Are you tired of the daily grind and dreaming of becoming a Digital Business Owner? Well, you’re not alone! Many career switchers are seeking a fresh start and considering the exciting world of online entrepreneurship.
Starting an online business might seem daunting, but fear not – we’re here to guide you every step of the way! In this blog, we’ll walk hand in hand, exploring the ins and outs of launching your very own digital venture. From finding that perfect business idea to building your online presence and beyond, we’ve got you covered!
So, grab your favorite drink, kick back, and get ready to dive into the limitless possibilities of being a digital business owner. Let’s embark on this exhilarating journey together! Ready? Let’s do this!
Table of Contents
The benefits of starting an online business
Starting an online business can be a great option for career switchers. Here are some of the main benefits of becoming a digital business owner.
Financial Freedom
This, in my opinion, is the biggest benefit of being a digital business owner. You are your own boss – work when you want, without the need to dress up for work or commute to an office.
Of course, owning an online business might entail more work and stress than an office job, especially in the beginning when you’re investing more but not generating immediate income or engagement.
Location Independence
With your business entirely online, you can work from anywhere in the world. Imagine working from some of the most exotic places on the planet or traveling around the world while running your business. The choice is yours!
Flexibility
With a digital business, office hours are entirely up to you. Whether you choose to work in the morning, afternoon, or evening, or even on weekends, it’s all in your hands. However, it’s essential to maintain the discipline to ensure all the work gets done. Without it, your business won’t grow and succeed.
Lower operational cost
There are two ways to increase your profits. Increase your sales, or reduce your costs. While focusing on increasing sales is essential, lowering costs should not be overlooked. The good news is that running an online digital business can be incredibly cost-effective.
Automation plays a significant role in cutting expenses, as it allows you to handle numerous tasks without the need to hire additional staff, or any staff.
Remote work friendly
After the COVID-19 pandemic many people have switched to working remotely and do not want to go back to office work. With an online business you can hire these remote workers to help you with your business. You are not limited to your geographic location either, you can pick workers from all around the work.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have embraced remote work and prefer not to return to traditional office settings. As an online business owner, you have the opportunity to hire these remote workers to support your business. Moreover, you are not limited to your geographic location – you can choose workers from all around the world.
Opportunity for global reach
Websites are hosted on the internet, making them accessible worldwide. This means that anyone, anywhere in the world, could potentially become your customer. However, practical considerations like language barriers and shipping costs may limit this reach.
Nevertheless, depending on your business, you may still be able to acquire customers from multiple countries. One specific concern is the potential slow loading of your website for visitors located far away from your web server.
I previously wrote about finding a global hosting provider: Secrets for using SiteGround as your global hosting provider.
Increased job satisfaction
Running an online business can be more fulfilling than working for someone else. You have the freedom to pursue your passions and create something that is truly your own.
Opportunity for niche markets
Online businesses can cater to niche markets that may not be viable for traditional businesses. By offering specialized products or services, you can attract a dedicated customer base.
Increased creativity
Starting an online business allows you to be creative and innovative. You can come up with new ideas and try out different strategies to see what works best for your business.
Continuous Learning
As a digital business owner, you’ll be constantly learning new things. You’ll need to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies to stay competitive.
Automation
Another great benefit of running an online business is that you can automate a wide range of tasks that you would otherwise have to hire someone to do or spend the time doing yourself. This makes tasks easier to complete and cuts down on costs.
Attracting career changers
Employing a career changer can re-invigorate your business and their co-workers. They can provide value with new ideas and a fresh approach.
Open 24/7
An online business is open 24/7, which means you can make money even when you’re not working.
Overall, starting an online business can be a great way to take control of your career and enjoy the benefits of being your own boss.
Increased accessibility
Online businesses can be more accessible to people with disabilities. By offering digital products and services, you can make it easier for people with disabilities to access your business.
Self-Reflection and Idea Generation
Think about your personal skills and interests. What kind of products or services can you provide online? You can blog for a living and generate income from affiliate marketing, ads and sponsorships.
Alternatively, you can sell physical products or services using an E-Commerce site.
You can create jewelry or craft items and sell them on Etsy or other platforms.
