by admin | Apr 28, 2022 | Blogging, CUSTOMER Journey, EMAIL Marketing and Tools, MARKET Research, Online Stores, WOO-COMMERCE, WordPress
27 Online Business Ideas for Beginners
NICK SCHÄFERHOFF
Editor in ChiefLast updated: Dec 20, 202163 Comments
Will 2022 be the year you will finally create a profitable online business?
You’ve thought about it every year. You’ve gone over countless online business ideas in your head and imagined what your life would be like if you could quit your job and generate money on the internet.
You could travel the world with ease, create a comfortable lifestyle for yourself and your family, and achieve financial freedom. You could finally escape the constraints of the 9-5 lifestyle and own your time completely.
But then, what happens? Usually, you spend some time considering the ideas but ultimately resort back to your comfort zone.
The steady income of your secure job, the ease of having somebody else tell you what to do every day (instead of trying to figure it out from scratch), and the consistent schedule.
You tell yourself, “You know what? This year is a little too crazy. I’ll start that online business next year!”
But “next year” never comes.
We’re here to tell you that 2022 is the year you should start your online business. There’s more opportunity than ever, and you should take advantage!
To help you get started, We’re going to lay out 27 online business ideas. Read through them, see which you connect with, and start doing your research. Then get started with one, it’s that simple!
27 “Easy to Start” Online Business Ideas
Here is our list of 27 online business ideas for 2022.
1. Start a Blog and Monetize it
We talk a lot about how to start a blog on this website, and for good reason.
In 2022, it’s easier to start a blog than ever before, and your blog can also be a big potential source of income (if you know how to monetize it).
Keep in mind that you don’t just start a blog and expect the money to roll in. You need to create content consistently, and it also needs to be content that educates, informs, or entertains people. In other words, it needs to capture their interest in some way.
What’s more, you need to sell something through the blog. This can be ad space, products, digital products, sponsored posts, coaching, ebooks, etc.
But if you’re willing to put in the work and you’re in it for the long haul, blogging can be extremely profitable (some bloggers make $50k per month or more).Here are some resourcesto help you get started with your first blog:
2. Get Started With Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is basically the process of earning a commission by promoting somebody else’s product.
There are two main ways most people do affiliate marketing:
- Information products. You promote products like ebooks, membership sites, video series, etc. This type of affiliate marketing can earn you up to 50% or more in commission, has relatively low barriers to entry, and it’s easy to find products to promote.
- Amazon partners. Many affiliate marketers have success with Amazon. There are literally millions of products to choose from, and it can be quite profitable. For more information, you can check out the Amazon Associates Program.
Quick side note: Before you start affiliate marketing, it helps to have at least a basic knowledge of SEO and copywriting (more on each of these later).
That being said, you can read a few copywriting books and look through the beginner’s guide to SEO from Moz to help you get started.Further reading:
3. Set Up an E-Commerce Site
One of the best ways to earn online income is by setting up an e-commerce store.
Here’s the plus side: if you try to go the route of affiliate marketing, the best affiliate marketers are focused on 3 main niches; dating, weight loss, and making money online. You would have to compete with the best of the best, and it’s not easy.
With the e-commerce route, in many markets, you’ll be competing against old-school business people who may or may not have any internet marketing experience. Many of them have glitchy, out-of-date websites, which leaves you a lot of room for improvement, and you can capitalize on their shortcomings.
It’s still not easy by any means. It requires hard work, and you need to stand out amongst the hundreds of thousands of e-commerce websites and online stores. But by filling a unique niche and executing the right marketing techniques, you can make your e-commerce store a profitable success.
Here are some tips to help you get started with your e-commerce store:
- Find a profitable market. Brainstorm some ideas, do keyword research, and try to get as specific as possible. For example, there is probably a lot of competition for selling surfboards. But if you narrow it down to surfboard racks, you may have a better chance of standing out in the market.
- Ask yourself, “Is the product expensive?” There are costs associated with manufacturing, distribution, reselling, etc. If your product isn’t expensive (at least $50 or more), there may be no profit left by the time you sell the product.
- Ask yourself, “Is the product in a growth market?” If your market has already passed its peak (i.e., the VCR market) and is on the downslope, you probably don’t want to get involved. Instead, you want to get into an industry that’s on the upswing – that’s where you’ll have the most profit and growth potential.
- Consider building a Shopify store. Shopify is a system built for e-commerce. With some basic web knowledge, you can set up a good-looking store very quickly, with a low-cost investment and with no coding needed. Shopify has a 30-day free trial too, so you can get started without spending a dime.
Here are some additional resources for creating a successful online store:
4. Self-Publish a Book on Amazon
Have you ever thought of writing a book, but didn’t know where to get started? All the publishing nonsense, editing, and formatting, marketing, etc.?
With Amazon, you can self-publish a book fairly easily, and really make money from it. There are some simple and inexpensive guides to help you write your book AND have it generate consistent income.
Here’s the secret sauce: If you can launch your book and get a few hundred sales in the first week, Amazon will take over and start promoting it for you. This way you can make some real money from it. It’s actually easier than it sounds, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
Here are a few tips for writing a book:
- Validate the book by giving a survey to friends, an email list, and/or survey sites like PickFu. By validating your idea before you write the book, you’ll improve the odds of people willing to buy your book (and you’re not wasting your time by writing it.)
- Create an outline and stick to it if possible.
- Set aside at least 30 minutes to an hour each day to write.
- Format the book according to Amazon’s standards.
