Most people neither not know how to build a profitable online business nor understand what it takes to build one.

The most common mistake many beginners make is to treat their “online business” as a hobby. 

At the other extreme, they make it more complicated than it actually is. 

That probably explains why up to 95% of online businesses fail.

So, let's look at how to build a profitable online business - not just a hobby blog.

Step 1. Create A Clear Business Plan

Planning your business puts you into the driving seat. Instead of just going where the hype takes you, plan your way to success.

Find a niche-market, select the products to promote, decide how you’ll reach your market with your message.

Plan every detail of your online business and discover just how deliberate success is on the world wide web.

To help you do this, Creating A Business Plan is a mini-course designed especially for Internet marketers.

Step 2. Own Your Web Presence

Although you may start an online business without a website, in the long run having your own internet real estate pays. Without your own self-hosted site you don’t have control of your web presence.

If you run your business on a free blogging service, you do not actually own your blog. The program owner can take charge of your business; dictating what you can and cannot do; including whether you can or cannot be found online!

When it comes to building an online presence, quality beats price - so find the best quality hosting service available before you set up your site.

Step 3: Master Targeted Traffic Generation

Unless someone visits it, even the best website is rendered worthless. It will never get your message across to your target market. The more eyeball activity your site gets, the more likely it is to generate leads and ultimately, sales.

That’s why traffic, particularly targeted traffic, is considered the lifeblood of a website; it is that important. If you know how to send the right kind of traffic to your site, you can be guaranteed that your business will prosper. Learn everything you can about driving high quality traffic at the lowest cost per click.

Step 4 Build Your List

You know that the ultimate goal of an online business is to generate sales (and commissions). But that's actually an end; generating leads and building an email list is the means to that end.

A list is like your own customers' database. It includes potential customers, those that have clearly shown interest in your products and those that have already purchased from you. With a list, you hold serious ammunition which you can use to generate invaluable repeat sales.

Step 5: Set Up Your Payment Processor

When you finally convince a customer to buy, you’d better be ready to accept payment in the form they offer it. 

This isn’t just about setting up payment processing solutions like PayPal, credit card processors, etc. It is also about providing solutions that offer peace of mind to your customers. 

For example, if you sell a service, setting up Escrow will increase your trustworthiness.

Whether you’re selling your own products or affiliate products, you need to direct sales transactions to a secure payment processor. Otherwise your business will lose credibility. And you know what happens when customers lose trust in you…

Know You Know How To Build A Profitable Online Business... Put It All Together!

Individually, none of the 5 components above will ever create a business. Instead, make them all work together with your advertising, ad tracking and all the other web building tools at your disposal to put together a well oiled virtual machine.

You’ll notice how they will form a powerful money generating system that’ll work for you even when you’re asleep. 

That’s how you build an online business that’ll remain profitable for years to come.

David Hurley

Top5Programs.com