It all depends on your interests and skills. You can use the concept of Ikigai to help you, it’s a Japanese concept that helps you find your purpose. In short consider this:
- What do you Love?
- What are you Great at?
- What does the World need?
- What can you get Paid for?
What business can you think of that satisfies all four areas. That’s is what you should do.
Find your niche and target audience
You want to serve a niche, rather than an entire sector. For example, instead of Yoga you could niche down to Yoga for Busy People, or Yoga for Senior Citizens. The idea is the more you niche down the more targeted and relevant content becomes.
You can always expand your niche later after you have traction and momentum.
Your target audience are the people most likely to buy your service or product. You can determine that in a number of ways:
- Competition research – what demographics are your competitors targeting
- Social media
- Other blogs or websites
- Reddit or other forum sites
Creating an Online Presence
You will need to create a website as a platform for your business. Decide on a domain name, the online name of your website, and register it with a domain registration service. Namecheap and GoDaddy are popular sites for domain registration.
Next, find a hosting provider. This company will provide you with a web server to run your website on. They also provide tools and other services to help you run your site.
Many hosting providers can also register domains for you as part of the website creation process.
Once you have a website up and running you should learn at least some basic SEO so your content will have the best chance of ranking highly in search engines.
29 SEO Tips and Tricks to help you rank better in Google
E-Commerce and Payment Solutions
If you have decided to use WordPress as your website and blogging platform – which I recommend, you can use a free plugin called WooCommerce to add E-Commerce capability to your website.
Alternatively, you can use other platforms such as Shopify.
Scaling and Growing the Business
At first, you will have hardly any visitors – or not at all. This is normal, it takes a long time to gain traction and momentum. Don’t be disheartened if you don’t on the first page of Google after a few weeks or months.
The key is to learn how to do keyword research so you target the most relevant keywords for your target audience.
I talk more about this is my article: How to find niche keywords for your blog.
You can quickly find a list of relevant keywords if you have known online competitors. Find out what keywords they are using, learn more here: Dominate Your Niche with Comprehensive Competitive Content Analysis
In general, and especially when you are starting, you want to target low competition keywords. They don’t attract much traffic but are easier to rank for. Depending on your niche and the profit margin of your services or products you may not need high traffic to become profitable.
In addition to selling directly there are other ways to make money online. Here are some examples:
- Including ads on your website (see: Google AdSense)
- Affiliate Marketing – get commission from third party sites when a purchase is made via one of your links (see: ShareASale)
- Sponsored Content – write content for a brand of business (ensure you let readers know the content is sponsored)
- Ask for Tips or Donations on your website
Advice on producing content
You may need to walk a long road before finding success. It’s important to have the right mental attitude.- and fortitude – to keep producing content when you are not seeing any results.
The results will come, you just have to trust in yourself.
I find having a clear process I need to do produce content helps. Here is an example process you can use:
- Brainstorm ideas
- Do keyword research to find target keywords for your ideas
- Do research for your article
- Write the article
- Add relevant images throughout your content
- Add Subheadings to your article
- Add a Table of Contents to each article you write
- For third-party products or services provide external links
- For related content you have written about add internal links
- Add bullet point lists and bolded sections to make the page more visually interesting
- Proofread and edit your content to avoid any spelling or grammar mistakes
- Publish and request indexing from Google
- Promote on social media
As you can see, it’s a lot of work. Once you get into the routine of creating content these steps will become automatic and easier to accomplish.
Consider leveraging AI tools to help you with some of these tasks. Some tasks I use AI for are:
- Proofreading content – this is the most useful task in my opinion
- Blog ideas and helping you brainstorm
- Blog outline – ask an AI tool to help you outline an article
- Help with the title and meta description
I’ve written about AI previously. Here is an introductory article on how to use ChatGPT. And this article has some prompts you can use: ChatGPT prompts for Copywriters.
Final Thoughts
I hope you found this article informative and useful.
Here is a quick recap:
- An online digital business has many benefits (too many to list)
- Think carefully about your niche and target audience
- Create a domain and website to host your content
- Add E-Commerce (if needed) or Ads / Affiliate Links etc to your content
- Stay positive and understand it will take time to see results
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