Once the book is written and formatted, you can head over to KDP.amazon.com. Log in with your Amazon account, then under “Create a New Title”, select “Kindle eBook.”
Here’s a good strategy for your book’s launch week (to get 100+ sales):
- Set the price at 99 cents for the first week.
- Run a 99 cent promotion with sites like Buck Books and Robin Reads.
- Post a book excerpt on a relevant subreddit and link it to your book page at the end.
- Post 1-2 guest posts during the launch week that link back to your book page.
- Blast your email list multiple times.
- By the end of the week, hopefully, your book has eclipsed the top 5,000 or 10,000 overall paid ranking. From there, raise the price to $2.99, and continue raising the price $1 at a time every few days until it stops selling (then, lower it back by a dollar). This will tell you the optimal price for your book.
(Here’s a case study of a book that used this strategy to launch successfully and consistently bring in $3-$4K a month in profit.)
5. Create a Digital Product or Course
Creating a digital product or course is similar to writing an ebook. You’re monetizing your expertise by teaching it to the others.
That being said, you don’t have the benefit of Amazon promoting your course. You have to do the promoting yourself through your own website, your email lists, and possibly through affiliate partnerships. You also need to create a compelling sales page that will convince visitors to buy from you.
If you don’t already have an audience, it might be better to self-publish on Amazon first. That way, you can validate your course idea, grow your email list (just make sure to have an email opt-in at the front and back of the book), and more or less create a rough draft of the course (since it will probably be similar to the book).Here are some additional resources to help you with an online course creation:
- TheRiseToTheTop.com – David Siteman Garland’s website that’s helped thousands of entrepreneurs launch profitable online courses.
- Monetize Your Expertise Podcast – Helpful episodes by online course expert Grant Weherley to help you start your fist online course.
6. Become a YouTuber
Videos are becoming more and more popular. From Instagram and Snapchat Stories to Facebook Live video, videos will only continue to grow. If you’ve always loved the thought of being behind the camera, now is the time you can take advantage.
Whether it be starting a vlog and getting ad revenue/selling products to your audience, or building a YouTube channel to drive more traffic to your website – 2022 is a great time to get started.
Not only will making YouTube videos help you tell better stories and provide more valuable content to your audience – it can also help you get profitable speaking opportunities.
The best part is, you don’t even need to go out and buy an expensive new camera – as long as you have a smartphone with a quality camera lens, you can start filming your first video right now!
7. Start App Development
Mobile apps are getting more and more popular by the year. If you have an idea for a cool, useful, and/or fun app for a phone or a tablet, this may be the way to go.
It helps to have some coding knowledge, but it’s not an absolute necessity. There are plenty of software developers looking to collaborate with people on app creation.
Word of caution: the app market is saturated right now, so make sure you validate your app and do your research before investing lots of money in your idea.Here are some resources to help you in the app development process:
8. Learn Facebook Advertising
Facebook continues to expand and grow. Therefore businesses are spending more on Facebook ads. But here’s the problem: a lot of old school businesses don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to Facebook ads. Even newer companies don’t have the time it takes to learn the ins and outs so that they get the most return on their Facebook ads investment.
Consequently, they’re looking for Facebook ad specialists to step in and do it for them. Luckily, this is something you can learn fairly quickly. Once you do, you can reach out to businesses and offer to help create profitable Facebook ads.Here are some Facebook Ad resources you can learn from:
9. Learn and Master SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) refers to getting a website to rank higher for certain “search terms” in search engines like Google. When a website ranks higher, it gets more relevant traffic and in turn, can make more revenue.
This is another highly valued skill in the internet marketing world. That being said, it can be a bit difficult because Google is always changing its algorithms. With it, some of the rules of search change. You always have to be on the leading edge, learning, and testing new strategies.
If you can master SEO, companies will always be willing to pay you for your help.
10. Become a Copywriter
Copywriting is the art and science of strategically delivering words (whether written or spoken) that get people to take some form of action. It can range from anything to sales pages, to email marketing, to even quality blog content.
If you have a natural inclination and passion for writing, copywriting may be your ticket to earning online income.
It’s a great way to achieve freedom in your life. Not only does copywriting allow you to work remotely, but it also allows you to control your schedule. Plus, learning the skill itself will help you in many areas of online business (i.e. building a blog, affiliate marketing, etc. – when you can write in a compelling way, all of these become much easier!)
11. Skype Coaching
Do you have an expertise that you’d like to help people with? Then Skype coaching may be a potential option for you. Basically, you hop on Skype and provide assistance to your coaching clients. This can come in the form of daily, weekly, or monthly calls.
There are Skype coaches for just about everything – life coaches, health coaches, dating coaches, etc.
Note: It’s much easier to market your coaching services when you also have a blog on your coaching topic.
12. Buy and Flip Domains
You’ve probably heard of people who buy and “flip” real estate, right? They buy a house for a relatively good price, fix it up a little bit, and then resell it for a nice profit.
It’s the same idea for buying and flipping domains. Whether it’s your own domain, or whether you’re looking to buy somebody else’s site and flip it, this can be a good source of online income.
You can use resources like Empire Flippers to both buy and sell your domains.
13. Start a Podcast
A podcast can be a great revenue generator.
As you grow your podcast, you can offer paid sponsorships and sell your own products and services. Through the podcast, you’ll be able to earn the trust of your listeners, which makes them that much more likely to buy what you have to offer.
14. Dropshipping
Dropshipping is when you create an online store to sell other people’s products (i.e you don’t do any of the manufacturing or shipping). Then, you get a commission for each sale.
