REQUIREMENTS FOR STARTING AN ONLINE BUSINESS

requirements for starting an online business

Learn the requirements needed for starting an online business. An online business is a form of business that people need to think of nowadays, the world we live in is evolving; technology keeps on changing. As a result of that, we can now be able to start our businesses on cyber space without having to pay that much.

Ladies and gentlemen, I greet you all. I once again welcome you to Earn Online Lesotho, today I shall be talking about the requirements that are needed when starting an online business. Before I can do that, I want to talk about one of the successful entrepreneurs who own online businesses.

I recently met Isabella Caprario an online entrepreneur. She writes for this website; Porch.com. This website according to Neil Patel’s ubbersuggest tool, has over 5 million backlinks and over 900k monthly organic traffic. Not only is that, but it has a Domain Authority (DA) of 79.

ubbersuggest in starting an online business

The more traffic your website attracts, the more your chances of attracting potential clients or customers. I am giving you all these stats to show you what you really need to be considered a successful entrepreneur.

Disclosure:

This article contains affiliate links Whenever you buy through them, i get a commission. However, these links don’t come to you with additional charges, i am only being compensated for promoting affiliate products that’s all.

These links are the ones that help me to me extra money in this website, so if you love my work, and you feel like you want to help me grow, buy through my links.

Now let us look at what will you learn in this article?

What is an online business?

An online business is the most common type of business models in the 21 century. This model works in such a way that you sell your services or products online. If you sell physical products, you only upload pictures of the products you sell online. Even if at the moment when you post they are not available.

This business model gets rid of renting an apartment. This allows you to work from the comfort of your home and at your own pace. But if you want to see progress, you will have to put in a lot of effort. Success will take time to appear, but with you being consistent at what you do, you will definitely climb that ladder of success.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have time for your kids, and husbands. If you feel like you really want to have a successful online business of your own, you will want to stay with me until the end of this post.

Successful online businesses

Blogging

online business;blogging

Many people have become successful by starting their own blogs. Just yesterday before I could write this blog post, I was watching a video of how Susie helped her husband to retire from a 9-5 job and started his own home-based business.

I can name many people who have become successful by starting their own blogs and fired their own bosses. I can talk about Yaro starak, Ryan Robbinson, Allison Lindstrom, Neil Patel, Mike Vestil, Tanya Aliza, Linda Ikeji, Pat Flynn, Gary Vee and many others. The list is endless, last week I was reading a blog post from a South African Paul Iwuoha on how pereshilton site crashed due to a lot of traffic that was visiting that site.

My friend, many peple have hit a 6 figure income through blogging, but heey, be warned, it isn’t easy to achieve such a massive success. But if you work hard and apply the right strategies, you will get there.

Digital Marketing

online business; digital marketing

Digital marketing is nowadays exchanged with blogging. However, digital marketing is the business model whereby you write your content based on certain keywords. For example, if you know a lot about Linux OS, you can start a digital marketing site or blog where you are targeting certain keywords which people search on Google regarding Linux OS.

There are many people who have already started making a living with digital marketing. Apart from that, you write with the purpose of solving a certain problem. Not only is that, you would want to go for keywords with low competition so that you can appear on the first page of Google results.

I am sure you get a picture. You cannot go for a keyword with an SEO difficulty of 89 while starting, you will not rank well on Google. In fact, you will just be wasting your time, this is the mistake I made when I started my digital marketing career.

Being a social media influencer

social media influencer

If you have a lot of influence wherever you are, you should start a career in being a social media influencer. A social media influencer is a person who gets a lot of following due to the impact he or she is making. For example, you may be helping people to lose weight in 5 days. Just by doing that, you can get a lot of traction and get paid for doing that.

In Lesotho, Lilaphalapha, Sir Matee, Ngaka-Lia-nya, Commanda Obbs, Love tips and many others are the influencers you can get in Lesotho. Because of what they are doing, they get a lot of following and that attracts customers or sponsors. Companies can hire you to represent their brand by simply having a large following on social media.

Freelancing

Freelancing is one of the business ideas you can implement online at your own spare time. When you freeelance, you don’t have to be part of the company full-time, you can go there to do the work when there is a gig. You can offer freelancing services such as web design, graphic designs. You can also write jokes and sell them to a comedian. Comedians dry up their jokes too, they need fresh material for their audiences.

Steve Harvey in his motivational speech says he used to write jokes for a dude called Aj Jamal, then that guy’s girlfriend asked Steve Harvey to a comedy night club. When Steve Harvey went there, he got a spot simply because a signed comedian was absent, that is how his career started, you too can do it.

Dropshipping business

dropshiping business model

Dropshipping is a business model whereby you as an individual person you sell products from another company and then when a purchase is made, the company delivers the goods to a customer. You act as a middle-man between a customer and a company. You don’t have to have goods, you sell them online and the company delivers them to a customer’s place.

