Of all the good things the internet brings us on a daily basis, very few people out of many who try actually get it right in terms of starting and operating a profitable business online. Between all the cleverly-worded scams and just some horrible service which turns out not to be worth the purchase, it can prove to be really challenging to grasp the fundamentals which make up what would be a profitable web-based business. If you understand that it ultimately all comes down to selling, then you’re already on the right track, but here are the key elements which make up a profitable web-based business.
- Demand first, product second
Sure, if you already have a product or service, whether it’s a physical or digital one, the internet makes for a great platform to market the product with the aim of getting orders and sales. Web-based businesses which make the biggest profits however, are those which focus on the demand first and then source the product or service to furnish that demand.
- Source the product
Again, if you have a physical product then you’ve already taken care of sourcing it, so too if you already provide a service you can sell. The beauty of doing business over the internet however is that information (content) is also a great product which sells very quickly and easily. Say for instance you have an e-book to sell. Once a buyer completes their payment, you can simply re-direct them to the download page and this can happen automatically while you’re asleep or busy searching for the next product or service which is in demand. E-book covers can be designed by graphic designers you solicit online and the same applies for the content you’ll use to put the e-book together. Your domain name and the sales page is essentially your sales channel or online store and all that’s left is for you to get targeted traffic to your sales page (landing page).
To expand on the principle of focussing on the demand first and then sourcing the product second, affiliate-selling counts as a form of sourcing a product or service to sell. Perhaps the best example of a form of affiliate selling takes the form of sites like Amazon.co.uk, who themselves don’t own any of the products they sell, but rather just provide the platform for other sellers to push their products.
- Driving Targeted Traffic
In order to fully automate your web-based business for profitability, the final step in the process involves search engine optimisation (SEO). If your product or service has proven to sell, SEO services you solicit to have your landing page optimised will have organic search engine traffic reaching your website and your sales offer viewed by hot leads who are so interested in what you have to offer that they in effect searched for it using search engines such as Google. Online marketing companies might essentially do all the initial search engine web marketing work for you (optimizing your website for search engine indexing), after which you can enjoy the benefit of internet users who are interested in your product, stumbling upon it via their search engine queries.
Done right, this repeatable 3-step process of the fundamentals of running a profitable web-based business can have you enjoying abundant fruits from what can be a serious digital empire.