The benefit here is that you don’t have to risk buying up stock in a product and losing money if it doesn’t sell. The entry barrier is lower and you don’t have to invest nearly as much to get started.
If you’d like to learn how to dropship, Drop Ship Lifestyle is one of the best resources to help you get started.
15. Freelance Pay Per Click Consulting
(These are PPC ads)
You ever saw those sponsored ads at the top of your Google search results? That’s Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising in action.
It’s a form of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Put simply, it’s a way of buying visits on your site.
If you can master this skill, you can offer the service to other businesses.
16. Sell Products on eBay
Sure it’s a bit old school, but people are still making lots of money on eBay. To start selling, you can do something simple like head to a local clothing store and buy some clothing on sale.
Then, you can list it on eBay for a higher price, and if it sells, you can reinvest the profit in more clothing and continue making more profit.
It requires some strategy and planning but is surely a profitable way of online business.
17. Become a Web Developer
A web developer is someone who knows how to build a website from the bottom up. In order to do this, you need to learn coding, which will take time and hard work. But if you’re willing to put in the effort, it can pay quite well.Here are some tips for learning to code and getting started with web development.
18. Invest Your Time in Graphic Design
Ever saw a beautiful sales page or a website design that really jumps out at you? That’s all due to a graphic designer.
Graphic designers are basically visual communicators. They design web pages, sales pages, logos, and really anything else that needs to look sharp.
To be a great graphic designer, you don’t need to be great at drawing, you don’t need a college degree, and you don’t need to buy a fancy expensive computer. But you do need to be a visual thinker, you do need to specialize in something, and you definitely need a portfolio.
19. Build Niche Sites
The idea behind a niche website is to target a specific niche (for example, a specific kind of photography), rank on Google for the keywords related to that niche, and then turn that traffic into earnings through affiliate offers or through selling your own products.
A lot of research goes into this – you should be ready for a bit of workload. If you create a good niche site, it can bring you an extra $500 a month or more.For further reading, check out this post from Sean Ogle:How to Build a Niche Site that Brings in $500 a Month
20. Start a Consulting Business
Do you have tons of knowledge in a specific field? Then you may have what it takes to be a highly paid online consultant.
As a consultant, you simply must apply the knowledge, skills, and experience you have in a specific field to help clients solve a problem or issue they have in that field.For further reading, check out this post from USA Today:How to Become a Highly Paid Consultant
21. Start a Paid Private Facebook Group
A paid private Facebook group provides you with the chance to create a highly engaged community.
It gives you a place to deliver your content, allows your community members to interact with each other, allows you to limit access to qualified members, and also allows you to moderate and control the group.
Note: If you already have a website and an email list, it’s easier to create a paid private Facebook group, but it’s not an absolute necessity.
22. Assist with Lead Generation
Businesses are always on the lookout for ways to create new leads. Leads, after all, are the lifeblood of businesses.
When you assist with lead generation, you basically play the matchmaker. You connect business with the leads for whom they can solve the problems.
23. Instagram Sponsorships
Do you love taking photos and dream of building up a great Instagram following? As you grow your following, more sponsorship opportunities will become available. For example, if your account is focused on fitness, you may be able to sponsor products like protein powder, supplements, etc.
24. Create SaaS (Software as a Service)
Google Apps, Dropbox, Leadpages – these are all SAAS.
SAAS is any kind of online software that you pay to get access to.
For this, you first must brainstorm/find an online service that people are willing to pay for on an ongoing basis. Once you create it, the challenge is to maintain it, which is not an easy task. That being said, it can be quite profitable if you can make it work.
25. Technical Writing
Ever wondered who wrote the instruction manual for that new TV? That’s the job of technical writers.
If you have a love for writing and like the technical side of things, then you may have what it takes to be a technical writer.
Here’s a resource that can help you get started: Starting a Technical Writing Business from Scratch
Here are some sites where you can find work:
26. Resume/Cover Letter Writing
People will always be looking for jobs – they’ll need help with their resumes and cover letters.
That’s where you can come in and help them create a stellar resume to get them hired.
27. Tech Support
With online tech support, you basically offer your skills as a tech whiz. You can work with bigger companies or even one-on-one clients.
Tech support jobs can also regularly be found on Upwork.
by admin | Apr 21, 2022 | Blogging, CUSTOMER Journey, MARKET Research, Online Stores, WOO-COMMERCE, WordPress
Guide for Creating an Online eCommerce Site
KAROL KROL
Last updated: Dec 20, 20216 Comments
In 2022, starting an online store is easier than ever.
A few decades ago, creating a website wasn’t an easy task, especially for someone who wasn’t tech-savvy and didn’t know how to code. Nowadays, however, anyone with a computer and internet connection can launch an eCommerce business within a matter of minutes, all thanks to modern tools and website builders.
However, you have to decide on a couple of things before setting up your webshop; matters like what you’re going to sell, how to handle shipping and payments, and most importantly what marketing strategies to use.
Follow our step-by-step online store building guide and you learn how to start an eCommerce website quickly from scratch.Table of Contents
- Decide what you want to sell
- Choose between dropshipping and selling your own products
- Pick the exact products to sell
- Come up with a business name
- Build and set up an online store
- Set up payment methods
- Market your online store
- Conclusion
Ready? Let’s start.
1. Decide What You Want to Sell
The first step that’s an absolute must-do is to pick your niche. As it’s often defined, a niche is a specific piece of a broader market.
Sorry if this sounds a bit too dictionary-like. Let’s break it down into simpler terms. Basically, when picking your niche, you have to decide:
- What do you want to sell?
