One of the things I've been asked for repeatedly is a step-by-step, how-to checklist for starting an on-line business.

I spent 17 years flying C-130 cargo aircraft and learned that some things had to be done step-by-step ... by the checklist. That's how airplanes avoid landing with the wheels up. :-) This checklist should provide you with a great start, and keep you from making a "gear up landing."

1. Decide what theme you want to build your business around. Don't just throw up a site filled with links and banners to affiliate products. It will be too unfocused to attract much, if any, traffic. The traffic it does attract generally won't buy anything because the site will not give them a clear path to follow. A website should guide a visitor to take the action that you desire them to take. It should have only one main action that you want them to take, and that should be what your home page focuses on getting them to do.
   
   I was taught, and now teach people, to look at their hobbies, interests, past training and experiences when looking for a topic to build a website around.
   

2. Once you have chosen a product, choose a domain name for the website you will be creating. This website will be where you sell your product from, and also how you build your mailing list to follow-up with prospects. The domain name must be easy to remember and also indicate what the site is about. This will help it rank better in the search engines and help customers remember your URL (Website Address).
   
   I recommend that you use a .com domain extension rather than a .net, .org, or one of the lesser used extensions. Most people, and many web browsers automatically "default" to the .com extension. The only reason I can think of for a business to use one of the other extensions is if the .com you really wanted is owned and you can't buy it. That's why you don't want to wait once you've decided upon a name. Register it right away! The best second choice for a domain name extension is .net
   

3. As you develop your product ideas and work on your website, get feedback on your "masterpiece" from others who've done the same thing. They will point out many of the pitfalls to you and make suggestions for improvements. I recommend that you join the AdlandPro Discussion Group for this. They have a members-only discussion forum to help members build their business, and to network with each other. Other members are there to offer suggestions and even provide constructive reviews of your website.
   
   Before you sign up though, read step 4.
   
   Join the Adland Digest Discussion Group here: Signup Form
   

4. Register your domain name. When you register your domain name, you want to make sure that you list yourself as the administrative contact and everything else that has to do with your website. The reason is that the admin contact is the person who controls the website. When a website is sold or any changes made to it's record, the registrars will contact the admin contact for approval before making the change. Without the approval of the registered administrative contact, you can't make ownership type changes to your domain!
   
   Register your domain at any accredited service. 1st Treasures provides you with a selection of verified services here: Domain Names
   
   You do have to re-register your domain name each year. For convenience, most services allow you the option of pre-registering for up to 10 consecutive years. You will get an email notification well in advance of your domain expiring from practically all registrars. If you fail to renew your registration your domain name will become available for others to purchase. You could have an established site up and running, and somebody can literally purchase the name of your site right out from under your nose if you are not paying attention. Sadly this does happen.
   

5. You have a website theme and a domain name, now you need a website hosting company for a place to build you website. You need a 'real' hosting company, not one of those free websites that display their own advertising banners and don't pay attention to customer service or website reliability and performance. Your website makes a big first impression on your visitors, so you want a quality hosting service.
   
   1st treasures provides you with a selection of hosting services that will provide the necessary quality services. Keep in mind that if you are planning a very simple website, a very low-cost service can meet your needs, but if you plan to develop and build something more significant, you'll want a service with the features, space and knowledgable support that will allow you to grow and become more sophisticated. As the old saying goes, 'you get what you pay for.'
   
   You can check out quality Hosting Services here: Hosting Services
   
   After you order your website, you'll receive an e-mail from you hosting service that explains how to access your development resources and where to find help when you need it. Spend some time reading the material on how to properly set up your website. The email that you get from them explains a lot of things. Also, read the on-line help files. This will save you time in the long-run. Before you start sending them questions and asking for help, remember that most questions you will have, have already been asked before, so read the documentation first.   :-)
   
   You could also consider a hosting package that includes extensive website layouts and graphics that you can easily use to quickly build a very professional looking website. With a service like BuilderSpot, there is no programming required. Sites include everything from shopping carts, ecommerce, autoresponders, newsletters, catalogs and tons more. You can make a small business website with all the features you expect to find on a big corporation site. They also offer a Free Trial.
   

