Starting and Managing a Successful Online Business

Managing an Internet based business is different in many ways from managing an off-net business. My advice to you is that before you do anything, invest in acquiring knowledge. I recommend you order The Internet Marketing Course, this multi-volume course was written by Corey Rudl, a known expert on the subject, and is considered to be the best Internet marketing resource.

Next, go to InterNIC and apply for your own domain name and than contract with a reliable company to host your site (a high quality web hosting company that comes to mind is Virtualis).

The success of your Internet business depends greatly on your ability to attract as many visitors to your site, this depends on the content and design of your site and on your promotional activities.

Designing Your Site To Attract Visitors
Your Web site promotion campaign begins with the design of your site. Why? Because the design of your HTML pages affects how your site will score on the search results pages of the search engines.

Appearing at the top of search results pages translates into more hits and more traffic. Plus, certain parts of your HTML pages control the way your title and description appear on the search results pages, and you want these items to be appealing so that searchers will click on your link. Designing your web site is beyond the scope of this introduction guide, for more information on the subject look in The Internet Marketing Course.

Promoting Your Web Site
Now, after you've built and published your site, you are ready for some promotional work. In promoting your web site you should go in these three
main routes:
1.Submit your URLs to search engines, directories and other listings.
2.Send press releases to magazines and online publications.
3.Trade reciprocal links with other sites

Submit Your Web Site To Search Engines And Directories
How can your potential visitors hear about you? They might search for you in a search engine or a directory or they can stumble upon your link in a "what's new" "what's hot" type site. In order to be listed you need to submit your site's URLs.

I recommend you submit manually at list to the major search engines and directories, namely: Yahoo, Alta Vista, Excite, Infoseek, LookSmart, Lycos, Hotbot. This means visiting each one individually. While there, look for the link that says "add URL" or a similar term.

As for the rest of the hundreds of search engines, directories, "what's new", "what's hot", etc., You may use a submission service, or you can use a submission program (such as Dynamic Submission 2000).

Send Press Releases To Magazines And Online Publications
Magazines and online publications are always on the lookout for new and interesting stories. Mention of your site in such publications can bring you scores of visitors. The way to be included here is to send announcements and press releases upon launching your new web site and whenever you have something new that people might want to hear about. In the Guides and Articles page you can find a couple of articles that will help you prepare your news releases.

But were can you find addresses of media to send your releases to? I recommend you use a reliable news release service, such as The Internet News Bureau (I used their service with good results. They will distribute your press relaese to over 2,000 subscribing journalists).

Trade Reciprocal Links With Other Sites
Trading reciprocal links means that you approach other sites asking them to place a link to you in their site in exchange for a link in your site. Naturally you would want to approach busy sites that attract visitors with similar interests to your own. One good way to find such sites would be to go to a search engine and type in one of your keywords. The sites that appear at the top of the search results page would be good prospects.

Bear in mind that your site must contain interesting and useful information in order for others to agree to trade links with you.

To sum up...
This article barely touches the basics. The single most important investment you can make to ensure your online success is in acquiring knowledge such as in The Internet Marketing Course. I wish I knew when I started, what I know now. it would have saved me a lot of time, money and tears.