- Who are you going to sell it to?
- Why would they buy it?
These three questions may seem fairly obvious, but they’re actually far from.
Defining your ideal customer base and figuring out why they would buy from you will make your job much easier later on. The main mistake that people make is going too broadly in the hope that the bigger the potential market is, the more likely they are to get good sales. This is not correct.
If your target customer base is simply “people who breathe” then you’re going to have a hard time positioning your product in the market, promoting it, and explaining what’s so valuable about it.
Overall, focusing on one niche is better than going all over.
It’s best to start in an area that you already have a personal interest in, expert knowledge about, or passion for. It’s really hard to operate in a field that you know nothing about.
So, begin with your interests, navigate from there. Define who your ideal customer is, and what makes them want to buy the products that you want to offer.
A good starting point is to look at what your competition in the niche is doing. See how they position their products, who their customers are. Learn from that and build upon other people’s experiences.
2. Choose Between Dropshipping and Selling Your Own Products
Let’s start from the beginning by explaining two popular eCommerce scenarios:
Scenario no.1 is the traditional way of running an online store. In this model:
- (1) you get products from the supplier or create them yourself → (2) you offer those products to customers via your website → (3) the customer buys the product → (4) you send the product to them
Here’s the dropshipping model:
- (1) you start by listing the products on your website → (2) the customer buys the product → (3) the supplier sends the product directly to the customer
The main benefit of the dropshipping model is that you don’t have to hold any inventory yourself. This means that there’s no cost involved in making the products or storing them. In fact, everything you sell is pure profit since you only have to pay the supplier after you receive an order from your customer.
In the traditional model, you have to shell out money upfront to either obtain products from the supplier or get them created. You must do that before you can ever start selling them.
On the other hand, dropshipping won’t be for you if the products you want to sell are of your own production or need to be customized/personalized before they can be sold.
Overall, if you can, opt for dropshipping – and especially if it’s your first attempt to start an online store. Dropshipping is a great way to test the waters and validate that the products you want to sell are indeed something that customers will want to buy. Then, later on, you can expand and start offering your own products as well.
3. Choose the Exact Products to Sell
One of the great things about dropshipping is that there’s an abundance of different products to choose from in nearly every niche.
This is excellent news for businesses that are just getting started and don’t want to invest in their own product development. The overall steps are:
- Research your niche. Examine what sort of products your competitors are selling, and what their best-selling products are.
- Go to content sites on the web to find what type of challenges, products, or things in general your target audience reads about.
- Go to niche-related forums and see what your customers talk about.
- Search on Google with keywords most relevant to your niche.
- Go to Amazon and do similar research. See what products sell well.
With all this research, you can now go to some popular markets and start looking for specific products you can sell.
The biggest market of this kind is AliExpress. It’s a regular eCommerce marketplace by most standards, but it also allows you to establish relationships with merchants and offer their products as a dropshipper. Go there and look for products that are in tune with the research you’ve done, and also seem like something interesting-enough for your customer base to enjoy.
We recommend getting started with between 10-50 products. This will give you more than enough stuff to make your store complete and also not overwhelm you with what’s going on as you work with the store on a daily basis.
When you’re putting together a list of products, keep the following things in mind:
- Make sure that the product is available for shipping in locations where your target audience is. Also, the lower the shipping costs, the better.
- Check the shipping times and make sure they don’t exceed what you would consider acceptable (we leave deciding what’s acceptable and what isn’t to your judgment).
- If possible, avoid brand name products (you don’t want to depend on being able to sell Adidas sneakers, for instance).
- It’s a common practice for dropshipping stores to set their margins at around the 50% mark. Meaning, when looking for products to sell, focus on the ones that are half the price compared to what you want to sell them for.
As we mentioned earlier, having a list of 10-50 products is suitable for a start. We’ll use that list later on when importing the products to your actual online store.
4. Come Up With a Business Name and Register a Domain Name
Choosing a domain name for your store is undoubtedly the most fun part of the whole endeavor. People love to name things. Especially businesses.
However. The name you end up with can have a lot of significance for your future success and ability to market the business effectively. Here are the things to keep in mind when brainstorming a business name:
- Pick a Name That’s Easy to Pronounce
Imagine yourself talking to someone over the phone and needing to mention the name of your store. Do you have to spell it out for the other person to understand?
If you do, the name is too complex. Go for something simple and easy to pronounce on the first go.
- Pick a Name That’s Easy to Memorize
This relates to the previous point, somewhat. Apart from being easy to pronounce, your name also needs to be easy to memorize.
You can achieve this in a couple of ways. Going with a completely made-up word as your name is one solution (think “Google”). Alternatively, you can put together two words that do have real meanings but create something original when put next to each other (think “Face-book”).
- Pick a Name That’s Brandable
Your name should be original enough so that people won’t mistake it for any other similar business.
For example, if you want to name your pizzeria “Pizza Den” but there’s another business in town called “Pizza Pan” then it’s not a good name.
- Pick a Name That’s Short(ish)
Not longer than a combination of 2-3 words. Any longer and it’s going to be harder to remember and less brandable.
- Don’t Use Any Special Characters Or Numbers
Also forget about dots, underscores, dashes, etc.
- Pick a Name That is Available as a .com Domain
The .com is the most popular and most important domain name extension of the bunch. If you’re brainstorming a name, don’t go for something that doesn’t have a .com domain available.
You can check if your dream domain name is available on a domain registrar site like Domain.com (but don’t buy it yet).