6. Find a way to process credit cards. The majority of people buying things on-line will want to use a credit card. If you don't offer this capability, potential customers won't take you seriously. Without offering this capability you'll lose over 90% of your potential sales. When you first start out, you can use a third party credit card processor. Two of the most popular are Clickbank and Paypal. Both of these allow you to integrate your website with their system, they process your credit card transaction and then forward the money on to you according to your instructions. They charge fees for their service which are higher than you would pay with you own merchant account.
   
   You can sign up for ClickBank or PayPal here: Accept Online Payments
   
   There are other third party credit card processors but I have accounts at both of the above, and can therefore recommend them from experience. Clickbank is only good for products delivered over the internet. They cannot be used for products that are physically shipped. Paypal does not have this restriction. Read about both services on their sites and then ask questions in the AdlandPro Discussion Group.
   
   Once your business is established, you should plan on getting your own merchant account, but this can be expensive to set up, and even difficult to qualify for. That's why most new businesses that I deal with use Paypal and/or Clickbank first. Then, when they are earning several thousand dollars a month, they go ahead and get their own merchant account. When you are ready to get your own merchant account you can ask for recommendations at the AdlandPro Discussion Group, or you can check the recommended services listed at 1st Treasures.
   
   You can find Merchant Account providers here: Merchant Accounts
   

7. Begin building your website. Many website hosting companies come with several template webpages you can integrate into your website. Most also provide webpage builder products that make it simple to generate attractive, custom pages.
   
   Most computers also come with webpage editors already loaded. Microsoft Frontpage is often featured. This webpage editor is very easy to use and does work great. It's what many, many people use.
   
   I won't go into webpage creating in this course. There are already thousands of tutorials out there on that topic. A free Website Success Course is available by clicking here. The important thing is to get started. If you can afford it, I recommend getting a professional designer to create a header for your site and do a professional layout for you. This will make your site look more professional and therefore will result in more sales later on. You can have the designer take your concept and create the entire website, or you can have them just create a shell or template for you, and then you can take over from there.
   
   1st Treasures offers affordable and professional design and development if you are interested. You can find more details here:
   1st Treasures Website Development
   

8. Begin building a mailing list immediately. You may spend a lot of time and effort attracting traffic to your website. Most of these visitors will only visit your website ONCE so it's critical that you get them to voluntarily join your mailing list. That's how you will contact them later to remind them to come back to your site and to make them aware of products or services you offer.
   
   I recommend a sign-up box for your mailing list on each page of your website. I also recommend an exit popup or popunder inviting them to join your list. This is a box that popups up as they leave your site or a page that opens behind your main page and is there when they close the main page. It invites them to join your list and is your last chance to get that visitor to sign-up.
   
   List building is a science in itself, but the most important thing is that you need to give people a good reason for joining your list. I publish an ezine (an electronic magazine) and think this is an excellent type of list to build. With the ezine, you send them weekly or bi-weekly issues and gradually build a relationship with your subscribers and potential customers. You provide them with valuable information and also make them aware of your products for sale.
   

9. On your website, describe your product or service and tell your visitors how to order. Also, ask them to order. Writing good webcopy can be difficult. Like most things, the best way to learn is by doing. Go to the searchengines and look up the top listed sites for products similar to yours. Visit each of their sites and see what they are doing and how they are wording their sites. Model yours after theirs but do not copy theirs. You will refine and revise your site many times over the years. Just notice their layout and what items on the page are working for your competitors.
   

10. Once your site is up and running, your next concern is traffic. The quickest way to get traffic is to buy it from pay-per-click search engines. At the pay-per-clicks you pay for each visitor that reads your listing there and clicks through to your site. You bid at the various pay-per-clicks and the highest bidder appears in the listing first in the partner search engines. Depending upon which pay-per-click search engine you use, your traffic costs can start at 1 cent per visitor.
    
    The most popular pay-per-clicks are Yahoo! Sponsored Search and Google Adwords. Their minimum bid and traffic volume is higher than the smaller pay-per-click sites. These sites will be much more expensive to use than a number of other search engines. Where you decide to list your website may depend primarily on your budget. Some popular but smaller pay-per-click sites may allow you to save money on your bidding. A number of PPC choices are listed here: PPC Search Engines
    
    The instructions for setting up an account with any of these services is described on their sites.
    
