Online business is probably the fastest growing market on the 
planet.  With over 34 million web pages out there and more being 
created every day it seems like an almost hopeless prospect for 
the solo home business owner to achieve any sort of success.  
Think of the competition.......right?  Well, almost.
 
For those of us that have been raised in a world where a small 
business owner works like a dog to keep their creation from 
going bankrupt it seems almost unfathomable to even think of 
competing with the "big" companies.  If you've ever known anyone 
that owns a business think back to the first few years of their 
entrepreneurial venture.  You've probably never seen anyone so 
tired/overworked/stressed/worried  in your life.  This is what 
most people think of when someone mentions "starting your own 
business". 

The beauty of the modern online business is that practically 
everything can be automated.  This is not to say that there is 
no work involved in starting a business on the internet.  The 
difference from business twenty years ago and business today 
is astounding!  If you plan your online business well you can 
accomplish in minutes what just twenty years ago would have 
taken hours, if not days.

Lets run through some of the options available to you to make 
your online experience less stressful and time consuming. Let's 
find out how to work Smarter, not Harder. 

 
First things first....... We have to build a website.
 
This alone scares many people. "I don't know HTML" or "I can't 
afford to have a page built for me" are things I hear all the 
time when talking to people about online business.  Let's get 
something straight...... you DO NOT need to know how to program 
better than the top site designers at E-Bay in order to make a 
web page.  I know many people with minimal HTML knowledge that 
have done exceedingly well in online business.

There are many template systems out there that make building a 
completely functional web page as easy as copy and paste.  One 
I frequently recommend is the Powersite System 
(http://powersitesystem.com). It's simple and effective and 
lets the new business owner focus on adding content, not 
scanning endless lines of code or constantly uploading your 
updated page to the server from a desktop program.
 
You'll need to pick key words for your site which can easily be 
accomplished with websites like Wordtracker. Pick key words that 
will get you some traffic but aren't going to be impossible to 
get your site ranked. More on this........
http://biz-whiz.com/article362.html
 
Then you need to find a domain name www.value-name.com works 
just fine and is cheap.  Look for a domain name that contains 
your key words and is fairly easy to remember, the shorter the 
better for simplicity. (ie: avoid picking 
www.This-is-My-Business-Site-and-You-Should-Look-at-It12345.com)
 

Next Step...... Adding Content / Products

If your page is going to be informational there are many great 
article services out there.  Here are a few.....
 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/article_announce/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/netwrite-publish-announce/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/publisher_network/
http://thePhantomWriters.com

If you are going to sell actual products you'll probably want 
to look into working with a dropshipper (unless you have a big 
garage to store all the products you will be selling) There are 
many out there.  Here is one I've heard great things about.....
 
http://www.mydssd.com

 
And then...... Exchanging Links
 
The best way to move up in the search engines (to gain traffic) 
is to have many related pages linking to yours.  Link exchange 
websites like Link Partners are a great way to find sites to 
exchange relevant links with.  Much of this can be automated to 
save you time and effort....... all you have to do is approve 
links you want and decline the ones you don't.
 
You can also do a search in a few of the major search engines 
for your selected keywords....... the sites that pop up at the 
top of the search are the ones you would ideally like to 
exchange links with to boost your rankings.

 
Last one........ Get an Auto Responder
 
This is a service that will send automatic e-mail messages for 
you at pre-programmed times that you select.  Set one up to send 
out occasional information about your site to your members, use 
it to keep in touch with your customers, get feedback about your 
site to help you improve..... etc.  You won't actually NEED this 
feature until you are getting heavy traffic to your site, but 
it's a handy time saving tool for busy webmasters.

 
That's basically it!  Rinse and Repeat.
 
Of course there's always more things that you might like to try 
to improve your business but those are the basics.  Try new 
things and track the results.  See what works for your site and 
go from there.  The secret to online business is to jump in and 
get wet...... do SOMETHING and work on improving things from 
there...... one step at a time.