Further Reading:
5. Start an Online Store Website By Yourself
Finally, it’s time to build an actual online store.
Here’s the best part: you can do it all on your own, there’s no professional help needed, and you don’t have to sacrifice the quality of the final outcome. Your online store is going to be just as functional and just as good-looking as if it was built by a pro.
To make that happen, we’re recommending using WooCommerce.
Note: Before you can start building your online store with WooCommerce, you first need to create a website. For this check out our step-by-step tutorial on how to build a website with WordPress.
However, there are alternative ways to set up an online store. You can also use Shopify (or any other eCommerce platforms out there).
6. Set Up Payment Methods
The last piece of the puzzle when attempting to start an online store is accepting payments from customers.
By default, WooCommerce allows you to accept payments via PayPal. You don’t need to do much in order to enable this payment system either. You likely already took care of it during the initial WooCommerce setup.
That said, you can choose a different payment system, or even use a couple of alternative systems at the same time. One of the reasons for this might be that some of your customers will prefer specific payment methods over others. So the more of them you have integrated into your store, the more sales you’ll get.
Two of the most popular additional payment methods for WooCommerce are Stripe and Square. These are particularly good choices if you want to accept credit cards (which you surely do).
Both Stripe and Square are free to get started with. However, like with every payment method, there are additional fees imposed on every transaction made (it’s the same with PayPal), so just be aware of that.
Getting a new payment method installed in your eCommerce store is simple. Those payment systems are all delivered as WordPress plugins, so you can install them the same way you installed WooCommerce.
After that, each payment system comes with its own setup procedure. Most of the time, though, all you have to do is sign up for an account and verify your details.
7. Start Marketing Your Online Store
There are many different things you can do to get the word out about your store, but we’re going to focus on just four here – the four that are the most likely to work in 2022 and going forward.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a relatively new way to promote your store. Most of it is done on Instagram.
The way it works is this:
- Find people popular in your niche or recognizable for whatever reason.
- Reach out to them and ask what their rates are for promoting products like yours. Also, pay attention to the size of their following and ask about the number of engagements they get under similar posts.
- Agree on a run of two or three promotional posts, and send them your products.
Paid Ads
Paid ads basically don’t ever fail. If there’s a market for something, and you target that market with ads, you will get some sales.
The most popular platform for advertising your products is Google AdWords. Getting started with them is relatively easy, and Google has its own guides to take you through the initial steps.
Social Media Marketing
While Instagram certainly is the most on-trend social media network of today, this doesn’t mean that it’s the only place where you should promote your store.
Online store ASOS on Instagram
In fact, you should be present in all the places where your customers are likely to hang out. This, in the modern-day, means most of the popular social media networks. Or, at the very minimum, the top ones like Facebook, Twitter, and optionally Pinterest (if your customers use it).
Your approach to all these networks will be similar, but the goals and the way you construct your messages will be different.
The first thing you should do is research what your competition is doing and how they go about promoting their stores. Take note of their strategies and tactics, and see what you can adapt to your situation. Chiefly, pay attention to:
- the type of messages they post
- the posting frequency
- how often they promote their products directly
- what’s their general voice and how their messages make you feel
Next, set your own goals as to what you want to achieve through social media.
Most commonly, those goals should be building brand awareness among customers, and only occasionally promoting your products, and trying to generate direct sales. If you push your stuff too much, you’ll alienate people quickly.
The next step is setting a publication calendar in place and preparing some social media posts in advance. You can then publish those posts with the help of tools like Buffer.
Content Marketing and SEO
Nowadays, content marketing and SEO are the most effective methods to promote any website (including eCommerce stores).
The idea behind content marketing is simple: you give people insights on topics related to your business and thus generate interest in what you have to offer.
For example, if your store sells winter socks, then you can offer people advice on things like how to pick ski socks. You can deliver that advice in the form of a simple blog post. As people read your content, they also get introduced to your store and the socks that you have in your catalog.
The same principle can be adapted to any market or niche. Find out what people want to know and then create content that delivers that info to them.
When doing so, optimize your content so that it’s more discoverable via Google. It’s reported that Google is responsible for 94% of total organic traffic on the web.
Here’s more info on how to get more traffic using free strategies.
Conclusion: How to Start an Online Store
Congrats! If you followed through our guide you should now know the basics of how to start an online store.
Easy, right?
Here’s a quick overview of the seven steps of creating an online store:
- Decide what you want to sell
- Choose between dropshipping and selling your own products
- Pick the extra products to sell
- Come up with a business name
- Build and set up an online store
- Set up payment options
- Market your online store
If you have any additional comments or questions on how to start an online store, don’t hesitate to leave us a comment below!
by admin | Apr 21, 2022 | Blogging, COMPUTERS, WEBSITE Settings HELP_me, WordPress, WordPress System Administration
An Easy, Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners
Starting your very 1st website or helping someone? websitesetup.org has some great walkthroughs for domain, hosting & CMS!
James Steinbach@jdsteinbach
Going to attempt to create my first website today, found this great guide: How To Make a Website websitesetup.org
Greta MacDonald@__Momma__G_
When someone ask you how to create a website, point out to that cool guide to set it up (mostly with WordPress): websitesetup.org
Webalys@webalys
Every month 370,000+ people use WebsiteSetup to build a website.Read the FREE Guide
Quote from the Author:
I wrote this SIMPLE guide to help anyone – from bloggers to small business owners – make their own website without having to learn code.
You don’t need to spend money on web developers and designers. Believe it or not, most of you will succeed.
If you get stuck, contact me and I’ll help you out for free.