    There are a few key points you need to remember as you set up these accounts. Those points are:
    

    • Your listing is really an ad and as such it needs to give the potential visitor a compelling reason to visit your site. It also needs to tell him exactly what he will find at your site in order to attract only qualified leads.
      

    • The webpage that you bring this pay-per-click traffic into your site though, must be a page set up to convert that traffic. It should be a page that will get that visitor to take the one action you had in mind when you set up the pay-per-click listing.
      

    All of the nuances of pay-per-clicks is beyond the scope of this article. 1st Treasures has an article called "Keyword Bidding: How Small Budgets Can Compete With The Deep Pockets" which you may review for help in determining your bidding strategy.
    

11. Begin examining other sources of generating website traffic. This is a long-term project that should include some or all of the following:
    

    
    

    • Getting listings in all of the (non pay-per-click) searchengines and directories. You want to focus on the top few at first .... many of the small search engines use the databases from the larger ones.
      
      The searchengines are constantly changing and it's a full-time job keeping up with them. It's actually not worth the time for most on-line businesses since there are more productive things you can be doing with your time. I stay abreast of the latest at the searchengines by reading the monthly updates to the book The Unfair Advantage Book On Winning The Search Engine Wars. The authors of this book spend a lot of time testing and researching what currently works best at each of the search engines. They put out a monthly update to their basic book. You can get the book and updates at: http://williecrawford.com/searchengines/
      

    • Writing and submitting articles to ezines and article directories. As your articles are run in ezines the subscribers to the ezines get to know your material (you) and visit your site for more. The article directories help your material get into the searchengines as well as reach publishers searching for material to publish.
      

    • Exchanging links with related website. Traffic to any website is going to eventually leave so you may as well trade links with other webmasters. That way they send you their exiting traffic and you do the same for them. It's a win-win, situation. Just make sure you don't put the links to other sites on your homepage or sales page. You don't want to distract potential customers, just send them to your partners when they are ready to leave your site.
      

12. Consider/begin planning an affiliate program. This is where you pay others for referring sales to you. On the site where you sell your product... once you've created it, you have a link to a sign-up form where people can register to help sell your product. You pay them a percentage of each sale. This is the best and cheapest traffic and advertising you will find. With an affiliate program you only pay for performance.... you only pay when the referral makes a sale.
    
    There are many different programs and systems for setting up an affiliate program. Clickbank has an affiliate program build right in. All Clickbank members can sell your products and Clickbank will not only handle the order processing, they also handle the bookkeeping and paying your affiliates.
    
    You can receive Credit Card Processing and a built in Affiliate Program service with a ClickBank account: ClickBank Accounts
    

13. At this point you are in business for yourself and if you apply yourself, continue reading and learning how to improve and put in the effort, you should begin building a steady monthly income. Now begin looking for more ways to work with others and set up joint ventures. This is how your business will grow the fastest. Look for others who have lists that would benefit from your product and find ways to be of service/benefit to them. Suggest mutually beneficial arrangements to them. If what you offer is truely of benefit to them and they are not already so busy they cannot take on another partnership, they will work with you and help grown your business.
    

14. Read everything you can find on marketing on-line. Make sure it's from someone who knows what they are talking about though. Listen to tapes, CDs, MP3s and watch videos of those doing what you want to do. Totally immerse yourself in the learning process.
    
    A good start would be to subscribe to some of the quality free newsletters offered by 1st Treasures. Check out the choices by clicking here:
    1st Treasures Free Newsletters
    
    One thing you will probably notice is that many of the most successful people don't have all of the answers. You should also notice that they are always learning and testing. They learn from each other and are always seeking to improve their results. You must adopt this process in order to continue growing from this point. Keep the things that are works and stop doing the things that don't work.
    
    A great source for continued learning, resources, marketing products and services is to join an organization like the International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs. You can read about the numerous benefits here:
    I A H B E
    

There you have it, a down and dirty checklist to follow in building your on-line business. As you should expect, each are could contain a great deal more detail if space would permit. Anything not adequately covered, you need to research and discuss with trusted advisors and/or discussion forums. If you seek help on the forums, always be mindful of the experience level of the individual offering the advice.