketing skills to analyze my audience. I thought it was just about me, when in fact I needed to focus on my market.

In both examples, I didn’t take the question of “What is my niche?” seriously enough – and that was the reason for all my mistakes thereafter.

So always remember the crucial, first requirement: Select your niche and always see it as a market with needs. Your job is to fulfill these needs so you can run a successful business.

With all of these said, I do have a few recommendations, though.

• I highly recommend that you pick a niche where you see yourself working for years to come.
• Don’t worry about the money. What’s important is that the niche fits with your interests and your personality.
• Any niche can make you rich if you serve the market, but if it doesn’t fit you, then you will hate your business, and you will ultimately fail.

2nd Requirement: Study Your Market

After you have picked your niche, the second requirement is to study your market.

Your market is the people who buy and use the products. You must know your market better than anyone else, so you can say the things they want to hear and sell the things they want to buy.

I will be creating more guides on how to research your market but for now, I personally really like the “Halo Research Strategy” by Sabri Suby.

It basically boils down to reading the comments and complaints of your target audience on various different platforms, such as social media, forums, and reviews on Amazon. (Click here to watch Sabri Suby explain his Halo Strategy on YouTube.)

For my business, I started my market research by reading

• YouTube comments,
• Amazon reviews with low stars, and
• Facebook group questions.

Personally, I tend to focus on the negative comments because these comments come from a place of frustration. And we as entrepreneurs should answer these frustrations and make life easier for our prospects.

3rd Requirement: List Goals and Deadlines

The third requirement that any online business needs is a list of goals and deadlines.

When you have picked your niche and researched your market, you are now in a much better position to set the first few goals for your online business. Goal-setting is crucial so that you have a map.

It is also crucial that you set a deadline for each goal. Deadlines keep you accountable and help you prioritize your daily work.

Naturally, it can feel like there are a million things to do in your business, and that’s exactly why it’s important that you only set a handful of goals that are urgent and have a high impact.

For example, if you are starting your new internet business from scratch and you are reading this guide, then two high-impact and urgent goals would be:

• Write down your solution (or answer) to every one of the 7 requirements covered in this guide.
• Pick one of these solutions, and implement it.

Now that you have two goals, set a deadline for them, and start working on them.

4th Requirement: Traffic Sources

The fourth requirement for any online business is Traffic sources.

You need to gain other people’s attention and bring them into your business world. Attracting prospects like this is called: Traffic.

And the more traffic sources you have, the more potential buyers you have.

The three most popular online traffic sources are:

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Ads (Google, Facebook, YouTube, etc.)
• Social Media (Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc.)

When you start your new online business, you pick one traffic source and you make it work. Then you add another source, then another one, then another… but no matter which traffic sources you pick, having traffic is an important requirement for your online business to be successful.

A very important detail here is that the better you complete requirements 1 to 3 in this guide, the easier it will be for you to attract traffic. That means:

• The clearer you have defined your niche,
• The better you have researched your market,
• The easier it will be for you to attract traffic and prospects.

That’s why for my new business, my first traffic source is YouTube. It has never been my wish nor my goal to do YouTube, but many new online entrepreneurs go to YouTube looking for help because they prefer to learn through video content.

If you follow me along, then you will notice that for every video I also write a summary on my blog creategrowprofit.com/blog. This means every video turns into a blog post to attract traffic from SEO (Google and Bing), as well. In other words, after YouTube, my second traffic source is from search engines (SEO).

So that’s my traffic strategy and I have to focus on this until I have the resources to add another one.

You can do the same thing by picking a traffic source based on:

• Your niche, and
• Your market research.

5th Requirement: Email List

The next and fifth requirement for your online business is an email list.

The reason why I say email list is because most new online entrepreneurs make the mistake of selling to their traffic immediately. It is very difficult to directly sell to your traffic and usually results in a lower number of sales, which means less profits for you.

If you’ve tried video, writing articles, social media… but you didn’t make any money, then that’s because you were trying to sell too early.

It is much easier to sell to someone after you have interacted with them several times and proven to them as a trustworthy authority.

This is exactly why the fifth requirement is to build an email list and use your traffic sources to grow this email list.

Building an email list includes:

• Getting subscribers,
• Regularly sending emails to your subscribers,
• Asking questions and answering emails,
• Making offers to your email subscribers.

I will explain email marketing in greater detail in future guides (which I will link to here when they are done).

For now, what you need to know is that building an email list is crucial to the success and profitability of your online business.

That’s why in my business, anyone who reads my articles, watches my videos, or sees my social media posts, my only goal is to prove myself so that they want to subscriber to my email list. And you should do the same thing in your business!

Click here to check out my email list.

6th Requirement: Your Product / Service

Now we finally get to the selling part, which is the sixth requirement: Your product or service.

Obviously, you need to have something to sell so you can make money. What you sell can be:

• Product,
• Service,
• Physical, or
• Digital.

But there is a reason why this requirement is almost at the end of our list. The reason is that you must create a product or service that your market really wants and needs.

Don’t sell something that you think is great, sell something that your market thinks is great.

After you have fulfilled the previous five requirements, you are now in a much better position to offer a product or service that your market is truly excited for.

Imagine this:

• You’re getting traffic;
• You’re growing your email list;
• You’re sending emails and seeing the reactions from your subscribers;
• Even questions are being sent to your inbox.

At this point it will be almost impossible for you to not know what kind of product or service your audience wants from you.

In my business plan, it works like this: People who watch my videos, who enjoy my free guide, who read my emails, and who still want to learn more from me, can sign up for my live online classes. These classes are live calls and interactive, which means that seats are limited and there is a deadline to sign up.

This is the first service that I offer and it’s exactly what my audience wants and what helps them the most.

In your case, you could also:

• Write an ebook;
• Create a membership site;
• Or create a physical product.

What matters is that you offer what your audience wants; it makes selling much easier.

7th Requirement: Create Processes

Finally at number seven is the last requirement, which is creating processes.

This is a bit of an advanced step but equally important to really build an online business that will:

• Grow,
• Pay your bills,
• And support you and your family.

You need to create a step-by-step process for your business so you can track the performance and monitor the results. This is exactly how you identify weak spots and improve on them.

Here is my current business process as an example:

1. YouTube: Create YouTube videos.
2. Blog Posts: Transcribe each video into a blog post.
3. Email List: Videos and blog posts invite people to download my free guide and join my email list.
4. Newsletter: Help new subscribers start their online business for free with my newsletter.
5. Newsletter: Subscribers get to know me better and I prove myself first.
6. Live Online Classes: Invite free students (newsletter subscribers) to sign up for my live online classes.
7. Live Online Classes: Help students grow their new online business and help them make profits.
8. Feedback: Collect feedback from students, create additional material, and expand the live online classes.

As you can see, when you have your process laid out like this, you can always identify weak spots and improve on them.

There you have it! The list above is a step-by-step business plan based on the 7 requirements that any online business needs.

If you want to create a plan of action for your business, and you want help implementing it, schedule a free call with me right now. Click here and pick a free slot on my calendar to reserve your time.

And don’t forget to subscribe on my YouTube channel, @creategrowprofit.