Nick Schäferhoff
Web DeveloperAs seen on:
About This Free, Step-by-Step Guide
Made for beginners
The guide is very detailed, yet very easy to follow – even if you’re not very technical.
It’s up-to-date
Other guides can be outdated or misleading. I update this guide each year.
Platform specific
We’ll use WordPress (free). Your website will be set up the right way on the right platform for what you need.
Free support
I offer free help and consultation via email. I’m more than happy to answer any questions. Get in touch here.
3 Simple Steps to Make Your Own Website
You’ll learn how to…1Step 1Choose a website building platform2Step 2Choose a domain and host3Step 3Set up, design and tweak your website
Last updated: 21 April, 2021.
Step #1: Choose Your Website Platform
In order to build a website, you first got to decide what platform you’re going to build your website with.
What do I mean by “platform”?
Well, back in 2005 when I got started with web development, most sites were created using HTML (code), CSS, and PHP. Each of these took a lot of time to learn and were difficult to master.
That’s why most people still think setting up a website from scratch is difficult or requires a lot of coding and design skills – but that’s no longer true.
In 2022, content management systems (CMS) like WordPress have made creating a website accessible to everyone.
To put it simply, a CMS (or website building platform) is a user-friendly platform for building websites and managing your own online content, instead of creating a website from scratch using HTML, PHP, and other coding languages.
Popular Site Building Platforms in 2022
To better understand which are the most popular content management systems, I dug up some recent statistics from W3 Techs and BuiltWith.
Just take a look at this graph below:
Data credit: BuiltWith
As you can see, nearly half of the websites on the Internet are running on the WordPress website platform.
But what makes them a better option than others?
Why use WordPress and not website builders?
- 1. It’s FREE (no recurring subscriptions, open-source)
Unlike website builders or web design software, WordPress doesn’t cost a dime to download, install or use. It’s built by web developers and there’s a large developer community who have designed beautiful free themes and templates, making it easy to get going fast.
- 2. It’s highly customizable and user-friendly
If you know how to use Google Docs, you already know how to add your own content. WordPress can be easily expanded with free add-ons to handle just about any site you can imagine – from small business websites to e-commerce sites. With WordPress “plugins” you’ll be able to add contact forms, subscription forms, image galleries, stores, and so on for your website. And it’s all pretty simple.
- 3. Your site will be ‘responsive’. Meaning it’ll work on smartphones & tablets, too
The website you build will instantly be responsive, looking great on every mobile device, smartphone, and tablet. No need to hire a web developer for that.
- 4. Help available from the community
With so many people using the platform (webmasters, small-business owners, bloggers), it’s easy to find fast help when you need it. You can get help from here for free or you can hire thousands of WordPress developers from here.
In fact, I built WebsiteSetup.org using WordPress, too. Below are samples of my homepage and ‘blog’ page:
WebsiteSetup Homepage
WebsiteSetup Blog Page
Are there any good alternatives for WordPress?
There are some.
But, I would still use WordPress.
- Wix is an easy-to-use website builder with a simple drag and drop interface, but it has a higher cost, is not suitable for larger sites and it’s impossible to migrate your website out if the need should arise.
- Squarespace is a very aesthetically beautiful website builder which makes creating beautiful websites easy, but it comes at a higher monthly cost and doesn’t have a function to migrate your website out.
- Drupal is a powerful platform that is popular with experienced coders and web developers, but it has a high learning curve that makes it not the best option for beginners.
- Joomla is almost like WordPress and is a good tool for website building, but it does require at least some basic understanding of how to write code to make things work the way that you want.
If you want more details, I’ve put together a comprehensive comparison between WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.
If for some reason you don’t want to build your site with WordPress, check out my Drupal, Joomla, HTML5 and website builder guides as well.
WHAT NEXT?
At this point, you don’t need go looking for WordPress. Right now, you don’t need to to install it nor download it.
To make sure your website is set up the right way, it’s important to complete the following steps below:
In Step 2, I’ll walk you through the process of choosing a domain name and finding a space to host your site.
In Step 3, I’ll show you how to install and customize your WordPress website. Don’t worry – I’ll walk you through the process, with lots of images as a reference.
Step #2: Find a Domain Name and Host
Full Disclosure: This guide is reader-supported. If you click on our links, we may earn a commission. Thanks for supporting us.
In order to get a new website online, there are two things that you’re going to need:
- A domain name (a web address like yoursitename.com)
- Website Hosting (a service that connects your site to the internet)
The WordPress platform itself is free, but hosting and domain name are not. However, the combined cost is still less than a coffee, with around $3 – $5 a month.
In order to look professional, you need to have your own domain name, instead of having a free domain that belongs to someone else (for example, yourbusiness.my-free-website.com.)
And, having a quality hosting service will also help you make sure that your website won’t go down and that it loads quickly (very important for everyone who visits your pages.)
Where do I get a domain name and hosting?
I’ve mostly used www.Bluehost.com as a web hosting and domain registrar for myself and for my web development projects.
Their website hosting costs less than a movie ticket ($2.75/mo) and they throw in a FREE domain name (a nice perk to have).
Of course, you can try other web hosting providers and even try to host your site by yourself, but it’s a very complicated process and often wouldn’t be capable of serving your website visitors. So save yourself some money and get a proper web host.
With your own domain name, you are also able to get a professional email account(s) like, yourname@YourWebsite.com – this is much more professional than a regular Yahoo or Gmail address, especially if you need multiple email accounts.
Already have a domain name and hosting? Go ahead and skip to step 3, where I’ll explain how you can set up your website.
