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Friday, April 30, 2010

The truth about internet-based businesses: My personal guide

After the global economic recession, many people have suffered from - the least - some money-bleeding. Specially those who had a business; because they were the people who have created trouble in the first place. The raising pricing to nearly every retail product was a major key to this. However, non-retail businesses got into much less cash-loss, since they are not the ones selling products. So what do I mean by non-retail businesses? Well, let's focus about internet-based businesses in this article.


The internet was first introduced globally, and to the public, in 1990. It was back then, when the first signs of globalization started to showcase. Nonetheless, it yet had many problems, like the expensive internet connection, the un-adequate communications, and the terrible ergonomics of websites. Of course, as with any technology, internet grew rapidly. In fact, as of January 2009 (after 19 years), there're over 1.5 billion users (and still counting), and roughly 230 million active websites. And as an internet-fanatic, who uses the internet daily, I must say, most website these days, including Facebook, are mostly about making a cash profit. It's also in the last couple of years, that making a business on the internet has never been easier. I'm not talking about retail internet businesses like Amazon or CraigList, because they're basically stores on the internet. But I want to talk about the new way of internet businesses; free internet services.

For instance, blogging, podcasting, and even creating an internet-based TV shows are all free. You can just go to YouTube, create an account, and there you'd do your own TV show. The same goes to blogging or podcasting, there are many and many websites, where you can create your own written or audio journal, for no charges at all. But now you're going to ask; can a normal person make-up a life-living cash out of just a YouTube account or a free blog?

There are many proofs that some people live happily, with lots of cash to spare, on just creating a simple internet business. Look at the founder of Facebook for instance - Mark Zuckerberg - which he created this website when he was just 19; and now at the age of 25, he now owns over 2 billion Dollars. Another example comes from the many TV shows that are uploaded on YouTube daily, like Ray William Johnson, or Phillip DeFranco, or What The Buck, or Shay Carl, or College Humor, and many, many others. If I still want to list any more examples, this article would never end. So yes, there is a way that we can create our own jobs, just by being in-front of the computer screen.

But don't rush things, because you're too excited! Don't close this page, and head to Blogger or anything like that; there's still more. You see, it is impossible that we all "make" jobs on the internet; because if that would happen, who's going to be responsible for every other life aspects? That's why we see some successful businesses on the internet, and pretty down-falling ones. So if you're going to make an internet-based business, you got to be tough, and clever all at once. Because this business has way too many competitions, and the biggies are unbreakable. I say, if you finally decided that you want you're own job, that only includes a computer, and an internet connection, you have to look over at the following:

- Be creative: It's the first step to any internet business. You have to create a new unique idea, that can actually bring viewers and advertisers to your catch. Of course, this can get very hard, since internet these days is just full of creative and innovative ideas. Well, no matter what happens, DO NOT copy! This is the kill to any business really. Yes, inspiration is always good, but you need to attach your creative touch into it. To put this into practice, do not make a website with the domain like 'FaceBooklet' (I know, it's silly), but make a website with essentially some potentials as Facebook, in your own style. But also remember, that do not show-off too much, whether it's in design or in editing. Keep things nice and simple.

- Set and show your objectives right: This is also never easy. You have to set what you want to do for a living. Do you want to write and talk about celebrates, or do you want to be that celebrity? In other words, don't be too general with your business. Try to be specific, for a start. Because for any business, you start small, and by the time, your business gets larger. You can start so small, that in fact, we won't be making any money at first. Remember though, NEVER to give up, as long as you have the courage to move forward.

- Try to get as much viewers as you can: Getting viewers to check out your business is critical, and yet always exciting. It's everyday, you wake up in the morning, it's the first thing you check; is how many viewers you got today on your blog or video. Viewers can also be derived easily to your business. To do that, you must let the big fellows to link your blog or video. For instance, you have a website about cars; so you try to let the large car websites link your site, therefore, their many viewers will also come to you. I call this action - "free advertising". And in my point of view, it's viewers that will bring cash. It's all down to sharing good experience. People will always chatter about their experiences, and when a viewer will talk to his or her peers about his or her good experience with your business, studies show that 3 - 5 people will check out your business as well. After that, companies who want to advertise for real, and with money on expense, will come as well. After all, they want some share of your many viewers to also check out their own businesses. This is when you generate money with profit, and your small internet business turns into a big one.

- Time to bring some help: As I said, starting small is a very good thing. However, now that your business is turning big, you have finally started to generate some money, and started to make a living out of it, it's now time to bring some workers to help your business grow more. Let's say you started your own online TV show by yourself, and now you got the money to hire a cameraman; so, you do that. Because the more people you get, the better quality of the business gets. And when your business has better quality, the more - again - viewers will share their good experience about your business, and it all falls into one big circle. So you generate some more money with profit, and you hire more workers as well. It's just a snap, and you'll find yourself ended up with a big company, which just started off by you!

- Expense money into real advertising: So you've been using the "free advertising" method, and it's been working out nicely. However, you can't rely on it forever, since you're now considered as a big company. So put some money in, as advertising expenses. When you properly advertise your business, you can pretty much guarantee new viewers to come in. Advertising is also beneficial when looking for some workers, because workers will always search for big brand names.

- Always refresh: It's highly-recommended that you always update your business, by adding new features, and yet keep it easy to all kinds of viewers. You also don't want to lose any viewers you got their trust to visit, so you keep them happy by what they were happy about before. So don't suddenly change the theme of your internet business. Yes, you may have some style change within time, but you have to remember what viewers liked about your business in the first place.

So these guide lines are for your help to hopefully get what business is after all; money. But in actual fact, there are many other, and maybe easier ways, to generate money. Nevertheless, as we all know, money is not the key to life's happiness. With this type of business though, you'll be closing the money-bleeding you and I went through the recession, and also do what we always had the passion for. In the end, living your true passion, and making it as your main job, is in truth, a life happiness check-box; which it needs to be checked!

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