This is one of the online business ideas people can come up with. It is very unfortunate that in Lesotho, there are no companies who do dropshipping, I would grab that opportunity with two hands.

E-Commerce site

You can start an e-commerce site and start selling your products online. If you don’t want to start a site from scratch, you can start your online store on shopify with affordable prices. That way you will not incur costs of hiring a web developer, you will only pay a once off amount for setting up your store on shopify.

SEO Services

Many people want their web pages to rank on the first page of Google. If you have Search Engine Optimization (SEO) skills, you should use them to earn money online. You can offer your services to new businesses which are booming but are not appearing on the first page of Google.

Lead Generation Service Pack

lead magnet sales funnel

Sometimes when doing an online business you will find that people only click through your links if you are doing affiliate marketing. This is where lead generation service pack comes in. If you have skills on you can lead people to make a purchase, you are onto something that people can buy.

Many people struggle with the process of converting visitors into leads. This is indeed an enormous task which requires a lot of training. You can train people to learn how they can convert their visitors into buyers, I mean we don’t eat “likes or clicks.” Those clicks need to be converted into purchases. If you have these skills, offer them to your customers

What are the requirements for an online business?

From wherever you are, I want you to take a moment and digests all the above points. Look at yourself, ask yourself as to whether you qualify to start an online business.

Are you able to speak or write English? If no, but you want to have an online business, your job will be much harder.

You should have a smartphone or computer

a computer

Smartphones make the world a village; you can be able to talk to somebody overseas while in Africa. It is necessary to at least have a smartphone or a computer. You may be wondering as to why you would need either of those two tools in order to have an online business.

A computer or a smartphone will allow you to access the internet. This will allow you to advertise your products or services online. Since you will always online, you will need either a smartphone or a computer. It doesn’t have to be a new smartphone or a new computer, even a second hand one will let you to achieve your dreams.

You should be able to speak and write English

What if I don’t know how to speak or write English, can’t I start an online business? That is one of the questions one individual person is asking himself or herself. Well, to respond to that question, I would say, you can still manage to start an online business. The problem with not knowing English is that, you will reach a small audience for your business.

English is one of the international languages spoken in many countries. This means that, being able to write that language, you will be able to reach a denser audience for your online business. Let us take my home language being Sesotho, how many countries across the globe is it spoken! The answer is few countries. There are language translator applications online but some of them don’t accurately translate a certain language to another one. Therefore, I say English is the language to go if you want to start an online language.

You should have something to say to people

You want to start an online business because you have something to say or to offer to people. If you don’t have anything to say to people, well don’t give up just yet, there are many sites that can help you to choose what you can offer. In the upcoming articles, I will keep you updated on that topic.

You should have a business idea to implement. That way, your plan of having to start an online business will be easier.

Patience and being able to use social media

social media

If you want to start an online business, you must be there on social media platform so that you can market your business. You should also have patience; it takes time to build a legitimate business online. For you to spread the word out there, you will need a lot of exposure. Social media is there to offer you that kind of exposure when it is used the right way.

Benefits and Advantages of a Home-Based Business

I just found out that people are looking for advantages of starting an online business. In this section, I will list advantages of owning an online business. I got motivated by Isabella’s article on how to start a Small Business at Home. In her article, she listed the benefits of having an online business. If you want to learn more you will have to read that article.

  • You have time for your family
  • You don’t pay office rent
  • You save transport as you work online

Online Business ideas you can implement

I do believe that you are reading this article because you want to start an online business. The question is, which online business ideas can I start? Well that is the perfect question. I am saying this because all successful businesses chose one idea or niche.

The following are the things that you can sell online:

  • Home-made crafts
  • You can sell your services
  • You can sell digital products
  • Physical products

Online business ideas for beginners

  • Sell product on Amazon
  • Publish an E-book
  • Be a consultant
  • Offer tech support
  • Podcasting services

Steps to starting an online business

The following are the steps you have to follow when starting an online business. Before I list these steps, i want to tell you that it is very difficult to start an online business that generates income. If you are in a country where people don’t trade online or buy online, it will be difficult for you to succeed online. Anyway, let me list the steps you need to follow to start an online business.

  1. You must have a niche
  2. You should choose the right target market
  3. Online platform
  4. Advertising strategies
  5. Be ready to hustle no matter what

If you follow all the above steps, your job will be a little bit easier when starting an online business.


Best books for starting an online business 2020

Sometimes to be successful, you have to read books or guides which will help you to learn more about a certain discipline. The below are the best books for starting an online business :

We finally reach the end of this article, we learnt that in order to start an online business, you must be equipped with the knowledge of social media, with a lot of patience. Not only is that, but you should also own a smartphone or even a computer for they allow you to access the internet easily. Apart from that, you must have an idea of what you want to start as an online business. The question is, what are you waiting for? Go, go start your business right now. But you should know that patience breeds success, so please work hard and be patient!