What kind of domain name should I pick?
When you’re choosing your domain name, there are a few rules you should keep in mind:
- If you’re setting up a business website, your domain name should match your company name. For example: YourCompanyName.com
- If you’re planning on making a personal website for yourself then YourName.com can be a great option.
For this site (WebsiteSetup), I chose WebsiteSetup.org
Domain names usually end with .com, .org or .net, but in recent times, a large number of domain extensions (the last part of the web address, like .com or .org) have come out, ranging from .blog to .party.
My best advice? Avoid the unusual extensions and go with .com, .net or .org unless they precisely describe your website – and even then, it is usually better to go with a more common extension.
Any additional tips for choosing my domain name?
There are a few things that can help you choose your domain name:
#1 Is it brandable? For example, if you make a site about poetry then best-poetry-website.net is not a good choice: poetryacademy.com or poetryfall.com is much better.
#2 Is it memorable? Short, punchy and clear domain names are much easier to remember. If your domain name is too fuzzy, too long or spelled in a strange way, visitors may forget it.
#3 Is it catchy? You want a domain name that rolls off the tongue, describes what you (or your business) does and sticks in the head. Coming up with a cool name can be a bit tough since there are more than 200 million active domain names in the world right now – but don’t give up.
There’s one rule that always applies to domain names: If you like it, go for it.
WHAT NEXT?
Do some brainstorming to come up with a unique domain name that reflects your future website, business or blog.
Secure your web hosting and domain name. For this, I recommend using Bluehost.com, but you can pick any web host that’s reliable and trustworthy.
UPDATE: I made a simple guide on how to get started with Bluehost (which hosting package to choose & how to install WordPress).
Step #3: Set Up a Website and Start Designing
If you have any questions/suggestions for this guide don’t hesitate to contact me. Remember: I’m here to help!
1. Install WordPress Site
There are two possible ways to install WordPress, one MUCH easier than the other.
1. TO CREATE A WEBSITE WITH WORDPRESS, USE ONE-CLICK-INSTALLATION:
Almost all well-established and reliable web hosting companies have integrated one-click installation for WordPress these days.
If you chose to sign up with Bluehost or any other similar hosting company, you should find your “one-click installation” either in the account creation process or in your account control panel.
For example, these are the steps you need to follow to install WordPress on Bluehost (the process is very similar or even the same on all the most popular web hosting companies):
- Go to Bluehost.com
- Choose your hosting plan (cheapest plan is fine)
- If you already have a domain, type it there
- Fill in your information and choose your hosting length (you can remove the “Extras”).
- Go through the payment process and create your account
- Log in to Bluehost use “one-click WordPress install” to Install WordPress
If you’re unable to locate it, look here: How to Install WordPress on Bluehost.
2. MANUAL INSTALL (if your web hosting provider doesn’t have an easy way to do it)
If for some odd reason (some hosting companies don’t provide one-click-install for WordPress) you don’t have the option to install WordPress automatically, look at this manual guide below:Installing WordPress Manually (Click to expand)
2. Choose a Theme for Your Site (Free or Premium)
For the next step, we’ll be diving into WordPress themes and how to use and customize them.
WordPress themes are design templates that make changing your site’s looks a lot quicker and easier.
Luckily, WordPress has loads of themes to choose from. The official WordPress theme directory alone contains more than 8,000, which are completely free to use.
You can access themes directly from within WordPress without having to navigate to an external site.
For that, simply go to Appearance > Themes, and click the large + sign that says Add New Theme.
Then use the search bar to find a theme that suits your site.
You can click on any theme in the listing to view a demo of it and read more about its features on its Details & Preview screen.
Once you find a theme you like, install it by clicking the Install button in the Details & Preview screen.
Once the install process is complete, click the Activate button that appears where the Install button used to be.
If what’s available in the official theme directory doesn’t suit your needs, check out premium theme markets such as:
3. Add Content (Pages and Posts)
Before getting to site customization, you need to have some content on your site.
After all, it’s hard to customize your site when there’s nothing on it to show the changes. What you need in terms of content will vary depending on the subject matter of your site and your goals.
However, there are a few key pages that nearly every site has:
- Homepage
- About page
- Contact page
In deciding which pages to add, consider what information would be most helpful to your visitors. You’ll also need to think about visual content, such as photos.
To make things easier, some WordPress themes come with page templates for specific page types. Others also come with more than one layout option for each page.
To take advantage of these, go to Appearance > Customize.
In this example, we’re using the latest WordPress default theme, Twenty Twenty-One to create a site. By default, it uses a static page as the homepage that you can configure under Homepage Settings. Use the dropdown menu to select which page you want to serve as your website’s homepage.
Alternatively, if you want your homepage to feature your latest blog posts, check choose the option Your latest posts.
Confirm your choices by clicking Publish in the upper left corner.
After that, you can move on to creating new pages for your site. For that, in the main dashboard, go to Pages > Add New.
The Twenty Twenty-One theme relies on the Gutenberg editor, so here I can add page titles and content.
Within this page, you can add features like images and formatting.
Repeat this process to add additional pages to your site.
4. Make Sure Your Website is Well-Organized
Think of your website as a library.
Your website structure will become increasingly important the more content you add to your website.
When learning how to create a website, you need to get expert at organizing your site in a way that makes sense to your visitors and easy for them to get around it.
A crucial part here is the navigation menu. Once you’ve created some pages, it’s time to make them available to your visitors on the site. You can do that under Appearance > Menus.
The first step here, is to give your new menu a name, then click Create Menu.
After that, you can choose which content to add to it on the left. For example, tick the boxes next to pages you want to appear in the menu, then click Add to Menu.
You can drag and drop menu items to your desired order and even turn them into sub-items by moving them underneath others like below. Once you are satisfied, choose the menu position where you’d like for this menu to appear (in this case Primary menu).
Click Save Menu again and go to your site’s front end to see the new menu in action.
Ultimately, you want to reflect a structure that makes sense for your site and helps visitors get to where they need to go.
5. Additional Customization Options
For additional customization options, go back to Appearance > Customize. When you look around, you will see that it offers a lot more options to make changes to your site. You are able to modify other parts of your site like:
- Title and tagline
- Colors
- Typography
- Background image
- Menus
- Widgets
You can also make adjustments to your homepage, blog page, and add custom code. The options that appear will vary depending on which theme you’ve installed.
Beyond theme customization, there are many plugins available for WordPress, both free and premium. In the official WordPress plugin directory alone, you can find close to 60,000 plugins that can add all kinds of new features and functionality to your site. Plus, there are many more available from third-party marketplaces.
To install new plugins, navigate to Plugins > Add New.
You’ll be presented with a list of some of the most popular plugins currently available. Use the search field to find anything else you are looking for.
To get plugins onto your site, hit the Install Now button. Wait until it has been downloaded and then click Activate. You can find all plugins on your site plus the possibility to activate, deactivate, and delete them under Plugins in the WordPress main menu.
As to what plugins you should install, some choices worth considering include:
- Yoast SEO – A top search engine optimization plugin that adds on-page optimization prompts to every page and post plus the option to customize Open Graph social media tags.
- Jetpack – Includes a wide range of features to improve website speed, optimization, social media integration, digital marketing, contact forms, and site search.
- Smush – This plugin compresses images that are uploaded to WordPress, which saves storage space, and speeds up page load times.
- WooCommerce – This is the most popular e-commerce store plugin for WordPress and makes it easy to set up an online store. More on it further below.
- MonsterInsights – This plugin adds Google Analytics to your WordPress dashboard.
If you want even more control over how your website looks, you can install a page builder plugin. These plugins add drag-and-drop functionality to your site, which means you can visually build entire web designs — not just individual pages and posts. A few popular choices include:
- Elementor – This all-in-one website builder offers visual website editing, fast load times, and a vast selection of templates to choose from.
- Divi – Developed by Elegant Themes, Divi provides another straightforward way to customize websites.
- Beaver Builder – An easy-to-use page builder plugin that speeds up website design considerably.
6. Add a Blog (Optional)
Not every website needs a blog. However, creating one can be a good idea to regularly publish fresh content, display your expertise, and provide additional value for your visitors.
To add a blog in WordPress, you first have to select a blog page. Above, I have already covered that you can configure your homepage to automatically display your latest posts. However, if you want a dedicated blog page instead and keep your homepage static, you first need to create it.
This is as simple as setting up an empty page (Pages > Add New), naming it Blog (or whatever you want but Blog makes sense because it will automatically create the address yoursite.com/blog for your blog page), and publishing it. Then, pick it as your Posts Page either under Appearance > Customize > Homepage Settings or under Settings > Reading.
When saved, all blog posts will automatically appear on your chosen page. Don’t forget to add it to your navigation menu!
To add blog posts to your website go to Posts > Add New.
This will get you to the same content editor that you used earlier for your pages. Add a title and content to your blog post. Include images and formatting, headers, lists, and anything else it needs. In the sidebar on the right you also find options to apply categories and tags, define an excerpt, and set up a featured image.
Once you’re done making changes, click Publish. Your first post is completed, well done!
7. Adding an Online Store (Optional)
Not every website needs an ecommerce store. But if you want to know how to make a website and include an online store, keeping reading.
The most popular plugin for this purpose is WooCommerce.
You can set it up quickly, it offers many payment options, and a wide range of optimized themes to create an online shop. Plus, it has a variety of extensions available for purchase to customize your e-commerce site and adapt it to many purposes.
To learn how to add an online store to your website, follow this guide.
8. Configure SSL
A secure sockets layer (SSL) on your website means data sent to your website’s visitors is kept secure. SSL is an important search ranking factor, and it’s essential to ensure a positive user experience by prioritizing user privacy and security.
To check that SSL is active on your new website with Bluehost, do the following:
- Log into Bluehost.
- Go to My Sites.
- Click Manage Site.
- Find the Security tab on the next screen.
- Under the section that says Security Certificate, verify your Free SSL Certificate or SSL Certificate: Let’s Encrypt status. The toggle should be switched to On.
- Verify SSL is set up by visiting your site again. A lock icon should appear next to the domain name in your web browser’s address bar.
9. Launch Your WordPress Website
Once your site is ready, it’s time to officially launch it. Make sure to double-check your settings and proofread your posts and pages one more time. If everything looks good, click the link at the top of the dashboard that says Coming Soon Active.
After that, scroll down and hit the button that says Launch your site.
Now you can check your live website.
Click through each page to make sure all links work, your text looks good, and your images are formatted properly (you can use this checklist for reference).
Congratulations! You’re now the proud owner of a new website.
Learning how to make a website is no small feat, even with a detailed guide to help you along the way.
At the same time, it can be very satisfying when you acquire a new skill and start seeing your hard work pay off.
But don’t stop here. Use your new knowledge to learn more and implement more complex functionalities and features. This way, you won’t just learn how to make a website but exactly the site you want.
Data credit: BuiltWith
